Ignorance Definition – We explain what ignorance is, the origin of the term, and how it varied throughout history. Furthermore, it’s meaning in law.
Ignorance synonym
31 synonyms of ignorance for 3 meanings of the word ignorance:
Unfamiliarity:
obscurantism, ignorance, lack of culture, insipidity, inability, inscience, idiocy, incomprehension, stupidity, apedeuticism, clumsiness, incompetence.
Rudeness:
harshness, rudeness, inurbanity, impoliteness, incivility, rudeness, brutality, stupidity, rudeness, stupidity, discourtesy, rudeness, impoliteness.
Naivety:
Naivety, gullibility, childishness, simplicity, innocence, childishness.
What is ignorance?
When we talk about ignorance (or ignoring and ignorant) we generally refer to the absence of knowledge, understood in two possible and different ways:
Promptly, for example when saying “I don’t know what your comment refers to”).
As a continuous and generalized condition (as in “how ignorant my godfather is”). In the latter case, it has a pejorative connotation that can even be used as an insult.
The word ignorance comes from Latin and is composed of the prefix in- (“negation”, “the opposite of”) and gnoscere (“to know”), and is close to ignotus (“unknown”, “unknown”). At the time it was used in two different ways:
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Like the verb ignoratio, which means “not knowing”, “not having information about”.
Like the noun ignorantia, which referred not only to not knowing something specific, but to a condition in which an individual is frequently uninformed, particularly for reasons of laziness, apathy or self-consciousness, that is, for not even being able to Be aware that there are things you don’t know.
These two different uses survive to this day, and have a place even in the philosophical approach to ignorance. Thus, a distinction is usually made between “wise” ignorance (docta ignorantia, in the words of Saint Augustine), that of the individual who is aware of his or her ignorance and limitations, and “profound” ignorance in which the subject does not even know that he or she is ignorant. , and therefore is very close to innocence or naivety.
In most cases, when talking about ignorance, we will be referring to the second of the senses that we have referred to. Nowadays we call ignorant those who feel apathy or neglect towards knowledge, or those who are not even able to recognize the lack of knowledge about it and therefore speak with propriety about matters that, precisely, they ignore.
Since the rise of Renaissance humanism, ignorance is generally understood as an ailment and a defect, and it is considered that the work of education and human reason is to combat it. For this reason, ignorance is usually associated with darkness (the darkness of ignorance), in the sense that the ignorant reason blindly, they are unable to “see” their own misinformation.
From there also arises the proverb that states that “ignorance is daring”, a paraphrase of what was said by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882): “Ignorance breeds more confidence than knowledge”, since the ignorant think they are more informed or with more understanding of what they really are.
Similarly, in the field of laws and law, ignorance is spoken of to refer to ignorance of the law, especially to support the Roman adage: “ignorance juris non excusat”, that is, ignoring the law does not exempt us from having to fulfill it. This legal precept prevents the violator of the law from excusing himself by not knowing it, and at the same time obliges the State to make the laws public and widely and well-known.
