nescience
English edit
Etymology edit
From Latin nescientia, from the present participle of nescire.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
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.
- 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 edit
Translations edit
Further reading edit
- Douglas Harper (2001–2024), “nescience”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
French edit
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
nescience f (plural nesciences)
Further reading edit
- “nescience”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.