Definition of "prescientific"

It is not improbable that, in some locality where tram-roads were a novelty, their name may have been associated in folk-etymology or by pre-scientific etymologers with that of the engineer.

1926, James A.H. Murray, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, volume X, part I, page 248, column 1

[Martin] Heidegger's concern […] was with ontology, the nature of beings, above all humans. The central question for him was "What is being? What is it for something to be?" He tackled this question not by way of the sciences, but by way of an examination of our prescientific daily life. We are, he argued, not cut off from the world by our mental processes: we are "in the world", in direct contact with our surroundings.

2014 April 12, Michael Inwood, “Martin Heidegger: the philosopher who fell for Hitler [print version: Hitler's philosopher]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎, London, page R10