QuestionsCan we be certain of anything?Knowing what you know, knowing what you do not know
Can we be certain of anything?What escapes words

Knowing what you know, knowing what you do not know

Confucius c. 551 BC · c. 479 BCBecoming human through learning, ritual and benevolence.
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What it claims

The sage does not claim to know anything about death and the spirits. He honours them while keeping his distance and attends first to his duties to the living. His disciples note that he did not talk about spirits.

Why

Knowing means telling what you know from what you don't; we do not yet know life, so we cannot speak of death.

In short

"Knowing what you know, knowing what you do not know" is an argument by Confucius (Analects 2.17, 11.11, 7.20) on the question "Can we be certain of anything?" (answer: what escapes words). Its claim: The sage does not claim to know anything about death and the spirits. He honours them while keeping his distance and attends first to his duties to the living. His disciples note that he did not talk about spirits. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 0 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Analects 2.17, 11.11, 7.20
Valid with an implicit premise

His impetuous disciple Zilu asks him how to serve the spirits, then what death is. Confucius turns him back to the living: "You do not yet know life, how could you know death?" This reserve applies his definition of knowledge: knowing means telling apart what you know from what you do not. The P1..P4 → C form links several reported sayings; it is our reconstruction.

P1True knowledge is knowing that you know what you know, and knowing that you do not know what you do not know.
P2We cannot know death and the spirits as long as we do not know life and our duties to people.
P3 · implicit premiseYet we do not yet fully know life or our duties to people.
P4The person of worth does not speak about what he does not know: he keeps a careful reserve.
Therefore the sage does not claim to know anything about death and the spirits. He honours them while keeping his distance and attends first to his duties to the living. His disciples note that he did not talk about spirits.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the computer finds a case where life and our duties are already known: nothing would then prevent us from knowing death and speaking about it.
The argument is valid and all its premises are essential. P3 is not written, but Confucius assumes it when he answers Zilu: he does not say death is unknowable, he says "not yet". The "agnostic" reading is debated: the Neo-Confucian commentators (Cheng Yi, Zhu Xi) understand that one must know life first, and then one also knows death. This would be an order of learning, not a doubt.
Analogy. A pupil who has not yet understood fractions should not make claims about integrals. Not that integrals are incomprehensible: there is an order to learning.

Objections

2

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Socrates (according to Plato) 399 BC · attacks premise 1

Socrates goes further. He judges himself wiser than another for one reason only: what he does not know, he does not think he knows either. But nobody knows anything "fine and good", that is, about what matters most. Confucius, by contrast, teaches virtue and ritual with confidence: does he really know what he thinks he knows?

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in -399, after the author's death (-479).
The debate goes on (our summary) The two attitudes are very close: refusing to think you know what you do not. The difference lies in the use: Socrates questions people to show everyone's ignorance, Confucius transmits knowledge inherited from the ancients while staying silent about what lies beyond him.
M
Mozi 430 BC · attacks the conclusion

The Confucians of his day contradict themselves: they doubt the spirits, yet require people to learn the rites of sacrifice in detail. It is like learning to receive guests when there are no guests, or making nets when there are no fish.

no reply
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
No reply possible: objection raised in -430, after the author's death (-479).
The debate goes on (our summary) The Analects do not answer Mozi, who came after Confucius. They only describe his practice: he sacrificed to the ancestors and spirits "as if they were present", and insisted on attending in person (3.12). A Confucian would see a rite that is worth something through the sincerity of the one who performs it; Mozi would see exactly what he denounces, fishing without fish.