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The term unknown unknown refers to circumstances or outcomes that were not conceived of by an observer at a given point in time. The meaning of the term becomes more clear when it is contrasted with the known unknown, which refers to circumstances or outcomes that are known to be possible, but it is unknown whether or not they will be realized. The term is used in project planning and decision analysis to explain that any model of the future can only be informed by information that is currently available to the observer and, as such, faces substantial limitations and unknown risk.
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Usage
| “ | There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know. | ” |
-United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
This seems to be a skewed take on Confucius, as quoted in Thoreau's Walden: "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge."[1]
During the 1970's and 1980's Werner Erhard's est Training Program used this quote (or a variant thereof that covers all four possibilities, known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, unknown unknowns) as a part of the course material. Landmark Education's The Landmark Forum course also uses it. One point of using it is to help people see the limits of their knowledge and the edges of the metaphorical box they live in. Learning to think for yourself means, in part, exploring the limits of your knowledge and the very nature of your knowledge itself. Where are our blind spots when it comes to our knowledge or lack there of? What are the risks of ignorance? The exploration of these four domains would be extensive and take many hours of these courses.
"It's to give people an opportunity to think for themselves... what happens is that most of us think that our very strongly held beliefs, you know those things we hold, our opinions, that are very strong, we think that that is thinking for ourselves but it isn't really. The ability to think for yourself really means the ability to think something that you haven't thought before. To think outside the allowable range of thoughts rather than just inside the allowable range of thoughts." - Werner Erhard, TV Interview[2]
Erhard's dogma on this point is apparently based on the Johari window which predates his ideas by many years.
The "there are known knowns..." statement was made at a press briefing given by former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on February 12, 2002. Mr Rumsfeld's statement relating to the increasingly unstable situation in post-invasion Afghanistan was widely viewed as elusive and indicative of arrogance, whilst at the same time reflecting a profound, almost philosophical truth. The statement won the 2003 Foot in Mouth award from the Plain English Campaign,[3] and is also hailed as an example of found poetry by the GOP Ministry of Official Poetry.
Rumsfeld's defenders have included Canadian columnist Mark Steyn, who called it 'in fact a brilliant distillation of quite a complex matter',[4] and Australian economist and blogger John Quiggin, who wrote that, 'Although the language may be tortured, the basic point is both valid and important ... Having defended Rumsfeld, I’d point out that the considerations he refers to provide the case for being very cautious in going to war.'[5]
Italian economists Salvatore Modica and Aldo Rustichini provide an introduction to the economic literature on awareness and unawareness
| “ | A subject is certain of something when he knows that thing; he is uncertain when he does not know it, but he knows he does not: he is consciously uncertain. On the other hand, he is unaware of something when he does not know it, and he does not know he does not know [emphasis added], and so on ad infinitum: he does not perceive, does not have in mind, the object of knowledge. The opposite of unawareness is awareness.[6] | ” |
The term was in use within the United States military establishment long before Rumsfeld's quote to the press in 2002. An early use of the term comes from a paper entitled Clausewitz and Modern War Gaming: losing can be better than winning by Raymond B. Furlong, Lieutenant General, USAF (Ret.) in the Air University Review, July-August 1984:
| “ | To those things Clausewitz wrote about uncertainty and chance, I would add a few comments on unknown unknowns--those things that a commander doesn't even know he doesn't know. Participants in a war game would describe an unknown unknown as unfair, beyond the ground rules of the game. But real war does not follow ground rules, and I would urge that games be "unfair" by introducing unknown unknowns.[7] | ” |
| “ | NASA space exploration should largely address a problem class in reliability and risk management stemming primarily from human error, system risk and multi-objective trade-off analysis, by conducting research into system complexity, risk characterization and modeling, and system reasoning. In general, in every mission we can distinguish risk in three possible ways: a) known-known, b) known-unknown, and c)unknown-unknown. It is probable, almost certain, that space exploration will partially experience similar known or unknown risks embedded in the Apollo missions, Shuttle or Station unless something alters how NASA will perceive and manage safety and reliability. [8] | ” |
From the same time, conservative lawyer Richard Epstein wrote a well known article in the University of Chicago Law Review about the American labour law doctrine of employment at will (the idea that workers can be fired without warning or reason, unless their contract states terms that are better). In giving some of his reasons in defense of the contract at will, he wrote this.
