Virtues

"The sucker’s trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don’t know, rather than the reverse."

"The knowable world is incomplete if seen from any one point of view, incoherent if seen from all points of view at once, and empty if seen from nowhere in particular."

"Sapiens did not forage only for food and materials. They foraged for knowledge as well."

"The acquisition of knowledge is the voyage of humanity, isn't it?"

"He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him. He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is simple. Teach him. He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep. Wake him. He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise. Follow him."

"Give light and the people will find their own way."

"[[Game theory|[G]ame theory]] has already established itself as an essential tool in the , where it is widely regarded as a unifying language for investigating human behavior. Game theory's prominence in evolutionary biology builds a natural bridge between the life sciences and the behavioral sciences. And connections have been established between game theory and the two most prominent pillars of physics: and quantum theory. ...[M]any physicists, neuroscientists, and social scientists... are... pursuing the dream of a quantitative science of human behavior. Game theory is showing signs of... an increasing[ly] important role in that endeavor. It's a story of exploration along the shoreline separating the continent of knowledge from an ocean of ignorance... a story worth telling."

"It makes no sense to seek a single best way to represent knowledge—because each particular form of expression also brings its particular limitations. For example, logic-based systems are very precise, but they make it hard to do reasoning with analogies. Similarly, statistical systems are useful for making predictions, but do not serve well to represent the reasons why those predictions are sometimes correct."

"May I free myself from the labyrinth of knowledge"

"As Immanuel Kant pointed out long ago, learning to learn is one of the things that we cannot learn from experience. [see Kant 18th century quote above on à priori and à posteriori knowledge] ...So although sensations give us "occasions" to learn, this cannot be what makes us "able", to learn, because we first must have the additional knowledge that our brains would need, as Kant has said, to "produce representations" and then "to connect" them. Such additional knowledge would also include inborn ways to recognize correlations and other relations among sensations. I suspect that... our brains are already innately endowed with machinery to help us "to compare, to connect, or to separate" objects so that we can represent them as existing in space."

"The importance of knowing nothing is underrated."

"Knowledge is the superpower of the 21st century. Even the smartest people alive when I was born did not know what 10-year-olds today have available to them. That’s truly cause for hope."

"What we call knowledge does not and cannot have the purpose of producing representations of an independent reality, but instead has an adaptive function."

"As we know, 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 do not know we do not know."

"Our brains are really not equipped to process events on the geologic scale—at least in reference to how we choose to live, or what we choose to do in the here and now."

"Without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am."

"There may be things that are completely unknowable to us, so we must be careful not to treat the limits of our knowledge as sure guides to the limit of what there is."

"In Western society... [t]here are no more continents... little left to discover. I am, in part, an ant biologist... and I knew that much of the world of insects remains unknown. ...How ignorant are we? The question of what we know and do not know clung to me. ...In looking into the stories of biological discovery, I... began to find... a collection of scientists, often obsessive, usually brilliant, occasionally half-mad... Those individuals very often see the same things that other scientists see, but they pay more attention... and they focus on them to the point of exhaustion, and at the risk of the ridicule of their peers. ...[W]e are, before these discoveries, always more ignorant than we imagine ourselves to be. ...[W]e are repeatedly willing to imagine we have found most of what is left to discover. Before microbes were discovered, scientists were confident that insects were the smallest organisms. Before life was discovered at the bottom of the ocean, many scientists were confident that nothing lived deeper than three hundred fathoms. Once we made a tree of life that included four kingdoms (animals, plants, fungi, and s), we were confident that there would be no more major branches to reveal. ...We are again at a stage when we believe we have found most of what might be found, but we are wrong. ...[W]hole realms of life remain to be found. ...And even before a new realm or kind of life is found, we still have to explore the realms we have already discovered. Most species on Earth are not yet named. Most named species have not yet been studied. When we lived in small communities, hunting and gathering, we knew only the animals and plants around us, particularly those... useful or dangerous. Living on the thin green surface of our small planet in a universe full of stars, we are not so different today. The wild leaps up and more often than not we do not event know its name."

