As these terms are defined in online dictionaries, ignorant means a lack of education, while naïve means a lack of worldly experience.
- What is the practical difference between these two?
- When would I use one and not the other?
We could consider education to be the acquisition of knowledge, and experience to be knowledge acquired first-hand. In that case, these two words would have no practical difference, yet I have had people strongly disagree with me in some discussions.
One person tried to explain that ignorant is when a person doesnt know about something, whereas naïve is when a person does or should know about something but fails to act on the knowledge or fails to acquire the knowledge before acting.
Could someone please clarify?
Best Answer
There is good discussion of the semantic differences in other answers, but the most important practical difference is that ignorant is a very insulting word that you should be careful about using, whereas naïve is not such.
In general naïve makes me picture a hopeful child who has unrealistic dreams and has not thought about the real world enough, whereas ignorant makes me picture a dumb, racist old man who won’t change his worldview in the face of overwhelming evidence.
So, for instance:
“I think you are being naïve, because...” is appropriate way to disagree with someone's theory at, say, a business meeting. It’s still a strong thing to say, and possibly condescending or belittling of your colleague’s theory.
On the other hand, “I think you are being ignorant, because...” is quite rude and aggressive. It's not practically very different from saying stupid even though the semantics differ.