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Socratic Ignorance

He among you is the wisest who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is really worth nothing at all. (Plato, Apology 23b, tr. Church, rev. Cumming)

What does it mean? Socrates questioned a man who was said by many to be wise and who thought himself to be wise, but found that this man, like others he questioned, had no more knowledge of the things that are most important for man to know than Socrates himself had, namely none, and therefore Socrates concluded that "it seems I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know" (ibid. 21d, tr. Tredennick).

The Socratic Paradox

In other words, although all Socrates knows is that he doesn't know anything truly important, that knowledge isn't "really worth nothing at all". That is the irony of the oracle's words, that Socratic ignorance is Socratic wisdom.

An Internet search query from the site's logs:

Query: self-knowledge, being aware of your ignorance is wisdom.

Not to think you know what you don't know is Socratic wisdom. But self-knowledge needs a standard by which to distinguish knowing from not knowing.

For philosophy, this is the standard Socrates set: To know is to (1) be able to explain what you claim you know to others, and (2) be able to defend your claim against unclarity or contradiction when cross-questioned. (Xenophon, Memorabilia iv, 6, 1)

"The Fallacy of the Artisans"

Socrates found that men who did know things that he didn't know, namely various artisans [craftsmen], and who "to that extent were wiser than I was", because they knew one thing [namely, their craft] also imagined on that basis that they knew other things that they did not know.

And so Socrates asked himself on behalf of Apollo's oracle whether he would rather be as he was -- neither wise with their wisdom nor foolish with their presumption that they know what they don't know -- or to possess both wisdom and foolishness as they did, and he answered that "it was best for me to be as I was". (Plato, Apology 22d-e)

Philosophical humility or self-knowledge

The false presumption of knowledge is why philosophy requires knowledge of one's own limits, (1) because if you think you know what you don't know, you are both misled yourself and harm your companions by misleading them (Memorabilia iii, 9, 6), and (2) because no one seeks to become wise if he thinks he already is wise (Plato, Meno 84c).

The good = wise man does not harm his companions or anyone else (Plato, Republic 335e). Philosophy is the search to become wise.

Know thyself and Madness

Query: failure of self-knowledge in the Apology.

That may allude to Plato's Apology 21d: the failure belongs to the one who thinks he knows what he does not know, because to think you know what you don't know is to not know yourself: specifically to not know your own limits.

[Socrates] did not identify ignorance with madness, but not to know oneself and to think one knows what one does not know, he put next to madness. (Xenophon, Memorabilia iii, 9, 6)

He only errs who thinks he knows what he does not know. (Saint Augustine)

Note that for Socrates, holding an opinion that has not been thoroughly tested in discussion is to presume one knows what one does not know.

Outline of this page ...

"I know only that I do not know"

Query: the god of truth says to Chairephon that no man is wiser than Socrates, that Socrates is the wisest man, and yet Socrates says that he has no wisdom.

That is the Socratic paradox, the riddle posed by the word's of Apollo's oracle at Delphi, and it is about wisdom in philosophy. Plato explains the paradox this way: Socrates' wisdom is that he doesn't think he knows what he doesn't know. For when the people Socrates questioned are shown that they don't know what they think they know (e.g. about how man should live his life, about what the good is for man, and about what piety and justice are), they go on thinking that they know anyway, whereas Socrates is at least wise enough not to do that (Apology 21d). As Plato's Apology interprets the oracle's words, that is Socrates' only wisdom, and the only wisdom a human being can have (23b).

Socrates is both wise and not wise, both knows and doesn't know, although in different ways, of course. The expression may be contradictory in form, but here its meaning is not contradictory.

That the wisest of men has no wisdom beyond knowing that he is not wise is Apollonian irony and Socratic paradox (Apollo is the god of truth and wisdom).

Background: The Three Principles of Philosophy

Why do we discuss Socrates and Apollo's oracle again and again? Because it is that important. Philosophy is made possible by three principles: (1) a verifiable distinction between sense and nonsense in language, (2) a verifiable distinction between knowing and not knowing in philosophy, and (3) love, for philosophy is the love of wisdom. Love drives one to thoroughness, to thinking things all the way through, to complete truthfulness.

