Dictionary

agnosy en · NOUN

Etymology

By surface analysis, a- + -gnosy; diachronically, probably from the same borrowing as agnosia, which see.

Meanings

1. (uncountable) A lack of spiritual understanding or insight; a lack of enlightenment.
   • Triad above all substance, super-divine and above the good, guide of the Christians into the Divine Wisdom, conducting us to that above agnosy, i.e., the unknowable, to the highest clearness and the super-eminent height 1893, Theosophical Review - Volume 12, page 461:
   • Before man receives the grace of revelation, he lives in agnosy: he does not know God, the gnostic God who is his father and the source of revelation; he does not know himself as the son of God. 1984, Henry Kahane, Renée Kahane, The Krater and the Grail: Hermetic Sources of the Parzival, page 45:
   • Just as agnosy is the great evil to the Hermetist, so is Parzival's zwivel at the root of all his tribulations. 1963, Zeitschrift Für Romanische Philologie, page 340:
   • And then (the man,) delivered as much from that which is seen as from that which sees, penetrates into the true mystic obscurity and darkness of the agnosy; 2015, Isaac Myer, Qabbalah: The Philosophical Writings of Solomon Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol, →ISBN, page 458:
2. (countable) A deficit in the ability to perceive.
   • Music perception disorders from neurological origin (the 3 levels of musical perception désintégration considered as auditory agnosy). 1985, Psychology, psychopathology, psychiatry, page 467:
   • Neuropsychological examination performed two weeks after the stroke revealed normal speech and auditory verbal comprehension and no number dyslexia, acalculia, colour and digital agnosy. 1993, The Italian Journal of Neurological Sciences: Supplementum:
   • Somato-agnosies vary widely, and somato-paraphrenia is one of the examples of this inability to recognize a part of the body as one's own. 2010, JL Petit, “A Husserlian, Neurophenomenologic Approach to Embodiment”, in Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science:
   • These advantages also play a role in treatment for special indication such as in patients with neurological problems (e.g. Parkinson's disease), in whom a total replacement leads to a worsening of the underlying disease whereas compartmental reconstruction avoids the effect of somato-agnosy (loss of sensation of a body part). 2013, Norberto Confalonieri, Sergio Romagnoli, Small Implants in Knee Reconstruction, →ISBN, page 3:
   • This "mimic agnosy" will be removed only through very prolonged maturation and learning. 1975, Martha Davis, Recognition of facial expression, page 17:
   • The problems related to the visual-spatial difficulties are due to the loss of spatial references, either due to problems of the visual field loss or perceptive problems (agnosy), attention problems or difficulties of the executive function, which cause an inefficient search of information. 2010, L Gangoiti, IM Villafruela, “Initiation of the most appropriate post-stroke rehabilitation”, in Diabetologḯa, volume 26:
3. (countable) A patient suffering from an agnosy.
   • Finally, optic aphasics are usually described as being unimpaired in everyday life, whereas agnosies are often noticeably handicapped by their inability to recognize objects, people, and locales. 2000 October, M Sitton, MC Mozer, MJ Farah, “Superadditive effects of multiple lesions in a connectionist architecture: Implications for the neuropsychology of optic aphasia.”, in Psychological Review, volume 107, number 4:
4. (rare, uncountable) Ignorance, especially that which is common to a group or category of people.
   • No historical anecdote had ever brought home to Fiben so well just how much agnosy and craziness poor human mels and fems had endured. 2011, David Brin, The Uplift War, →ISBN:
   • Your logic is faulty, reflecting cachexia and the general agnosy that plagues your race. 1987, Porter Gulch Review - Volume 3, Issue 1, page 14:
   • That Organon remains largely unstudied and even ignored reveals the real agnosy of our institutions and teachers charged with training future generations of homœopaths. 1993, George Dimitriadis, The Importance of Hahnemann's Organon:

Forms

Relateds

agnostic · agnosticism · -gnosy · agnosia

Synonyms

agnosia · agnosia · agnosia