If one were to read these quotes without any spiritual discernment, as though they were a lab report from an experiment testing a biological or physical hypothesis, one would immediately encounter difficulties:
How can one know that one knows nothing, if one knows nothing? How would the question even arise in one’s mind?
If “we” know nothing at all, how can “we” comment on the knowledge of school children? In fact, knowing nothing at all, how can we even be aware of the existence of school children? Much less the state of their (the school childrens’) knowledge.
And, surely the good Doctor is not proposing that the less we know the more comprehensible matters become.
None of these gentlemen, being of high integrity and intellectual accomplishment, can be thought guilty of indulging in fallacious, or even merely careless, logical behavior. It must be, then, that they are engaging in some of that high philosophical thought with which they are known for peppering their more profound scientific observations.
Understanding that, what they have to say is not difficult to discern at all, translation complications notwithstanding.
Thanks boop, for calling me to this fascinating discussion.