Dialogue and Universalism

Volume 26, Issue 4, 2016

Values and Ideals. Theory and Practice: Part I

Knowing as Acting: Examples from Confucianism and Buddhism

We often separate knowing and acting into two distinct tasks to perform and think that one must first know and only then can one act. This also indicates that one can have knowledge without action or one can know what the proper action is yet fail to act. This essay will examine theories of learning/knowing suggested in the Confucian and Buddhist traditions and argue that there is a strong tendency in Confucianism and Buddhism that favors engaged knowing over detached knowing and rejects the separation between knowing and acting. The essay will also suggest that the idea of engaged knowing suggested in Buddhism and Confucianism will help us reevaluate the representationalist notion of knowledge.