"ars sine scientia nihil est" -- attributed to Jean Mignot, 14th C.
Literal translation: "art without knowledge is nothing"
Interpretation: Practicing an "art" without proper knowledge & skill accomplishes nothing (has no value).
Jean Mignot, French architect, was active in the late 14th & early 15th Centuries.
Chartres Cathedral (Notre-Dame de Chartres),
High Gothic (1194-1260), Chartres, France
Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Honge Derivative: MathKnight ✡
[CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]
Rationale for the dictum: "ars sine scientia nihil est"
"ars" In medieval literature the Latin term "ars" (art) generally applied to things created and fashioned by humankind as distinguished from all else in nature. The practice of "art" embraced everything from making shoes and cookware to designing stained glass windows, carving statues, and making the plans for a cathedral.
"scientia" The Latin term "scientia" referred broadly to the accumulated knowledge associated with a profession. A proper "scientia" was required for planning and constructing cathedral vaults with appropriate buttressing and arrangement. This included the marriage of geometry and structural units with theological concepts related to number and proportion. Theory and practice could not be separated. . For medieval scholastics, the practice of an art (ars) without proper knowledge (scientia) would accomplish "nothing"; the two were inseparable and one without the other would be nihil . . .nothing. Thus, the practice of "art without knowledge is nothing", "ars sine scientia nihil est".
RV 2005