For what and by what does the philosopher live? For wisdom alone: the philosopher is a lover of wisdom, not of life's goods, not of flute-girls and music, or of anything else.

Socrates' method: to first question himself before questioning his companions

What does Socrates mean when he says 'I know that I don't know'? That he has set a test for deciding whether or not he knows a thing: to know something is to be able to explain and defend what you know in discussion. "And that which we know we must be able to tell others" (Plato, Laches 190c).

And when Socrates puts what he thinks he knows to the test, he is refuted by that test. And that is why he knows that he doesn't know. That is why he can say "I know only my own ignorance" (Diog. L. ii, 32).

There are two reasons why Socrates is able to use his method of enquiry so well. The first is that before Socrates asks others to explain, Socrates has already asked Socrates to explain: Try to make clear to yourself, as if you were trying to make yourself clear to someone else, what you think you know (Philosophy is reasoned speech).

The second reason is that Socrates' method requires that Socrates be clear about what he is seeking. When Socrates asks himself and his companions to define an ethical term, e.g. justice or piety, it is the essence of the thing the term names that he is seeking.

Socratic ignorance in contrast to conceited or presumptuous ignorance

Obeying the Delphic precept Know thyself begins with examining the condition of your own mind (Epictetus), to see whether you are wise or merely think you know things that you don't know (Apology 28e, 38a).

In the Sophist, Plato contrasts "conceited ignorance" with Socratic ignorance. Conceited ignorance may also be called "foolish" or "presumptuous" ignorance, because the man who thinks he is wise when he is not -- i.e. who thinks he knows what he doesn't know -- is both foolish in how he lives his life and presumptuous in philosophical discussion.

Socratic Skepticism

Query: skeptical method. Socrates.

Not skepticism as the end in itself, but only doubt used as a tool for discovering the truth. To question everything is Socrates' method in philosophy: (1) to ask his companion to explain to him what he thinks he knows; (2) to cross-question that explanation to see whether it hides a contradiction or is unclear in meaning; (3) if the explanation isn't clear or true, to offer an amended explanation; (4) to cross-question that explanation; and so on until: (5a) agreement is reached or (5b) -- if all explanations ("accounts of what they think they know") have been refuted -- the discussion is set aside to be taken up another day.

That is the method called "dialectic" or "dialog". It uses step by step agreement between discussants, and it contrasts with the "method" of those who "[pursue their] own argument to the conclusion without caring about whether we follow what they say or get left behind" (Sophist 243b, tr. Cornford). Socrates used the dialectical method to seek knowledge in ethics (in Plato's words, "the discussion of no small matter, but how to live").

"Learned ignorance"

Query: Socrates' idea on the ignorance of the philosopher.

Maybe "learned ignorance" is the answer sought by the query, but that was not Socrates' ideal and it was not what he sought from philosophy, which was wisdom. When Plato's Socrates began his philosophical inquiries he already knew that he was not wise, that he did not know "anything of much importance". That is why he was perplexed when Apollo's oracle said that no man is wiser than Socrates.

But if no man is wiser than the man who knows he is without wisdom, it seems to follow that "learned ignorance" is the only wisdom that man can have. Nonetheless, Plato's Socrates is not resigned to his ignorance -- in the Euthyphro (15c) he says that he will never give up seeking wisdom, no matter how long his love of wisdom may go unrequited.

In contrast, according to Xenophon Socrates is not without wisdom, having knowledge of things that man can and should know if he seeks to know himself. Indeed Plato uses the word 'wise' equivocally.

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) wrote a work called De docta ignorantia ("Learned or instructed ignorance"), by which he meant the recognition of not knowing that comes after seeking to know and discovering man's limits. (Copleston, History III, XV, 4)

Søren Kierkegaard

The expression 'Socratic ignorance' Kierkegaard applies to the search for understanding when "the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood. This is Socratic ignorance." And so by 'philosophical' or 'learned ignorance', he means 'the awareness that you don't know and, it seems, will never know our life's meaning by the natural light of reason alone'.

