User:BHickey75

Brian Hickey

Non-traditional student studying Management and Accountancy at UNC Asheville to foster entrepreneurship.

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Confucius
Initial draft thoughts

Understanding
"Book 2, 17: The Master said: 'You, shall I teach you about understanding something? When you understand something, to recognize that you understand it; but when you do not understand something, to recognize that you do not understand it - that is understanding."This quote struck out at me as relevant to modern society as a precursor to the concept of the Dunning-Krueger Effect. Confucius describes understanding as recognizing what you know and simultaneously recognizing what you don't know.

The Dunning-Krueger effect describes the difficulty that people with low intelligence have in understanding their lack of intelligence or ability. The key factor relating this concept to the Analects, is that in order for someone to know they are good at something, they have to actually be good at it. This implies that if a person is not at all skilled at something, they lack exactly the skills needed to recognize that they're no good at that thing.

Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld drew scathing criticism in 2002 for making this statement: "“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”"Given the hindsight of almost twenty years, Rumsfeld's gobbledygook now enjoys regular usage when discussing differences in scientific theory. With the passing of time, we must begin to accept that Secretary Rumsfeld did possess understanding. He was aware of what he knew, what he didn't know, and took his knowledge a step further by encouraging the concept that there are things we don't know we don't know. It is easy to see the latter as terrible and frightening. Personally, this is the realm that makes being human most exciting. The unknown-unknown is where the a-ha! moment lives; it is where many of my known-unknowns can all be tied together with the discovery of the missing link.

Understanding as it relates to Knowledge
"Book 7, 28: The Master said: 'Surely there are people who achieve something without knowledge, but I for my part lack this characteristic. To hear much and select the good point from it and copy them, to see much and remember it constitutes an inferior variety of knowledge."I stumbled over this quote and had to re-read a few times to begin digesting it's meaning. Only after writing my thoughts on the above, I noticed how the theme here contrasts with my thoughts on Dunning-Krueger. I am reminded of the idiom popularized by George Bernard Shaw: "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

I believe the Master is expressing his own humility in this selection, which I respect. However, I find his description of only being able to repeat what he has seen and heard as an inferior type of knowledge needs more context than I have gleaned from the text. For instance, an athlete may possess talent. (to achieve something without knowledge) However, any athlete alone would only achieve the limits of their talent. While a coach may not possess the athlete's talent, their knowledge can groom the athlete beyond the limits of talent. This therefore draws in to question what standard is being used to judge the quality of any knowledge?

Epictetus:
"Handbook, #29: 'For each action, consider what leads up to it and what follows it, and approach it in the context of that.'"

Additional Ideas:
George Santayana: "Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace."

Machiavelli quotes Dante: "...there is no knowledge unless one retains what one has learned."