Describing something that does not involve or rely on direct personal experience, sensory perception, or active participation. It pertains to knowledge, learning, or understanding acquired through indirect means such as reading, listening, observation, theory, or abstract reasoning. It signifies a detachment from practical, firsthand encounters, emphasizing the abstract or conceptual over the tangible and felt. The term highlights the absence of lived experience as the primary source of information or formation. Consequently, information gathered can be purely hypothetical. This may also refer to the method or way this indirect information is received. The knowledge base then is not based in doing, feeling or being.
Nonexperiential meaning with examples
- The historian's account of the medieval era was based on nonexperiential sources, such as written documents and archaeological findings, offering a comprehensive picture without having directly lived through that period. This contrasts with primary sources such as diaries and letters written during this period, which offer lived experience and are, therefore, experiential.
- The philosophy student learned about existentialism through nonexperiential methods; reading dense philosophical texts and attending lectures. The student might conceptualize the ideas, but they lack the raw emotion of existential doubt. The real life experience of these tenets comes from being in an existential situation that impacts this person’s life directly.
- The virtual reality simulation offered a nonexperiential exploration of space travel; the user saw and heard, but did not feel the true weightlessness or G-forces of space. Thus this user has no true practical sense of what a rocketship or space travel entails, so it’s nonexperiential in nature. It is merely an exercise and a practice of what could possibly happen.
- A child can learn about the dangers of fire through nonexperiential warnings, but this is distinct from an experiential understanding, which is gained when they feel heat or see how the heat causes damage. This contrasts to that learned through fire safety in a lesson, and the real world effects of fire which cause a direct emotional response and physical sensation.