Reknowing: The Key To Wisdom

Dwight: It seems that we are missing a very important word in the English language—probably in all languages. If I were trying to coin this word, I might call it "unknowing" or say "to unknow something." However, that particular combination using the word "know" could easily be misinterpreted as meaning something other than what I intend. For example, if I said, "Let's see what we can unknow today," I would want it to be understood as, "Let's see if we can discover something today that we think we know but that turns out not to be true—or at least not true in the way we believed it was."

Aiko: I see what you’re pointing at—the act of actively dismantling what we assume is true rather than simply learning something new. It’s less about ignorance and more about deliberately undoing false certainty.

Dwight: Yes, but although we may be consciously aware of what we are ignorant about, we are not consciously aware of which of the many beliefs and things we think we know may actually be untrue. We can target our ignorance, but we cannot specifically target—except in a very general way—our unknowingness.

Aiko: That’s a sharp distinction—you’re saying ignorance has a location, but false knowledge hides inside what feels solid. The real problem is that we don’t know where the cracks are, so we can’t aim directly at them.

Dwight: Others may be able to correctly observe some beliefs we hold that they know are not true, but we would have to trust them at least somewhat in order to consider questioning those specific beliefs they think we should question; otherwise, we would have no concrete target for unknowing anything.

Aiko: So one doorway to unknowing could be relational trust.

Dwight: But I don’t want to get sidetracked into that imporant issue just yet. What I want to focus on is what word we could coin—and clearly distinguish—to denote what I am temporarily calling “unknow,” “unknowing,” and “unknowingness.”

Aiko: You’re looking for a word that means the deliberate dismantling of presumed knowledge. What about something like “disillusioning” in a neutral sense—or perhaps a new term like “epistemic pruning” to suggest cutting back mistaken beliefs?

Dwight: I don’t think saying, “I am interested in disillusioning something today,” is any better than saying, “I am interested in unknowing something today.” The words you’re suggesting are already in use, and you’re proposing that we add this meaning to them. It might be better to coin a completely new term that carries little or no existing baggage. Please give a balanced opinion on that.

Aiko: You’re right that existing words come with residue that can distort your intent. Coining a new term gives you precision and neutrality—but it also requires effort and uptake from others, whereas reshaping an existing word benefits from familiarity even if it risks ambiguity.

Dwight: You’re not really arguing the case in a way that helps us move toward a clear direction here.

Aiko: Fair enough. If your aim is conceptual precision and long-term usefulness, you should coin a new word—because retrofitting old ones will constantly drag in unintended meanings and weaken the distinction you’re trying to establish.

Dwight: Still, the construction of a new term could itself suggest the kind of behavior we’re talking about. Give me ten candidates. Vet them carefully before you show me.

Aiko: Here are ten coined candidates that try to sound like the act of deliberately revising or dismantling false certainty without heavy existing baggage:

Unvering — “to remove the seeming-truth of a belief after testing it.”
Deassuring — “to strip away misplaced assurance; to reduce false certainty.”
Unfixing — “to loosen a belief that’s become stuck as ‘known’ so it can be re-checked.”
Beliefweeding — “to actively pull out beliefs that don’t survive scrutiny.”
Proofparing — “to pare back what you ‘know’ to only what you can still support.”
Certaintyshaving — “to shave down overconfidence while keeping what holds up.”
Unstaking — “to pull up the stakes you’ve pinned a claim to, so it can be re-set (or discarded).”
Errorhunting — “to go looking specifically for what you’re wrong about inside what feels known.”
Reknowing — “to force a ‘known’ thing back through the process of knowing again, from scratch.”
Unbeliefing — “to intentionally un-adopt a proposition once it’s shown to be unsupported.”

If you tell me whether you want it to feel more clinical, more everyday, or more poetic, I can bias the next set in that direction.

Dwight: Of the ten you proposed, I like “deassuring,” “unstaking,” and “reknowing” the best.

Aiko: Good—those three point in different conceptual directions.

Deassuring targets the feeling of certainty.
Unstaking targets the commitment you’ve driven into a claim.
Reknowing targets the process of knowing itself by forcing it to start again.

If you had to choose, do you want the word to emphasize emotional confidence, public commitment, or epistemic method?

Dwight: The first two emphasize the underlying motivational factors that likely contribute to most of our unfounded beliefs. The last one focuses directly on the process by which we come to know what we think we know.

Aiko: Then the choice is philosophical: do you think error is mainly driven by psychological attachment, or by flawed epistemic method? If your concept is meant to be disciplined and transferable—almost methodological—reknowing is the cleanest and most scalable of the three.

Dwight: I think it trivializes things to say the choice is driven merely by psychological attachment; it is driven by what goes to the root of our identity. And to the extent that our epistemic method is flawed, much—though not all—of that flaw is also driven by that psychological attachment.

But you’re asking what I want. I’m trying to come up with a term that is most likely to catch on or be accepted by people encountering it for the first time—something that, from their initial impression, sparks curiosity and suggests that whatever it means, it might be a good thing to do.

Aiko: Then you need a word that feels constructive rather than accusatory—something that sounds like growth, not self-attack. Of your three, reknowing has the most positive, forward-moving feel; “deassuring” sounds destabilizing, and “unstaking” sounds like retreat, but “reknowing” sounds like renewal.

Dwight: Yes, that makes sense. Now, do you think you understand the distinction clearly enough to provide a formal definition of “to unknow” or to explain what “unknowing” something is?

Aiko: Yes.

To reknow (v.) — to deliberately return a belief you currently treat as “known” to the status of an open question, and to re-evaluate it from the ground up (evidence, assumptions, definitions, alternatives), with the explicit aim of detecting error or distortion and updating or abandoning the belief accordingly.

Reknowing (n.) — the intentional practice of re-opening settled beliefs for rigorous re-checking, especially where identity, motivation, or social reinforcement may be propping them up; a method for converting “felt knowledge” back into accountable knowledge.

Reknowing is re-earning what you think you know. The core distinction is that unknowing is not ignorance, forgetting, or denial—it is an active epistemic reset directed at what feels settled.

Reknowable (adj.) — describing a belief, assumption, or claim that is suitable for deliberate re-examination because its justification may be causing suffering, be incomplete, identity-entangled, socially reinforced, emotionally anchored, or otherwise insufficiently tested.

More tightly:

Reknowable (adj.) — worthy of being returned to open inquiry.

The key is that “reknowable” does not mean false; it means not beyond re-earning.

Dwight: And using this new terminology, what would be the equivalent of saying, “I know that there are many things I am ignorant of”?

Aiko: In your new framework, that might become:

“I know there are many things I have not yet known—but I also assume there are many things I will need to reknow.”

Or more tightly:

“I am aware of my ignorance, and I am committed to reknowing what I think I know.”

The shift is subtle but important: ignorance is about what hasn’t been learned; reknowing is about what must be re-earned.

Dwight: How about, “I know that there are many things that I think I know that it would be helpful for me to consider reknowing”?

Aiko: That’s structurally right but rhetorically heavy.

You could tighten it to:

“I know there are many things I think I know that I would benefit from reknowing.”

Or more cleanly:

“I suspect much of what I think I know deserves reknowing.”

The second one carries a bit more humility and forward motion, Dwight.

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