nescience

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   absence of knowledge; ignorance

   The limits of the evidence should lead to admitted nescience rather than confident dogmatism.

2. 2
   noun

   philosophy: a doctrine emphasizing that ultimate reality or certain matters cannot be known

   The critic argued that the theory ended in nescience about the external world.

From Latin nescientia ("ignorance"), from nesciens ("not knowing"), the present participle of nescire, built from ne- ("not") + scire ("to know"). Its contrast with science is etymological as well as conceptual.

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