Source

知不知上；不知知病。夫唯病病，是以不病。聖人不病，以其病病，是以不病。

Translation Notes

1. "To know that one does not know is best; not to know yet think one knows is a disease." (知不知上；不知知病。) — Alternatives considered: “Knowing that one does not know is supreme.” · “Not-knowing as knowing is sickness.” · “To not know—yet to know—is disease.” · Chose present rendering because The chosen phrasing keeps the passage’s paradox legible to English readers while preserving the recursive self-referential logic (presumptive knowing becomes the illness). “Best” for 上 maintains the evaluative character without narrowing it to “highest” or “superior” in a way that would sound overly metaphysical.
2. "Only by recognizing disease as disease is one therefore not diseased." (夫唯病病，是以不病。) — Alternatives considered: “It is only because one treats sickness as sickness that one is without sickness.” · “Only when sickness is recognized as sickness does the sickness cease.” · Chose present rendering because The translation prioritizes the patterned repetition (病病) and the passage’s logic (夫唯 … 是以 …) over stylistic variation that might obscure the argument’s recursion.
3. "The Sage is not diseased; because he recognizes disease as disease, he is therefore not diseased." (聖人不病，以其病病，是以不病。) — Alternatives considered: Varied second “不病” as “free of it.” · Recast “以其” as “by means of recognizing…” · Chose present rendering because Consistency is necessary to keep the formal parallelism of the Chinese clauses; changing the second 不病 would weaken the patterned reasoning that links the Sage’s exemption from “disease” to recognizing “disease as disease”.

Footnotes

1. "the Sage" (聖人 (shèngrén)) — 聖人 (shèngrén) in the Daodejing denotes the paradigmatic wise ruler-sage, not a literal “holy man.” Because the term functions as a technical designation for the realized person who exemplifies Daoist practice, many translations capitalize it as “the Sage.” On the interpretation of 聖人 as the fully enlightened person, the received commentarial tradition is generally consistent; however, some older Chinese readings emphasize its political-ethical exemplarity rather than purely soteriological attainment. (For Daodejing-specific traditional commentaries, e.g., Wang Bi 王弼 and He Shanggong 河上公, see standard editions.)
2. "illness" (病 (bìng) / 病病 (bìng-bìng)) — The graph 病 (bìng) is used metaphorically for defects of knowledge and cognition: “error” treated as a disorder that must be recognized. In early Chinese medical and political discourse, 病 can be literal disease, but in Daoist philosophical writing it commonly marks dysfunction of mind, judgment, and moral self-understanding. The repetition “病病” highlights recursion: only when one treats the problem as a genuine “illness” (rather than denying it or glamorizing it) can one escape it. This recursive diagnosis is a recurring Daoist argumentative strategy, and is supported by commentators who read the second “病” as taking the first “病” as properly identified (i.e., not mistaken for something else).
3. "To know that one does not know" (知不知上) — The compressed sequence “知不知上” is notoriously terse and invites a range of English renderings. Most modern translations follow the Daodejing tradition of taking the phrase to mean that knowing the fact of one’s not-knowing (i.e., epistemic humility) is superior. The first 知 is often understood as “to know,” while 不知 is read not simply as ignorance but as the stance of recognizing the limits of knowing. This reading preserves the passage’s paradox: ordinary “knowing” may constitute the sickness, whereas reflexive awareness of not-knowing is closer to the Sage’s condition. Traditional commentaries generally support an interpretation grounded in recognizing limits, though they may phrase the reflexive mechanism differently.
4. "not to know yet think one knows" (不知知病) — “不知知病” is syntactically compressed and semantically ambiguous in Chinese: the first 不知 can mean “not knowing,” while the second 知 can be read either verbally (“to think/consider”) or as a nominalized “knowledge.” The common interpretive move in Daodejing exegesis is to understand the sequence as “not knowing but thinking one knows,” i.e., misrecognizing one’s epistemic state. This aligns with the passage’s subsequent causal logic: only when the “disease” is recognized as disease does one become “not diseased.” Since the text is aphoristic, editions do not usually present major variant graphs here; rather, differences appear in punctuation and in how later translators/annotators segment the clause.