But although there may be things that man is never going to understand ("my thoughts are as high above your thoughts as the heavens are above the earth," the prophet has God say), philosophy seeks to fully emerge from irrationality, not to plunge back into it by seeing "learned ignorance" (mysticism) as its final aim. Socratic philosophy is the love of wisdom (knowledge and understanding), not the love of mystery.

What is not meant by 'Socratic ignorance' is a skeptical indifference: "I don't know these things. Surely no one has ever known these things. So why should I trouble myself about them."

But the philosopher seeks to know

"I am a lover of learning," Plato has Socrates say in Phaedrus 230d, and this is the earliest meaning of the word 'philosopher', not one who is wise (sophist) but one who seeks to be wise, a "lover of philosophical knowledge" or "wisdom" (philosopher).

Note that Socratic ignorance is not only seeing that you don't know something, but also either why you don't know it or why neither you nor anyone else can know it, for there are statements that are true or false (2), but there are also statements that are nonsense (1).

Things cross-questioned in discussion (Subjects for dialog)

The questions Socrates asked his companions -- the topics he discussed -- were the very questions he asked himself: the questions of ethics: of what the good is for man and how he should live his life (Plato, Republic 344e, 352d). Socrates reasons in Plato's Apology that through the oracle's words Apollo had assigned him --

the duty of leading the philosophical life, examining myself and others. (28e)

To obey the Delphic precept "Know thyself", the question What is the specific excellence that is proper and unique to man? or, in other words, What is man's distinctive nature? was examined, because it was the Greek view that the good for a thing -- including man -- is existence in agreement with its own nature. Socrates answer to that question was: rational moral virtue, because man is uniquely endowed both with reason and with awareness of good and evil. And therefore further questions about moral virtue were examined: What is piety (one's duty to God)? What is justice (one's duty to men)? What is courage or bravery? What is self-control or temperance? What is wisdom (for the Greeks counted wisdom among the five cardinal moral virtues [W.K.C. Guthrie, Plato: the man and his dialogues: earlier period (1975), p. 69])?

Of course the question What is reason (or logic)? was also examined.

Socrates' criterion for knowing (The standard he set for philosophy)

How can claims to knowledge be put to the test? Socrates set this criterion or standard: "If someone knows a thing, he can explain what he knows to others" (Xenophon, Memorabilia iv, 6, 1). In Plato's dialogs this explanation takes the form of a defining common quality: "Tell me," Socrates asks Euthyphro, "what is the quality in which holy things do not differ, but are all alike?" The proposed definition must stand up to Socrates' cross-questioning: Is the definition contrary to reason (i.e. self-contradictory or unclear in meaning) or do counter-examples show that it contradicts verifiable experience? The definition is explained and put to the test.

Every explanation I can give myself, I can give you too. And when I do this, I do not tell you less than I know myself. (PI §§ 210, 208)

That is the motto of this site. And whenever we cross-question our claim to know by trying to explain what we think we know to ourselves or to our companions, that is Socratic philosophizing.

Euthyphro's definition "Holiness is what is pleasing to the gods" is refuted by pointing out that the gods -- if the gods are as in the myths, which is what Euthyphro imagines them to be -- are not all pleased by the same things; and that therefore whatever the defining common quality of holiness is, (if there is such a quality), "pleasing to the gods" is not that quality.

"And that which we know we must surely be able to tell?" (Plato, Laches 190c, tr. Jowett: to 'know' = to be 'able to tell', i.e. 'to put into words'). That is the meaning of 'know' Socrates chose for philosophy, to make philosophy objective, that if a man knows anything, he can explain what he knows to others. And if he cannot explain and defend what he claims to know, then he does not know it.

Two Socratic methods

Query: questioning and answering to arrive at the truth is called what?

It is called "the Socratic method", the method in philosophy of question and answer and cross-question: (1) someone offers or is asked to give an account of what they know, and (2) then their account is either agreed to or refuted. The subject for Socrates' questioning was ethics, and his method of refutation was discovering contradictions or unclarity.

Refutation is reasoning involving the contradictory of the given conclusion. (Soph. el. 165a, tr. W.A. Pickard-Cambridge)

Query: Socratic method of Know thyself.

