nescience
English
Etymology
From Latin nescientia, from the present participle of nescire.
Noun
nescience (countable and uncountable, plural nesciences)
- The absence of knowledge, especially of orthodox beliefs.
- Better to have honest nescience than to have militant ignorance.
- 1911, Ralph Barton Perry, “Notes on the Philosophy of Henri Bergson”, in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, volume 8, number 26, page 720:
- To lapse from knowledge into nescience is always possible—there is no law of God or man forbidding it.
- 1935, T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Wordsworth Editions, published 1997, →ISBN, page 579:
- Many a day we had been twenty-two out of the twenty-four hours in the saddle, each taking it in turn to lead through the darkness while the others let their heads nod forward over the pommel in nescience.
- 1990, Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae:
- Algernon, in a condition of masculine nescience, lets himself become engaged to a woman of whom he knows nothing.
- (philosophy) The doctrine that nothing is actually knowable.
- 1895, J. G. Schurman, “Agnosticism”, in The Philosophical Review, volume 4, number 3, page 244:
- The theory of nescience is but the obverse of the fact of science.
Related terms
Further reading
- Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “nescience”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /nɛ.sjɑ̃s/, /ne.sjɑ̃s/
Further reading
- “nescience”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
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