Jason Herrera : Knowers & Knowing - Interpretation of Knowledge

'Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to recognize that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to recognize that you do not know it. That is knowledge.' (Confucius)

Confucius is one of the greatest minds in ancient China. He came up with influential ideas about respect and the family which people in China still see as virtues today. The quotation above is Confucius' interpretation of knowledge. He is basically saying that knowledge is one-self realizing whether you know something or not. 'When you know a thing, to recognize that you know it' means that when you know a thing, you must identify it as something you've seen before and you should stick to your own perception of the knowledge, and 'When you do not know a thing, to recognize that you do not know it.' means that when you don’t know something; you must identify it as something that you haven’t seen before, and important that you must learn from it.

From the West Wing videos I watched last lesson, the new world maps stunned me a little as it is something I’ve never seen before and it goes against what I’ve been taught at school at an early age. I do agree with Confucius’ quote from above which is to admit to something that you do not know and hence learn it. When I first saw the new maps, I thought it was ridiculous and wondered why would they change the old atlas? However, the geographers then explain why they should change the new maps; it was all because of the interpretation of knowledge. Because there are people with different interpretations of the map, they came to a thought that all countries above the equator are more developed than those below. However, I stuck to my interpretation of the atlas because I believe it is the right one. Thinking of Confucius’ quote, I came to realize that students in school have been learning this way too, that every student admits to something they don’t know and learns it and that they stick to their own perceptions of a knowledge which made us come up with unique ideas.