Here there is suggested another Socratic method -- i.e. not the method of question-and-answer as such -- but the method of Socratic ethics: Know thyself in order to know the excellence that is proper to man, and therefore what the good for man is, and therefore how man should live his life.

Wisdom and the Poets

Besides statesmen (politicians) and artisans (craftsmen), Socrates questioned poets (Apology 22a-c) to see if they were not wiser than Socrates, because men everywhere cite the poets as bearers of wisdom. But Socrates found that the poets spoke as if inspired by a wisdom that the poets themselves did not have, because the meaning of their words was not clear to the poets who spoke them. The poets were not wise if judged by the standard Socrates set, because they could not explain what they thought they knew to others.

This accords with Socrates' rejection of authority as a guarantor of truth -- for it is as authorities that men invoke the words of poets (statesmen, the famous and gods) -- as the standard of truth in philosophy.

In Republic 331e Plato says: "It is not easy to disbelieve Simonides. For he is a wise and inspired man", but nonetheless we must put the poet's words to the test in discussion -- we must examine them to discover by which meaning they are true, by which false.

The poets do not present arguments; they speak in aphorisms, as e.g. "Justice is giving to each his due". What does it mean?

How can the oracle, who is not a god and therefore not wise (Phaedrus 278c-d), speak the words of the god Apollo who is wise? If Chaerephon had asked the oracle to explain the meaning of Apollo's words, could the oracle have done so? Plato may think it is the same with the poets, that the gods speak through the poets, and the poets' hearers have to figure out their words' meaning, just as with the oracle's words.

What do Simonides' words "Justice is giving to each his due" mean if they are true, that justice is to benefit one's friends and harm one's enemies -- is that giving to each his due? Plato refutes that interpretation of the poet's words, because the good man harms no one, but instead seeks to benefit his friends and enemies alike.

But because Plato does not question Simonides directly, we don't know whether the poet knows the meaning that would make the poet's words true. (In the Apology there is only Plato's general statement about poets, without examples.)

Edith Hamilton makes an analogy between Dionysus, the god of wine, and the poets and playwrights, as the effect of inspiration, of being possessed by the god, as wine takes possession of man. (Mythology (1942), ii, p. 72-74)

Socratic Wisdom

Query: paradoxical aspect of Socratic wisdom.

The paradox, according to Plato's Apology 23a-b, is that to be wise is to know that you are not wise.

And so Socratic ignorance is also Socratic wisdom, because according to Plato's interpretation of the oracle's words, to distinguish what you know from what you don't know, and thus see that you are not wise, is the only wisdom man can have. Thus the paradoxical form of expression "I know only that I know nothing". Its meaning is "I know only that I am not wise", because knowing how we should live our life and knowing the answers to the eternal questions, we would call wisdom, whereas knowing your own name we would not, and Socrates does of course know his own name (but only as all human beings know such things).

Query: what does man know about himself? Socrates.

In the view of the ancient Greeks, the good for a thing is existence in accord with the specific excellence that is proper to that thing (or, in other words, defining of its nature). And therefore if man knows what the excellence for man is, he knows what the good is for man and therefore how he should live his life.

In Socrates' view, the good for man is the life of thoroughgoing reason, or, in other words, of philosophy, because reason is the distinctive excellence proper and unique to man. In the words of Albert Schweitzer: "Reason is given us that we may bring everything within the range of its action."

The concept 'rational moral virtue' is dependent on the proposition that moral virtue is knowledge, because to act with reason (rationally) is to act on the basis of knowledge (i.e. verifiable evidence and valid argument, in contrast to opinion and impulse, i.e. ignorance).

But does Socrates -- does any man -- have knowledge of virtue, e.g. of what piety is, of what justice is, and so on? But then can man live a good life, a rationally virtuous life?

Query: does Socrates agree that no one is wiser than he is?

Only after he has questioned men who think themselves wise but whose answers prove that they are not (The conclusion comes at the end, not at the beginning, of an investigation). Although even after agreement, Socrates continues to test his inductively reached conclusion (thesis), because were he to find even one man who was wise this would prove that Socrates' solution to the riddle was false.