"Fortunately, in our time, we've learned more about the problems than in all preceding history. And with knowing comes caring."

"I draw [a] distinction between knowledge and information. You can find information online very easily. Knowledge is another matter altogether. Now, this is not something new about the Internet [but] a basic feature of human life that while information is easy, knowledge is difficult. There has never been a shortage of mere data and opinion in human life. It’s a very old observation that the most ignorant people are usually full of opinions, while many of the most knowledgeable people are full of doubt. Other people are certainly sources of knowledge, but they are also sources of half-truths, confusion, misinformation, and lies. If we simply want information from others, it is easy to get; if we want knowledge in any strong sense of the word, it is very difficult."

"Knowledge is not eating, and we cannot expect to devour and possess what we mean. Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace."

"Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare."

"I think of the need for more wisdom in the world, to deal with the knowledge that we have. At one time we had wisdom, but little knowledge. Now we have a great deal of knowledge, but do we have enough wisdom to deal with that knowledge?"

"I shall maintain that there simply is no such thing as philosophical knowledge, nor any philosophical way of knowing anything, and defend the humble point that philosophy is indeed the love of wisdom."

"The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance. For this, indeed, is the main source of our ignorance — the fact that our knowledge can be only finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite."

"To gain knowledge, we must learn to ask the right questions; and to get answers, we must act, not wait for answers to occur to us."

"Knowing the theory of anything is contrasted with know-how in all the arts...Beethoven..Michelangelo..Shakespeare, all great exponents of know-how, probably knew how to manipulate their instruments to achieve the desired results long before they knew the theory of their art. Perhaps some of them never bothered to learn the theory. On the other hand, there are many who know the theory better than these, but who lack know-how....Although we acquire the skill of understanding words by experience, so that we know the correlations between them and things, between words and other words, and between words and feelings and actions, we do not do it by inductive reasoning. Nor must we think that we do it by deductive reasoning... In the main, words are cues rather than clues."

"Let no one be deluded that a knowledge of the path can substitute Jor putting one foot in front of the other."

"Each part of the mind sees only a little of what happens in some others, and that little is swiftly refined, reformulated and "represented." We like to believe that these fragments have meanings in themselves—apart from the great webs of structure from which they emerge—and indeed this illusion is valuable to us qua thinkers—but not to us as psychologists—because it leads us to think that expressible knowledge is the first thing to study."

"I think that asking “what's the point?” when referring to the contents of a study or research project can be indicative of a utilitarian, pragmatic, consumerist mindset. I believe that advanced civilizations should leave room for knowledge as a value in itself."

"Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops."

"What is the difference between merely knowing (or remembering, or memorizing) and understanding? ...A thing or idea seems meaningful only when we have several different ways to represent it–different perspectives and different associations. ...Then we can turn it around in our minds, so to speak: however it seems at the moment, we can see it another way and we never come to a full stop. In other words, we can 'think' about it. If there were only one way to represent this thing or idea, we would not call this representation thinking."

"Man's knowledge makes another leap through the test of practice. This leap is more important than the previous one. For it is this leap alone that can prove the correctness or incorrectness of the first leap in cognition, i.e., of the ideas, theories, policies, plans or measures formulated in the course of reflecting the objective external world. There is no other way of testing truth. Furthermore, the one and only purpose of the proletariat in knowing the world is to change it. Often, correct knowledge can be arrived at only after many repetitions of the process leading from matter to consciousness and then back to matter, that is, leading from practice to knowledge and then back to practice."

"How can the unknown merit reverence? In other words how can you revere that of which you are ignorant? At the same time, it would be ridiculous to propose that what we know merits reverence. What we know merits any one of a number of things, but it stands to reason reverence isn't one of them. In other words, apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?"

"Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement."

"I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

"We may be proud as a nation of our record in scientific achievement--but at the same time we must be impressed by the interdependence of all knowledge. I am certain that every scholar and scientist here today would agree that his own work has benefited immeasurably from the work of the men and women in other countries. The prospect of a partnership with Soviet scientists in the exploration of space opens up exciting prospects of collaboration in other areas of learning. And cooperation in the pursuit of knowledge can hopefully lead to cooperation in the pursuit of peace."