Glossary References

聖人(shèngrén)

the Sage · Technical designation in Daodejing-style discourse for the realized wise person whose cognition and action exemplify Daoist principles.

病(bìng)

disease / illness · Metaphorical “affliction” for defects of knowledge and self-understanding; in this passage it is paired with the recursive form 病病 (“disease as disease”).

病病(bìng-bìng)

disease as disease · Deliberate rhetorical repetition marking correct recognition of the problem as a genuine condition; central to the passage’s paradoxical logic. ---

Context

This passage is from chapter 71 of the Daodejing (Laozi), a foundational text of early Chinese philosophy usually associated with the late Spring and Autumn or Warring States period, though its precise date and compositional history remain debated. The chapter belongs to the text's aphoristic reflections on self-knowledge, governance, and the paradoxical wisdom of the Sage. In received editions it reads as a compact sequence built around the repeated graph 病, using paradox to distinguish genuine awareness from the illness of false knowing.

The passage reflects a broader early Chinese concern with knowing one's limits and avoiding the dangers of self-satisfaction. In Daoist thought, the ideal ruler or realized person does not aggressively display knowledge but remains reflexive, self-corrective, and free from pretension. The figure of 聖人 is the paradigmatic wise ruler-sage of early Chinese philosophical discourse; in English translation of the Daodejing this is often treated as the technical term "the Sage". The language of 病 invokes not only literal illness but also moral and cognitive dysfunction, a common metaphor in classical thought for disorders of the self that require recognition before they can be overcome.

Themes

1. Self-knowledge and epistemic humility The opening contrast values awareness of not-knowing over the delusion of believing one knows. True superiority lies in recognizing the limits of one's knowledge.
2. Illness as moral and cognitive metaphor The chapter uses 病 metaphorically for the defect of false knowledge. Treating error as an illness to be recognized becomes the condition for transcending it.
3. Paradoxical wisdom The passage advances its teaching through reversal: not-knowing may be higher knowledge, while knowing may be a sickness if it is merely presumed knowledge. This paradox is central to Daoist expression.
4. The Sage as model The final sentence presents the Sage as embodying this reflexive awareness. The Sage is free of the illness precisely because he recognizes illness as illness.

Idioms

1. 知不知 A compact and famous Daodejing formula often understood as "to know not-knowing" or "to know that one does not know." Its significance lies in making reflexive awareness, rather than accumulation of assertions, the hallmark of wisdom.
2. 不知知病 Literally "not to know yet [to think one] knows is an illness" or "not-knowing as knowing is a sickness." The phrase has become an influential expression for the danger of self-deceived knowledge.
3. 病病 A deliberately repetitive phrase meaning "to take illness as illness" or "to recognize sickness as sickness." Its rhetorical force depends on preserving the recursion: diagnosis itself is the beginning of cure.
4. 聖人不病 "The Sage is not diseased." In the context of the Daodejing, this is not a claim about bodily health but about freedom from the cognitive and moral sickness described above. The established capitalization "the Sage" should be maintained as a technical term.

Literary Devices

1. Paradox The chapter states its doctrine through formulations that initially seem self-contradictory, such as valuing "knowing not-knowing" and treating "not-knowing as knowing" as illness. This is a characteristic Daoist strategy for disrupting ordinary assumptions.
2. Polysemy and semantic repetition The graph 病 is repeated with shifting force: noun, predicate, and evaluative metaphor. The passage depends on this semantic compression, making repetition itself a vehicle of thought.
3. Parallelism The clauses are tightly balanced: 知不知上；不知知病 and 夫唯病病，是以不病 / 聖人不病，以其病病，是以不病. This formal symmetry reinforces the logical pattern.
4. Aphoristic compression Like much of the Daodejing, the passage is extremely concise, omitting explicit grammatical markers and leaving relations between clauses suggestive rather than fully stated.
5. Recursive reasoning The chapter turns on second-order awareness: not merely knowledge, but knowledge about one's own knowing; not merely illness, but recognition of illness as illness.