Induction and Imagination

Any positive result (induced conclusion) is more of less (when seeking examples the imagination may run dry) a working-hypothesis. Further, any result must be "interpreted" -- looked at in a selected way, given a particular reading (meaning).

The Socratic philosophy is based on both experience and reason. Reason in this case is creative imagination: what does the god mean? For Apollo's words might be given various meanings which would be consistent with reason and experience.

Socrates as Everyman

What is the interpretation of this riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can [Apollo] mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? (Apology 21b, tr. Jowett)

I do not think that [Apollo] meant that Socrates was wise. He only made use of my name, and ... took me as an example, as though he would say to men, "He among you is wisest who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is really worth nothing at all." (ibid. 23a-b, tr. Church rev. Cumming)

[When Apollo says] 'this man, Socrates', he is using my name as an example, as if he said, 'This man among you ... is wisest who ... understands that his wisdom is [of no worth].' (tr. Grube)

... he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration ... (tr. Jowett)

And if no man is wise, then of course no man is wiser. But the wisest of men -- and not only Socrates -- knows that he is not wise. And knowing that, paradoxically, is Socratic wisdom.

Query: Socrates. I am wiser, but not wise.

I am wiser than someone who thinks he is wise when he is not, because I don't think that I am wise when I am not (Plato, Apology 21d).

I am wise in this respect, that it is wisdom not to think you are wise when you are not in any other respect wise.

Query: Socrates. Paradox of wisdom: the wise man knows that he does not know.

To know that you don't know something is to know something; it is not to know nothing. To know that you have no wisdom is not to be without wisdom. By 'paradox' we mean a contradiction that is not nonsense.

It is wise not to think yourself wise when you are not wise. That the only wisdom for man is to know that he is without wisdom is the paradox of Plato's Apology 21b.

Wisdom and Socrates in Plato and in Xenophon contrasted

In Plato to 'know' in ethics means to: be able to state the common nature definition of a common name such as 'piety or 'justice', a definition which can serve as an absolute guide wherever acts of that moral virtue are called for. And in Plato's dialogs Socrates is unable to do this. And therefore to that extent Socrates is not wise.

In contrast, in Xenophon's account of Socrates, Socrates is able to defend what he thinks he knows to others, e.g. he proves that the proposition "The good is the relatively useful or excellent or beneficial" is true by showing that its negation is self-contradictory, and he proves that virtue is knowledge of the good. And therefore to that extent Socrates is wise.

"I know many things, but nothing of much importance"

And so this is important: Socrates in Plato's Apology (21d) doesn't say that he knows nothing -- but only that he knows nothing "worth knowing". (In Plato's Euthydemus, Socrates says, "I know many things, but not anything of much importance" (293b, tr. Jowett).)

Knowing e.g. your own name doesn't tell you how man ought to live his life; and knowing how to live our life is something "worth knowing", indeed the most important thing -- and one it seems possible for man to know (for there are other important things it does not seem possible for man to know).

Rational Moral Virtue

And Socrates does think he knows how man should live, namely in accord with the specific excellence that is proper to man's nature, which Socrates identifies as reason and moral nobility. "Does it stand to the tests of thoroughgoing reason and experience?" and "What must the good man do?" are the standards by which Socrates himself lives (and encourages his companions to live), pursuing virtue and philosophy, caring above all else for his ethical self ("soul") before his body and wealth (Plato, Apology 30a-b).

Know thyself and Reason

I must begin with the presumption that man is a being endowed with reason. Nothing is possible prior to that; I can't give it a foundation. (Cf. PG i § 81, p. 126-127)

How can man identify the excellence that is proper to his nature? Socrates thinks man can use reason to find his way to the answer. Because man has language and logic he can make confused thoughts clear and distinguish truth from falsity by the method of question and answer. Philosophy is discussion ("discourse of reason").

Because man is endowed with reason, Socrates thinks that for man "the unexamined life" is not worthy of being lived (Plato, Apology 37e-38a). Such a life would show that man does not know his own nature, namely that he is rational.

"I must begin ..." Why? Because the soundness of reason can only tested by reason: we must assume the soundness of the very thing we seek to test the soundness of. A ruler can't be used to measure itself.