"No one who examines the modern world can doubt that the great currents of history are carrying the world away from the monolithic idea towards the pluralistic idea--away from communism and towards national independence and freedom. No one can doubt that the wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. No one can doubt that cooperation in the pursuit of knowledge must lead to freedom of the mind and freedom of the soul."

"But history may well remember this as a week for an act of lesser immediate impact, and that is the decision by the United States and the Soviet Union to seek concrete agreements on the joint exploration of space. Experience has taught us that an agreement to negotiate does not always mean a negotiated agreement. But should such a joint effort be realized, its significance could well be tremendous for us all. In terms of space science, our combined knowledge and efforts can benefit the people of all the nations: joint weather satellites to provide more ample warnings against destructive storms--joint communications systems to draw the world more closely together--and cooperation in space medicine research and space tracking operations to speed the day when man will go to the moon and beyond. But the scientific gains from such a joint effort would offer, I believe, less realized returns than the gains for world peace. For a cooperative Soviet-American effort in space science and exploration would emphasize the interests that must unite us, rather than those that always divide us. It offers us an area in which the stale and sterile dogmas of the cold war could be literally left a quarter of a million miles behind. And it would remind us on both sides that knowledge, not hate, is the passkey to the future--that knowledge transcends national antagonisms--that it speaks a universal language--that it is the possession not of a single class, or of a single nation or a single ideology, but of all mankind."

"Beyond the drumfire of daily crisis, therefore, there is arising the outlines of a robust and vital world community, founded on nations secure in their own independence, and united by their allegiance to world peace. It would be foolish to say that this world will be won tomorrow, or the day after. The processes of history are fitful and uncertain and aggravating. There will be frustrations and setbacks. There will be times of anxiety and gloom. The specter of thermonuclear war will continue to hang over mankind; and we must heed the advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes of "freedom leaning on her spear" until all nations are wise enough to disarm safely and effectively. Yet we can have a new confidence today in the direction in which history is moving. Nothing is more stirring than the recognition of great public purpose. Every great age is marked by innovation and daring--by the ability to meet unprecedented problems with intelligent solutions. In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power; for only by true understanding and steadfast judgment are we able to master the challenge of history."

"Charles Hartshorne, "Charles Hartshorne, Philosophy," in interview with Steven Vita, Veery journal (1996)"

"No human mind can comprehend all the knowledge which guides the actions of society."

"All types of knowledge, ultimately mean self knowledge."

"Civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because each individual's use of his particular knowledge may serve to assist others unknown to him in achieving their ends that men as members of civilized society can pursue their individual ends so much more successfully than they could alone."

"Various attempts have been made in recent years to state necessary and sufficient conditions for someone's knowing a given proposition. The attempts have often been such that they can be stated in a form similar to the following: (a) S knows that P IFF (i) P is true, (ii) S believes that P, and (iii) S is justified in believing that P. ... These ... examples show that definition (a) does not state a sufficient condition for someone's knowing a given proposition."

"Nothing can be achieved without knowledge, and yet everything can be achieved just through a pure heart."

"The best student in physics or mathematics, at school or university, is not one who memorizes formulae but one who is aware of the reason for them. For students, the more simply and docilely they receive the contents with which their teachers "fill" them in the name of knowledge, the less they are able to think and the more they become merely repetitive. The best philosophy student is not one who discourses, "ipsis verbis," on the philosophy of Plato, Marx, or Kant but one who thinks critically about their ideas and takes the risk of thinking too."

"The human sciences have to assume at least an equal responsibility in establishing the foundations of knowledge."

"I hold that every bit of definite knowledge has to have a mathematical aspect"

"When I speak of knowledge, as you know, I am speaking of that dark and true depth which understanding serves, waits upon, and makes accessible through language to ourselves and others. It is this depth within each of us that nurtures vision."