nescience

English

From Latin nescientia, from the present participle of nescire.

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.

The absence of knowledge

nescience f (plural nesciences)