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Known Knowns, Unknown Unknowns, and Everything in Between
Some thoughts about a famous 20 year-old quote and what it means for how to learn and strategize
In 2002, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was conducting a briefing about the possible link between Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. At one point, a member of the press asked about a report that something hadn’t happened. Rumsfeld took the opportunity to turn the event into a masterclass of obscure epistemology (the study of knowledge):
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because 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 don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.
Just to run through that succinctly, Rumsfeld identifies 3 categories. And each has their own position and usage in our life. And when you can learn to identify each one, and how to appropriately identify them, it can be extremely helpful.
