nescience

The absence of knowledge, especially of orthodox beliefs.

Noun

  1. The absence of knowledge, especially of orthodox beliefs.
    • Better to have honest nescience than to have militant ignorance.
    • To lapse from knowledge into nescience is always possible—there is no law of God or man forbidding it. - 1911, Ralph Barton Perry, “Notes on the Philosophy of Henri Bergson”, in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and...
    • 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. - 1935, T.E....
  2. The doctrine that nothing is actually knowable.
    • The theory of nescience is but the obverse of the fact of science. - 1895, J. G. Schurman, “Agnosticism”, in The Philosophical Review, volume 4, number 3, page 244:

Origin

From Latin nescientia, from the present participle of nescire.

Forms

nesciences

Related

nescient

Derived

omninescience