I viewed Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence in the Bush junior administration in the United States as a man lacking in ethics and wisdom. It seems however that he did have at least some wisdom, unlike the more recent Donald. Donald Rumsfeld is credited with saying – ‘There are known known’s. These are things […]

I viewed Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defence in the Bush junior administration in the United States as a man lacking in ethics and wisdom. It seems however that he did have at least some wisdom, unlike the more recent Donald. Donald Rumsfeld is credited with saying – ‘There are known known’s. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.’ This is far from original. Addressing a similar issue Aristotle commented – ‘The more you know, the more you know you don’t know’ and Plato commented – ‘I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.’ Insightful or not, however, Rumsfeld was right – there are known known’s, known…