It is possible, Socrates thinks, for man to obey the Delphic precept "Know thyself" to this extent at least. But what further does Plato mean by 'things worth knowing'?

What are other important things to know?

It would be "worth knowing" what death is, whether an afterlife or a sleep without dreams; and where the limit of reality lies, whether in sense perception or in the suprasensible; as would knowing how to teach philosophy and moral virtue.

And it would be "worth knowing" what the wise man would know, namely "how to deal aright both with gods and with men" Laches 199d-e). For although Socrates knows in general how to live our life -- namely as the philosopher or lover of the true and the good, i.e. of wisdom, does -- Plato wants more than general knowledge, and that is why he has Socrates seek a universal standard of judgment in ethics, one that is as objective as a measurement of length or weight or a calculation in arithmetic: he is trying to find the key to turn ignorance into wisdom in every puzzling set of circumstances. That would indeed be something "worth knowing".

Further worth knowing would be the answers to the questions of our life's meaning that the Greek playwrights asked. Socrates is without wisdom in that sense of 'wisdom' as well.

But Plato uses the word 'wisdom', meaning 'knowledge of important things', equivocally, because metaphysical wisdom (i.e. knowing the answers to the eternal questions) is not the only philosophical wisdom man can have, as Socrates' pursuit of Know thyself shows.

Socratic self-knowledge (humility)

In Theaetetus 210d, Plato says that questioning and thereby helping others to think clearly is all that Socrates' art can accomplish. "I can go no further," he says. And if there is an afterlife even there Socrates intends to "question all to see who is wise and who only thinks he is but is not" (Apology 43b). Wisdom is from "everlasting to eternity".

Query: the philosopher who believed in saying, "I do not know."

In Plato's Phaedrus 235c, Socrates says that he "knows only he own ignorance". In Diogenes Laertius ii, 32 it says of Socrates that: "He used to say that he knew nothing except just the fact of his own ignorance."

How to distinguish knowledge from conceit is something important to know

But in order to know that Socrates must have a method for distinguishing what he knows -- from what he may only presume he knows but does not. His method is to cross-question the "explanation we can give to others" (Memorabilia iv, 6, 1), the "telling of that which we know" (Laches 190c) -- testing whether that "telling" can be refuted (1) by reason (a) by showing that it is unclear in meaning, or (b) by showing that there is a contradiction inherent in it, or (2) by pointing out that it is contrary to experience.

Reason and experience, not reason alone

Query: why was Socrates trying to refute the oracle?

Note that here the Socratic test is experience rather than reason. The oracle's words seem to contradict the facts of experience, namely that Socrates is without wisdom (Apology 21c), that is, until Socrates questions many reputed and self-professed wise men and discovers that they too are without wisdom. Socrates had reasoned that if he could find someone wiser than he was, then the oracle's claim that no man is wiser than Socrates would be refuted by experience.

Arguments that are hypotheses

Upon hearing the oracle's statement that no man is wiser than Socrates, Socrates had argued that: "Socrates is not wise; but there are wise men; therefore some man is wiser than Socrates." But after Socrates' examination of other men, the argument became: "Socrates is not wise; but no man is wise; therefore no man is wiser than Socrates." The premises of those arguments had to be confirmed or refuted by experience. Socrates treated the question of what the true meaning of the oracle's words was as an hypothesis. (Apology 21a-d)

Query: Socrates' logical requirement.

Logic is only half the Socratic requirement. The argument mustn't be contrary to reason -- but it also mustn't be contrary to experience. Reasoning must be valid (clear and not self-contradictory in meaning), experience verifiable.

Plato's Equivocal use of the word 'wisdom'

Query: Socratic ignorance and the claim that virtue is knowledge.

Can these three propositions all be true: (1) Socrates is without wisdom (Apology, Phaedrus), (2) Moral virtue is wisdom (knowledge of the good) (This is why Socrates questions Euthyphro), and (3) Socrates is a morally virtuous man? Because Socrates cannot be a virtuous without knowing what the good is for man -- and yet that knowledge is wisdom. Plato's account of Socrates and the oracle's meaning causes this fundamental contradiction.

