There’s debate over who coined the phrase, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”  Some scholars attribute the phrase to Socrates, who said in Plato’s dialogues, “I know that I do not know.”   Scott Adams, who drew the Dilbert cartoon for many years, thinks perhaps he coined the phrase while he was working at Pacific Bell in the mid-eighties.  Even the famous coach, Bill Parcells, got into the act when he said, “When you don’t know that you don’t know, it’s a lot different than when you do know that you don’t know.”

Parcells may have it right.

Knowing that you haven’t got a clue is a lot different from being blissfully ignorant and thinking all is well.