Reading The Intellectual Life by Antonin Sertillanges (1863-1948), I came across various quotes that linked together. The common theme was the amount that we know, think we know or can know.
Sertillange suggests that:
‘The half-informed man is not the man who knows only the half of things, but the man who only half knows things.'
Furthermore, he cites Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) as pointing out that ‘We do not know all of anything’ and Claude Bernard (1813-1878) as suggesting that ‘To understand a single thing thoroughly, we should understand all things.’
There is a certain tension between these quotes. Perhaps they are not entirely consistent with each other. However, I think that this tension is potentially productive. Dwelling upon these three quotes raises a number of questions. Try it.
If we do not know all of anything, and to understand a single thing thoroughly requires that we understand all things, then it must follow that we cannot understand a single thing thoroughly—which does not seem unreasonable.