Why wouldn't the meaning of the oracle's words be instead: Socrates knows how man should live his life (i.e. in accord with the excellence that is proper and unique to man, namely reason or rational moral virtue) and that is the only wisdom -- i.e. in contrast to metaphysical wisdom (knowledge of what death is, whether the limit of sense perception is the limit of reality, as well as the other questions without answers) -- that any man can have; and this is why no man is wiser than Socrates.

Doesn't Socrates know how to live, and isn't that knowledge wisdom? Or can someone be virtuous in ignorance? Plato seems to think that is possible (Meno 87c-89a), that knowledge (wisdom) isn't needed, but only a correct opinion is needed to live a virtuous life. Which is absurd because the only one who can know whether the opinion is correct -- i.e. true -- is someone with knowledge, but knowledge which Plato says no one has.

What is the source of Plato's conclusion about the meaning of the oracle's words? Maybe Plato's equivocal use of the word 'wisdom'. For on the one hand he says that wisdom is (1) knowledge of how to live and knowledge of logic (a method for distinguishing knowing from not knowing, and therefore not thinking one knows what one doesn't know); but on the other hand Plato says that wisdom is (2) knowledge of the Absolutes, e.g. the essence of piety, and the essence of justice, and so on. Socrates has no knowledge of the Absolutes or answers to the other metaphysical questions -- but on the other hand his knowledge of ethics and logic is not "worth nothing".

Knowledge and Socratic dialog

And so Socrates' ignorance is not complete ignorance. But, on the other hand, what can stand today to the tests of dialectic can fall or be revised tomorrow by those same tests. In Plato's dialog, Protagoras characterizes even the results of dialectic as "mere assumptions" (Protagoras 360e), assumptions for further cross-questioning later.

After holding discourse with himself, cross-questioning a thought he has had, Socrates says about his own wisdom that it "is of a very mean and questionable sort, no better than a dream" (Symposium 175e, tr. Jowett), "a shadowy thing at best, as equivocal as a dream" (tr. Joyce). (Socrates may be speaking with respect to knowledge of the Absolutes, which in Plato's Heraclitean view is the only true knowledge. The Platonic Socrates never claims to know the essences of the moral virtues.)

Dialectic may be more effective for showing up unclarity and refuting falsehood than for establishing truth.

The words 'sophia' and 'wisdom'

There are differences in meaning between the Greek word 'sophia' and the English word 'wisdom', just as there are between the Greek word 'logos' and the English word 'logic'.

In the broad way the word 'wisdom' is used in Plato's Apology, it may seem that 'wisdom' = 'knowledge'. But it becomes clear that the knowledge Socrates is seeking is knowledge in ethics ("the way to live a life of good"), which is the knowledge we call wisdom. The artisans have knowledge of their crafts, which in the Apology is called wisdom (ibid. 21d-e), but that knowledge is not the knowledge Socrates is seeking to examine (put to the test in discussion) to see who is wise and who is not.

A contradiction neither nonsense nor false (Paradox)

As to the proposition 'I know only that I know nothing', note that this paradox is an example of a contradiction that is neither nonsense nor necessarily false, because, despite its form, it is a combination of words that has a use in our language (PI § 560) that can be described. On the other hand, it may be wise to avoid using paradoxical forms of expression in philosophy, a subject in which language sets enough traps for us (ibid. § 109) without our setting our own to be caught in.

"The unexamined life"

Query: the philosopher who believed that people should constantly question everything.

Both in Plato (Apology 37e-38a) and in Xenophon (Memorabilia iv, 6, 1) Socrates says that we should question constantly. Plato compares Socrates to a horsefly that wakes the sleeper up (Apology 30e-31a), because if we does not ask philosophical questions about our life we are like sleepers, dreaming our way through life. There is no philosophy in the land of the lotus eaters, and from philosophy's point of view, man is not there either, but only a caricature of man, "the sleepwalker", man living in discord with the excellence that is proper to human nature and unique to man.

There are higher things

There is also here something that is never explicitly said, that there are higher things for man to concern himself with (Ad majora nati sumus), that the man who neglects philosophy and virtue but preoccupies himself with lower things, the body, wealth and its pleasures (ibid. 30a-b), cuts himself off from what is noble and fine in man, the thirst for wisdom, moral virtue and understanding of himself and existence.