| “ | The contract at will is also a sensible private adaptation to the problem of imperfect information over time. In sharp contrast to the purchase of standard goods, an inspection of the job before acceptance is far less likely to guarantee its quality thereafter. The future is not clearly known. More important, employees, like employers, know what they do not know. They are not faced with a bolt from the blue, with an "unknown unknown." Rather they face a known unknown for which they can plan. The at-will contract is an essential part of that planning because it allows both sides to take a wait-and-see attitude to their relationship so that new and more accurate choices can be made on the strength of improved information.[9] | ” |
Rumsfeld quote in popular culture
Rumsfeld's famous explanation of the unknown unknown has been variously skewered by his critics in popular media.
- In The Boondocks animated series, the character Gin Rummy, a representation of Donald Rumsfeld, makes several references to unknown unknowns.
- The band No Use for a Name used the entire aforementioned quote in their song Fields of Agony (Acoustic) on the record Rock Against Bush, Vol. 2.
- In "Lil' George and Lil' Tony Blair", an episode of Lil' Bush, Lil' Rummy makes a reference to the unknown unknowns.
- The Joan Jett song "Riddles" features the full unknown unknowns quote.
- The title of The Unknown Knowns: A Novel by Jeffrey Rotter is an allusion to the quote, and the full quote appears in the book's inscription.
See also
- List of cognitive biases
- Ignoramus et ignorabimus
- Ignotum per ignotius
- I know that I know nothing
- Johari window
- List of political catch phrases
- Outside Context Problem
- Black swan theory
References
- ^ "Walden" (book). http://books.google.it/books?id=h7xlkPqJ9DwC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=%22To+know+that+we+know+what+we+know,+and+that+we+do+not+know+what+we+do+not+know,+that+is+true+knowledge.%22&source=bl&ots=Kh9zLOV3PV&sig=EeKwYJ8GYDll0xoRH2nb7MrV5po&hl=en&ei=UUTTSqOoN5Dh-QauhtCRAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CBgQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=%22To%20know%20that%20we%20know%20what%20we%20know%2C%20and%20that%20we%20do%20not%20know%20what%20we%20do%20not%20know%2C%20that%20is%20true%20knowledge.%22&f=false. Retrieved 2009-10-11.
- ^ "Werner Erhard on thinking outside the allowable range of thoughts, TV Interview part 2". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZZhpJFYrM4.
- ^ "Foot in Mouth". http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/foot_in_mouth_award/past_winners.html. Retrieved 2007-12-17.
- ^ "Rummy speaks the truth, not gobbledygook, Daily Telegraph, December 9, 2003". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/12/09/do0902.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/12/09/ixopinion.html. Retrieved 2008-10-30.
- ^ "In Defense of Rumsfeld, johnquiggin.com, February 10, 2004". http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2004/02/10/in-defense-of-rumsfeld/. Retrieved 2008-10-30.
- ^ "Salvatore Modica and Aldo Rustichini, Awareness and partitional information structures, Theory and Decision, Volume 37, Number 1 / July, 1994". http://www.springerlink.com/content/l32r06103403mv1v/.
- ^ "Air University Review Archive at Air & Space Power Journal". http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1984/jul-aug/furlong.html. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
- ^ "Maluf, Gawdiak, and Bell, ON SPACE EXPLORATION AND HUMAN ERROR: A paper on reliability and safety, Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science, 3-6 Jan. 2005, Hilton Waikoloa Village, HI, United States". http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20060016368_2006006769.pdf. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
- ^ R Epstein, 'In defense of the contract at will' (1984) 51 University of Chicago Law Review 947, 975
External links
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