溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Do I Honestly Divide What I Know from What I Don't?
To say you know what you know, and know not what you don't — is that true knowing?
To know that you know what you know, and to know that you do not know what you do not — this is knowledge.
Confucius taught his disciple Zilu that knowledge is not the quantity of facts but honesty — stripping away pretending to know and pretending not to, and drawing the line between knowing and not-knowing honestly for oneself. That, he said, is where knowledge begins. Strikingly, in Greece in the same era, Socrates stood in the same place: "I know that I do not know." The insight that knowing one's ignorance is the start of wisdom was born side by side, East and West. Later the question branched — Descartes sought through doubt a ground of certain knowledge, while Montaigne, asking "What do I know?" all his life, made humble skepticism a virtue.
The easier it is to fake knowing with one search, the rarer and more precious the honesty to say "I don't know."
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
I often catch on this short line. In meetings, in conversations, how often have I pretended to know for certain what I only half-knew? To say "I don't know" takes courage. Confucius says that courage is itself knowledge. Pretending to know shuts the door of learning; one honest "I don't know" opens it. Today too I ask whether I am speaking with the line between knowing and not-knowing blurred. I, too, am standing before this question.
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