Analects 2:17

Confucius said, “Yu, shall I teach you [the way to acquire] new knowledge?  To say that you know and say that you do not know when you do not know—that is [the way to acquire] knowledge.”  [Analects 2:17]

In this particular day, I would try to interpret analects 2:17 from the topic "Investigation of Things".

This analect is teaching us that the best way in which one can acquire knowledge is when he learns to accept that he do not know everything and that he is open to know something. In order for man to be able to exercise the virtues, he must first know the basic principles of it and this basic principles are not readily known by him because man is a limited being. Therefore, man needs to know, man needs to learn. In order for him to learn, he must acknowledge first that he doesn't know. In the West, this is called the Socratic Ignorance, knowing that you do not know. It is claiming to the self that there are certain things in which man needs to know through being educated by others. If one recognizes this, he asks, and by asking, he gains new knowledge, new learning. This is the best way in acquiring knowledge according to Confucius. Man should first know that he doesn't know everything and let himself be educated by others (people or experiences).

In this way, knowing that he doesn't know, wonder starts to spark in the man's mind. If the goal of the man is to be a superior man, then he inquires more on how to be a superior man. He inquires because he knows that he needs to be educated to reach the goal, he accepts that he is not perfect, that he is in need of learning. In this process of learning, there he starts to investigate to the things that are essential on reaching the goal. In that stage, he weighs down possibilities, he yearns to know what it is or what it feels like to be a superior man.