“I am not omniscient, but I know a lot.”

That's a damned good question. I wonder if you'll get a half-way decent answer.

It simply could be made the case that we know everything there is to be known in each moment of our individual life's...what we know is what we know...the "if" I knew, is always a retrospective about what could or should have been done.
Thinking about what we don't know is itself a paradox once what we don't know cannot be thought about until we come to know what we didn't knew...
...Yes we do have knowledge, our moment to moment experience is full of it...

Mere technicality Ed

IMO "knowing nothing" reflects a gut understanding of Godel's incompleteness theorem in that there is always at least one axiom in a situation/system of thought whose "truth" must be assumed. i.e. There can be no"absolute knowledge". This implies that all "knowlege" is relative to human purposes and experience and is essentially about prediction (and retrodiction) with respect to our interactions with what we call " the world".

In German, this quote means something slightly different: "I do not know everything; still many things I understand." (Original quote: Allwissend bin ich nicht; doch viel ist mir bewußt.)

Oh, I get it.
I can't find my keys; but at least I understand why.
That helps.

It seams as you explain it, it points to structure recognition...

It's actually an ironic remark by Mephisto. And it's used similar today in German - either ironically or jokingly.

Thanks !

Incontrovertible knowledge is not possible because it either depends on:

an infinite series of justifications or

an axiom (a basic belief that is left unproven) or

is justified by a circular argument e.g. Joel Feinberg, "Using the scientific method to judge the scientific method is circular reasoning".

+++++++++++++++++++

On the other hand, 'everyday knowledge' is 'what works' most of the time and is a 'type' of knowledge but is not incontrovertible.

Isn't it true that you can know you doubt ? can't you see that doubting requires first you acknowledge A reality ?
A reality refers to something that is not relative, something thus, that it is not undefined...it is what it is as opposed to something that it is and not it is !
The confusion comes because things that are what they are, also evolve and stop being what they were, they effectively do change...but the fact remains that before they changed they were something in the first place and not 2 different things...to measure change you first need things be defined so you know what changed...so while is true we cannot know almost everything for sure, there is at least one thing we can know without which not even doubting itself could survive...that whatever is the case reality is...IT IS what IT IS ! And that is the ONLY objective knowledge we may ever aspire to have.
Doubting for instance must always be objective doubt...its not the case that doubting can both be and not be doubting...doesn't matter is A or B subject, when they doubt, they objectively doubt in the same way...now of course WHAT they doubt about may be different...the point all along is that we can ditch the what part concerning reality and just stick with the abstract formulation, whatever X is, It is what it is..X is X ! (but you are not describing X)

Is that an axiom or a circular argument?

Identity as a concept is about circularity ! X is X...

...the whole problem being debated is that maybe X is not X...but then how could you enumerate X in the first place, so to say X is not X ?...you would have a blank space...so that: _______ is not _____ ! Obviously this is nonsense. You see abstract things like X are themselves real ! They report notion of structure although they don't describe it.

You cannot doubt Structure has doubt itself requires structuring !

Descartes almost got it right when he tried to centre this problem in the "I"...if he had meant the "I" not as something which is animated but as something which is unified, the idea of identity, he would have got the point perfectly made...but then again I am convinced historically he couldn't go that far...

About as concise a summary as I have yet seen.
Thanks

Reality it is a basic axiom which is proven by doubt itself...so although I FULLY appreciate his concise description which is very well done there is ONE single exception to it and I address it...on a side note you should ditch your fetish with animism.

Because inductive logic doesn't really work. Just because the sun has risen every morning since forever doesn't mean it will rise tomorrow.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazleton_the_doubt_essential_to_faith.html?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2013-06-24

oh but it works in ONE little thing...to DOUBT you assume Reality, period !