"Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach"
About this Quote
A neat little aphorism that flatters the lecture hall while quietly rearranging the pecking order of expertise. Attributed to Aristotle, it sketches a hierarchy: the person who "knows" can act, but the person who "understands" can reproduce that knowledge in another mind. The line works because it treats teaching not as a fallback for the less capable, but as a higher-grade competence: the ability to translate principles into a form sturdy enough to travel.
The subtext is Aristotelian to the core. For him, knowledge is not just a pile of facts; it is grasping causes, categories, and first principles. "Doing" can be the domain of techne, practical skill, or even habit. "Understanding" reaches toward episteme, the why beneath the what. Teaching becomes a stress test: if you can guide someone else from confusion to clarity, your grasp is more than private intuition; it's structured.
Context matters, even if the attribution is famously shaky (the sentiment is often linked to later paraphrases and to a similar line in Taoist tradition). Still, it fits Aristotle's world: a culture building institutions of formal instruction, and a philosopher who tutored Alexander while systematizing logic, biology, ethics. The quote is also an early defense of intellectual labor. It implies that education isn't secondhand performance; it's generative power, the craft of making understanding contagious.
The subtext is Aristotelian to the core. For him, knowledge is not just a pile of facts; it is grasping causes, categories, and first principles. "Doing" can be the domain of techne, practical skill, or even habit. "Understanding" reaches toward episteme, the why beneath the what. Teaching becomes a stress test: if you can guide someone else from confusion to clarity, your grasp is more than private intuition; it's structured.
Context matters, even if the attribution is famously shaky (the sentiment is often linked to later paraphrases and to a similar line in Taoist tradition). Still, it fits Aristotle's world: a culture building institutions of formal instruction, and a philosopher who tutored Alexander while systematizing logic, biology, ethics. The quote is also an early defense of intellectual labor. It implies that education isn't secondhand performance; it's generative power, the craft of making understanding contagious.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
|---|---|
| Source | Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI (discussion of intellectual virtues). Standard English translations (e.g., W.D. Ross) render the line as 'Those who know, do; those who understand, teach.' |
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