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I was recently reading a review of Donald Rumsfeld's autobiography. The reviewer cited one of his famous phrases; he quoted it as "unknown known." Now my memory was that the phrase Rumsfeld used was "known unknown" not "unknown known" and it got me wondering: is there a difference in meaning between the two?

The full quote is:

[T]here 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.

That explains what known unknowns means: we know there are some things we do not know. As for unknown knowns, a philosopher by the name of Slavoj Žižek extrapolated to define this term: the things that we know, but are unaware of knowing.

So, in short, there is a big difference.

The quote is:

[T]here 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.

"Known unknown" implies there are things we know we don't know, while "unknown known" could imploy things we know but don't yet realize the value. Thus, there is a difference in meaning.

Some people were keen to mock Rumsfeld's words, but they really are simple and easy to grasp. To avoid misunderstandings about any of the three combinations he actually used, Rumsfeld defined each one very succinctly immediately after saying it. I won't bother repeating the known bits.

You don't often hear the combination he didn't say – unknown knowns – because we find that one hardest to conceptualise. But I suggest that we have a particularly good example close to home here at EL&U. We all "know" a lot more about the principles governing correct usage of our mother tongue than we're conciously aware of.

This from "In Sleep", in William Logan's Sad-faced Men (1982)...

The stars madden, and satellites hum silently

Where no sound can awaken a sleeper. She dreams

A language which cannot trouble her, a vocabulary



Without voice. She has forgotten the ugly grammar,

The deformed sentences. She has forgotten

The irregularities of memory, the unknown knowns,



The can-no-longer-remembers, the slow impeachment

Of experience. She rises, stunned and serene,

Toward the promise of nothing.

To go through them all:

Known known: Something we know and that we know that we know.

Known unknown: Something we don't know and that we know we don't know.

Unknown unknown: Something we don't know and that we don't realize we don't know.

Unknown known: Something that we know, but that we don't realize that we know.

A good example of an unknown known is when you can and cannot end a sentence with a contraction. First, did you know you knew that? Well, you do.

You know that you are allowed to say He smokes, but I don't. but you must say He's not as happy as I am. You may not say He's not as happy as I'm.

Now that you know you know it, it's a known known.

You also know how to order adjectives. Did you know you knew that? Well, you do. For example, you know you must say A pretty, green car. and not A green, pretty car.

You still don't know why you must do these things, but now you know that you know these rules.

Here's Rumsfeld's quote in question:

[T]here 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.

If you read him carefully, he explains the meaning of each term within the context of the quote.
- Known know: we know
- Known unknown: we don't know
- Unknown unknown: our state of knowledge is nonexistent

So. To take some real-life examples: The numbers of troops we have abroad is a known known. The numbers of insurgents is a known unknown. What they plan to do in the future is an unknown unknown.

I would suggest that an unknown known is also "something we know, but do not realise is relevant to a specific issue (or specifically ignore in this context for other reasons)". For example, we're still having kids although the current world population cannot continue to grow at its current rate for ever - we ignore this aspect, treating it as an unknown contributor to known Global Climate and Resource problems.

Doesn't the Documentary itself define it in the sense of
"there are things we thought we knew [knowns] but we were wrong and didn't realise [therefore unknown]"
hence the unknown[incorrect or wrong] knowns

Its a bit of a convoluted way of saying " There are things we are wrong about" that suits the context of Rumsfeld's earlier quotes, playing with the

known knowns known unknowns unknown unknowns