Word.ws English Dictionary

phobosophy

/fɒˈbɒsəfɪ/

phobosophy noun: the fear of abstract knowledge or philosophical thinking; anti-philosophy.

Noun

phobosophy (uncountable)

  1. The fear of abstract knowledge or philosophical thinking; anti-philosophy.
    • The great advantage of anti-philosophical philosophy, or what we might call phobosophy or fear of abstract knowledge, was that it enabled you to take the world exactly as you found it and adapt yourself to it to your own best advantage.1949, John Desmond Bernal, The Freedom of Necessity, page 393
    • It is a remarkable doctrine which,[…f]ar from being “a philosophy of religion,” it is much rather a phobosophy, a fear of knowledge — neither essentially philosophic nor religious.1954, The Jewish Quarterly Review, volumes 45-46, page 337

phobosophy meaning in Tamil

phobosophy in Tamil

மெய்யியல் பற்றிய பயம், எதிர்ப்பு

Examples of phobosophy in a sentence

  • Philosophy is, literally, the love of knowledge; phobosophy is the fear of it.1973, Thomas Stephen Szasz, The Second Sin, page 21:
  • I couldn’t imagine such a severe case of phobosophy.2000, Leslie P. Steffe, Patrick W. Thompson, editors, Radical Constructivism in Action: Building on the Pioneering Work of Ernst von...

Origin of phobosophy

Coined by John Desmond Bernal in The Freedom of Necessity (1949): phobo- (“fear”) + -sophy (“wisdom, knowledge”), in contradistinction with philosophy; compare sophophobia.

Words formed from phobosophy

  • phobosopher

Questions about phobosophy

What does phobosophy mean?
Phobosophy means the fear of abstract knowledge or philosophical thinking; anti-philosophy.
What is phobosophy in Tamil?
Phobosophy in Tamil is மெய்யியல் பற்றிய பயம், எதிர்ப்பு. See Phobosophy meaning in Tamil.
How do you use phobosophy in a sentence?
Philosophy is, literally, the love of knowledge; phobosophy is the fear of it.
What part of speech is phobosophy?
Phobosophy is a noun.
How do you pronounce phobosophy?
Phobosophy is pronounced /fɒˈbɒsəfɪ/ (UK).

Words near phobosophy in the dictionary

  1. phobophobia
  2. phoborhodopsin
  3. Phobos
  4. Phobosian
  5. Phobosians
  6. phobosophy
  7. phobotactic
  8. phobotaxes
  9. phobotaxis
  10. phoby
  11. phoby cat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: phobosophy (page history and authors); phobosophy (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-phobosophy.wav.

Cite this entry: “phobosophy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phobosophy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.