The Knower and the Known
Evaluation and Zen
Over the past year, my Zen practice has become a steady rhythm. Sitting has sharpened my attention and softened my grip, teaching me to notice without rushing to fix. At the same time, I’ve been delving into the roots of evaluation — reading Scriven, Weiss, Rossi, Patton — and I’m struck by the parallels between Zen philosophy and the evolution of evaluation theory.
Both traditions speak of the knower and the known. In Zen, that distinction is questioned, even dissolved. The one who knows and the thing that is known are not-separate. Awareness does not stand apart from its object; they arise together. Thích Nhất Hạnh expressed it simply: “We inter-are. You cannot be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with everything else.” Or again: “I am because you are.”
In meditation practice, I sometimes glimpse this directly: the breath is not something “I” observe, it is simply what is happening. The knower and the known fall away.
Evaluation, by contrast, usually treats the line as fixed. The evaluator is positioned as the knower, the program or participants as the known. Methods reinforce that boundary: surveys, interviews, datasets that turn human lives into objects of study. And evaluation is not only about methods — it is also about valuing. Scriven reminded us that evaluation requires judgment: of merit, worth, and significance. That very act of valuing positions the evaluator as the one who knows what counts, while those being evaluated are cast as the known.
And yet evaluation theory has always been uneasy with this separation. Scriven argued for evaluator independence, but admitted that values shape every judgment. Weiss described findings taking on lives of their own, beyond the evaluator’s intent. Patton insists evaluators are part of the system, shaping meaning through their presence. Participatory approaches go further still, treating evaluators and participants as co-knowers, dissolving some of the distance between observer and observed.
Zen takes this to its limit: the split itself is illusion. Evaluation may not be able to go that far — rigor depends on some distinction between knower and known — but it can learn from the posture. Humility, reflexivity, and presence remind us that we are never truly separate from what we study.
As evaluators, we can never truly be separate from the evaluand. We are because they are.
Perhaps this is where Zen and evaluation first meet: in recognizing that knowledge is never detached. The knower and the known arise together. What matters is how honestly, and how compassionately, we meet what is in front of us.
~Sadie
At Anthralytic, we’re asking: what happens when Zen and evaluation meet? Both begin with the same move — naming what is, without turning away. We invite you to sit with us in that question, and see what clarity emerges.
