Agnoiology (from the Greek ἀγνοέω, meaning ignorance) is the theoretical study of the quality and conditions of ignorance,[1][2] and in particular of what can truly be considered "unknowable" (as distinct from "unknown"). The term was coined by James Frederick Ferrier, in his Institutes of Metaphysic (1854),[3] as a foil to the theory of knowledge, or epistemology.[4]

References

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  1. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Agnoiology" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 378.
  2. ^ Pojman, Louis P. (2015). "Agnoiology". In Audi, Robert (ed.). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Third ed.). New York City: Cambridge University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-139-05750-9. OCLC 927145544.
  3. ^ "Agnoiology". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 1 (14 ed.). 1930. p. 351.
  4. ^ Roy Dilley, "The Construction of Ethnographic Knowledge in a Colonial Context", in Ways of Knowing: Anthropological Approaches to Crafting Experience and Knowledge, edited by Mark Harris (New York and Oxford, 2007), pp. 139-140.