 Another function of “the knowing” is to know or recognize (zhī 知) things, which is explained as “contacting” them (A5). Here the analogy is to the eyesight veridically seeing something. The text explains this sense of knowledge as “to know is, by means of ‘the knowing’, passing by something and being able to describe it.” Interestingly, knowing is here characterized as the practical ability (néng 能) to “describe” (mào 貌) something encountered, probably by applying a term to it. It is not regarded as an inner mental state that represents the world accurately, nor as an attitude toward a sentence or proposition. Technically, the ability to correctly apply a term to something (such as by saying, “This is a dog” or by pointing at a dog and declaring, “Dog!”) can be understood as an expression of propositional knowledge. But the text explains such knowledge in terms of an ability or know-how. 