Word-Built World: agnoiology

Cartoon: Dan Piraro

A.Word.A.Daywith Anu Garg

agnoiology

PRONUNCIATION:

(ag-noi-OL-uh-jee) 

MEANING:

noun: The study of ignorance or the investigation of the unknowable.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek a- (not) + gnosis (knowledge). Earliest documented use: 1854.

NOTES:

For those who prefer knowing that they don’t know, agnoiology has got your back. The opposite is epistemology, the study of knowledge. Both were introduced to the English language by the philosopher James Frederick Ferrier, truly the first agnoiologist + epistemologist if there ever was one.
Then there’s agnotology, in a class of its own.

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