Nescience

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by troglodyte, Sep 1, 2006.

  1. troglodyte Banned Banned

    Messages:
    43
    Greetings Everyone. This community seems best to answer my question.

    I am having problems with the word nescience. It is defined as "Lack of knowledge or awareness; ignorance".

    It is used in the following sentence(s).

    The ancients understood that too much knowledge could actually impede human functioning -- this at a time when the encroachments on global nescience were comparatively few.

    I found that it could mean agnosticism also.

    So assuming there is a God, can nescient be used to describe those who are ignorant of his existence? Or is this the wrong use?
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Words that haven't passed into colloquial usage are difficult to deal with. Different schools of scholarship may use them in different ways. The only exception is the hard sciences, in which the coining and definition of new terms is treated with great discipline.

    The root of the word is Latin sciens, which simply means "knowing," from the present participle of scire, the verb "to know."

    "Science" basically means "knowledge."

    Nescire means "not to know," so "nescience" means lack of knowledge, or ignorance.

    To use it as a synonym for agnosticism is really jumbling up the meaning and there's no good reason to do it. I can't tell you that no one has done that, but as a scholar and a linguist and an editor, I can tell you that I disapprove of it. If I'm ever in a position to judge its usage I won't allow it.
     
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