Translation Challenges

1. 知不知上 — The syntax is radically compressed and can be read as "to know not-knowing is best," "knowing that one does not know is superior," or less plausibly as a nominal sequence. The translator must decide how explicit to make the reflexive structure. The force of 上 must be resolved: it can mean "highest," "superior," or "best," with slightly different tonal effects. Because there are no pronouns or tense markers, English must supply a subject or use an impersonal formulation without becoming clumsy.
2. 不知知病 — This phrase is famously ambiguous because the first 知 may mean "to know," while the second may be either a verb or a nominalized claim to knowledge. A common interpretation is "not to know yet think one knows is a sickness." A more literal rendering risks opacity, but an overly explicit one may flatten the gnomic force of the Chinese. The translator must decide whether 病 should be rendered as "illness," "sickness," "disease," or "defect," depending on how strongly to preserve the medical metaphor.
3. 夫唯病病，是以不病 — The repeated 病病 is the central difficulty. It likely means "to take sickness as sickness" or "to recognize illness as illness," but the English must preserve the rhetorical recursion without sounding awkward. 夫唯 introduces an explanatory turn; it may be translated "Now only by...," "It is only because...," or left implicit. 是以 is causal-consecutive ("therefore," "for this reason"), and the logical relation should remain crisp in English.
4. 聖人不病，以其病病，是以不病 — 聖人 in Daodejing translation is a technical term and should be rendered consistently as "the Sage," with capital S. The sentence repeats the prior logic while applying it to the Sage; the English should preserve this echo rather than vary too freely. The final repetition of 不病 can sound wooden in English if translated identically each time, but excessive variation would weaken the argument's patterned structure.

Translation Principles

1. Preserve the paradoxical structure of the chapter rather than resolving it into flat didactic prose; the reader should still feel the conceptual reversal at the heart of the passage.
2. Keep the repetition of 知 and 病 as visible as possible in English, since the argument depends on recursive self-reference and patterned verbal echo.
3. Render 病 with a term that retains the medical metaphor, such as "illness," "sickness," or "disease," unless a note explains any broader moral-cognitive sense.
4. Translate 聖人 consistently as "the Sage" with a capital S, since this is an established technical term in Daodejing translation and must remain capitalized throughout.
5. Maintain the balanced clause structure and the causal logic signaled by 夫唯 and 是以, even if some slight expansion is needed for intelligibility.
6. Avoid over-interpreting the subject of the opening clauses; where possible, preserve the aphoristic universality of the Chinese rather than narrowing it to a specific person or context.

Segmentation

1. 知不知上； `sentence` `ambiguous`
2. 不知知病。 `clause`
3. 夫唯病病，是以不病。 `sentence`
4. 聖人不病，以其病病，是以不病。 `sentence`

Segmentation Notes

Segmentation is driven by grammatical markers “是以” (result) and “以” (cause), plus parallel interrogative structure “知不知 … / 不知知 …”. Note: the first boundary after “上” relies on semantic/parallel completeness rather than an explicit虛詞 at that exact point, so it is marked ambiguous.

Tone & Style

Gnomic, paradoxical, and quietly admonitory. The opening is terse and evaluative, the middle gives a compact diagnostic explanation, and the final line becomes slightly more authoritative by invoking the Sage as the validating model.

Extremely compressed philosophical aphorism in the characteristic style of the Daodejing: sparse syntax, heavy repetition, semantic layering, and paradox used as a method of instruction. The register is elevated but not ornate, relying on formal balance rather than embellishment.

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