Ignorance
idea · 6 works · 7 mentions · 12 anchored passages
ignorance · acting in ignorance · acting through ignorance · deformity of the soul · stupidity
in the texts
Stromata
The condition of ignorance, discussed both as a disputed premise in Gnostic myth and as the state remedied by first repentance.
Is the ignorance, then, of good things or of base?
For upon the first and only repentance of sins (this would be of the sins that pre-existed in the gentile and first life, the one in ignorance, I mean) there is set forth at once, to those called, the repentance that cleanses the place of the soul from offences, that faith may be founded.
But, as it seems, ignorance is the soul's starvation, and knowledge its nourishment.
Nicomachean Ethics
Not knowing the particular circumstances of one's act, which renders the act involuntary if regretted.
Now no one, unless mad, could be ignorant of all these circumstances together;
Acting through ignorance however seems to be different from acting in ignorance;
Perhaps then it will be as well to specify the nature and number of these circumstances.
Alcibiades 2
The state of not knowing, shown through several thought experiments to be harmful in general but protective in particular cases.
That is so.
Then it seems that ignorance of what is best, and to be ignorant of the best, is a bad thing.
For your man was, I presume, not anyone you met, but that particular person whom you wished to kill?
Sophist
The second kind of evil in the soul, an ill-proportion or aberration in relation to truth, whose most serious form, thinking one knows what one does not, is called stupidity and is cured by instruction.
What kinds?
What is it?
Evidently through disproportion.
Ad Nationes
The willful not-knowing of the accusers, identified as the basis of their hatred of Christians.
that all who once shared your ignorance and your hatred, the moment it falls to them to know, cease to hate as soon as they cease to be ignorant;
Apologeticum
The condition of not knowing what Christians actually are, blamed for public hatred.
and of unjust hatred, while they remain ignorant.
They will not allow themselves a juster suspicion;
the injustice of the hatred directed at the name of Christian.