Laozi · Daodejing · 第七十一章
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Original source spelling · punctuation belongs to the digital witness · pronunciation tools follow your language focus.
知不知、上矣，不知知、病矣
To recognize not knowing is best; not knowing while claiming knowledge is a defect.
zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes · Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed · CC BY-SA 4.0A route through this passage
33 Han characters · 14 distinct forms · 7 units separated by the witness’s punctuation
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- Test one unit.
知不知、上矣，
Mark a possible predicate and its participants. Record what you have supplied rather than found explicitly in the text. - Reconstruct the argument. Connect the units in your own words. Where does a description, question, contrast, or consequence depend on your interpretation?
Investigate 7 written forms in this passage
Matched by spelling. These are candidate reading procedures, not assigned grammatical analyses.
Watch recurrence: 病 × 8 不 × 5 知 × 4 以 × 3 矣 × 2 是 × 2. Repetition of a graph need not mean repetition of a sense.
Computed from this exact witness · 1 contextual editorial excerpt also available. The guide is a set of reading prompts, not a translation. Sources & methods
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1 · Explain it in your own words
2 · Recover the wording
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3 · Explain, then revisit
Why is word order essential here?
Compare the editorial answer
Moving 不 changes the relation between knowing and not knowing.
zimai editorial draft · not independently reviewed. Applies to 知不知、上矣，不知知、病矣
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Shared wording
Computed exact phrases in the pinned witnesses. These links do not assign a sense or assert borrowing.
韓非子 · 喻老第二十一人之不病不病宦，武王之王也不病詈。故曰：「聖人之不病也，以其不病，是以無病也。」
荀子 · 非十二子篇第六聖人之不獨容，成名況乎諸侯，莫不願以為臣，是聖人之不得埶者也，仲尼、子弓是也。
Follow a connection
Shared teaching construction · an editorial learning connection, not evidence of common authorship or origin.
論語 · Keep different negatives apart未之有也論語 · Hear explanation and a changed situation巧言令色，鮮矣仁論語 · Hear explanation and a changed situation雖曰未學，吾必謂之學矣論語 · Hear explanation and a changed situation民德歸厚矣Edition, source, and reuse
- Work
- 老子 · Laozi · Daodejing
- Attribution
- Traditionally attributed to Laozi; composition and textual history are debated.
- Digital witness
- Kanseki Repository · KR5c0057 · base edition tls
- Contributors
- Kanseki Repository (Kanripo) contributors; upstream base-edition labels retained in each original file.
- Source position
- KR5c0057_071.txt, lines 14–20. LAO 71.1; tr. D.C. Lau 19i2: 105; here tr. Karlgren 1975
- Version
8f585085ff4ef2580eeb0f4376a763a62bcc7a95- Reuse
- CC BY-SA 4.0. Text extraction and teaching additions share this licence.
- Text policy
- Source spelling and punctuation retained. Encoding headers, page markers, paragraph markers, whitespace, and leading section numbers are removed from the reading view. No silent script conversion or textual correction.
- Teaching
- zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes. English renderings are excerpt-level reading aids, not a full published translation. Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed.
Source-file SHA-256: 01b2fcf747f691712c4d54e3f93f04500a0b0c02a192dad24b3a3b86805506a6. A source comment that cites a translator is an upstream reference, not the attribution of a translation imported here.