The Art of Being Human: Confucius’ Beliefs Essay

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Introduction

The Art of Being Human is one book that indicates to us that humanities can help us think critically and creatively and broaden our perspectives to enhance our lives every day. The book entails an incredible balance between instances of the daily global culture and the traditional masterpiece coverage. The book unravels humanity as a living technique. It is also organized in terms of themes ranging from morality, religion, love, happiness, life-affirmation, death, and freedom among others. These themes are associated with different life sayings. Among others is that “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” This paper is therefore aimed at analyzing this statement in terms of meaning, challenging assumptions, and its pertinent factors.

Main body

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” This means that the best thing or idea that one can ever have is how little one knows. This has challenged many scholars who have admitted that not a single person knows everything; they acknowledge this by admitting that they also don’t know everything. I would challenge my assumption of what the quote may be mean by asserting that the much an individual knows, the much they come to learn how much they are not aware of. This is evident even among the greatest scholars.

Some of the pertinent factors about the statement “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance,” would include such facts as that not all the knowledge possessed in truth. There are an indefinite amount of things that may be known, but unless one becomes aware of the things they have never thought of, their wisdom and knowledge are not complete and would be termed wrong. I would say that knowledge is about what one is aware of and what one does not know. This happens especially when one does not know whether what they claim to know is true or not.

In my evaluation of the quote “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance,” I would say that it expresses very profound and useful things to be aware of. It is also clear from the evaluation of this quote that ignorance is a refusal to gain knowledge and willful neglect. For instance, possessing thoughts and ideas of a racist without realizing that men are equal does not widen an individual’s point of view to think of a vast truth.

In my own opinion of the quote about the truth of humanity, I would say that the definitive truth exists whenever there is no ignorance at all, that is to say when the consciousness and/ or perspective becomes one with everything that exists. For instance, in Buddhism suffering is considered a result of ignorance primarily and that enlightenment is liberation. Just to back the statement, Confucius says that “Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star” and that “As the circle of light increases, so does its circumference of darkness”

Conclusion

In summary, I would say that knowledge is something powerful, and having it ensures that we become deeply aware of the whole world and ourselves to the extent that we can identify the much and/ or far we can reach. Therefore the book The Art of Being Human helps us think critically and creatively and broaden our perspectives in enhancing our lives each day. It is therefore evident that this book entails an incredible balance between instances of the daily global culture and the traditional masterpiece coverage.

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IvyPanda. 2022. "The Art of Being Human: Confucius' Beliefs." January 14, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-art-of-being-human-confucius-beliefs/.

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IvyPanda. "The Art of Being Human: Confucius' Beliefs." January 14, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-art-of-being-human-confucius-beliefs/.

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