... I tell you that no greater good can happen to a man than to discuss human excellence every day and the other matters about which you have heard me arguing and examining myself and others, and that an unexamined life is not worth living ... (ibid. 37e-38a, tr. Church, rev. Cumming)

... to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects [Memorabilia i, 1, 16] about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing that a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living ... (tr. Tredennick)

The "unexamined life" is the life lived in negligence of the exhortation "Know thyself". In this context, 'I know that I am without wisdom' = 'I have learned through examination that I am without wisdom'.

If Socrates knew that he was without wisdom it was because he had examined himself alone and with his companions -- and after the oracle's words, he had questioned anyone who claimed to be or was said to be wise -- and nowhere either in himself or in others had he found the wisdom he was seeking.

"In the likeness of the gods"

The thirst for what is higher, the good, the morally noble, and true, is proper and unique to man. In this Socrates was most like the gods (rather than in Xenophon's sense (Memorabilia i, 6, 10) of having the fewest needs). When asked if he was preparing for his defense before his trial, Socrates replied: "Do you think that I have not been preparing for it all my life?" (ibid. iv, 8, 4) How? By living for what is higher.

Is man's wisdom really worth nothing?

If the wisest man's wisdom is in truth worthless (Apology 23b), then why seek to have what is worthless? If it is impossible to be wise, then isn't the unexamined life worthy of a human being -- because it is the only possible life for man, thus making that life the way of life that is proper to human nature?

But, on the other hand, even if it is not possible for man to be wise in metaphysics, to know an ultimate meaning of existence, aren't the eternal questions nevertheless worth asking -- indeed, isn't asking those questions the very life that is worth living, the life that is both proper and unique to man's nature?

How much would already be accomplished if only we would all give up three minutes every evening to gazing up into the infinite world of the starry heavens and meditating on it, if we would reflect on the enigma of life and death, on existence and dissolution, and thus learnt to distinguish between true and false standards ... Mere reflection about the meaning of life has already value ... (A. Schweitzer, The Decay and Restoration of Civilization v, tr. Campion)

Which way of life is worthy of man, a being endowed with reason -- the examined or unexamined life? Is either way contrary to reason (unclear or self-contradictory)?

Which way of life is beneficial or the good for man? Not being misled or misleading others through conceited ignorance is not worthless, and an unexamined life is bound to be a conceited life. Silenced thought is a hiding place, cloak or refuge for ignorance and conceit (pace the TLP).

Further, Socratic logic, a way to distinguish knowing from not knowing, is certainly not worthless (any more than a way to distinguish sense from nonsense in language is).

Finally, of course the only way to know whether an examined or an unexamined life is the good for man is through examination: only reason can test the limits of reason and determine whether the rational (examined) or the irrational (unexamined) life is the good for man. Anything else is childish.

Ethics, Socrates, the examined life

In a fairly ancient account of philosophy, Ethics is that part of Philosophy that is "concerned with life and all that has to do with us" (Diog. L. i, 18, the other two parts being "Physics" (metaphysics) and Logic ("dialectic")). In its historical development, it was Socrates "who introduced ethics" as a subject into philosophy (ibid. i, 14), which Plato called "no small matter, but how to live" (Republic 344d-e).

... Socrates used to say that we should never lead a life not subjected to examination. (Epictetus, Discourses i, 26, tr. Crossley)

Socrates first identified rational moral virtue as the specific excellence that is unique and proper to man, and therefore the pursuit of philosophy and moral virtue as the good for man. It is Socrates who stands for thoroughgoing reason (rationality) in our life against the flights of irrationality of later philosophers such as Kant and Wittgenstein.

Philosophy, Socratic ignorance, the examined life

Query: the importance of Socratic ignorance to philosophy.

Asking that is like asking what the importance of philosophy to philosophy is. The foundation of philosophy, its spirit and its essence, is the distinction between what I know and what I (only) think I know (but do not). Philosophy is a search for knowledge (truth, understanding) and not self-delusion (thinking you know what you don't know, that you are wise when you are not).

Query: What does the unexamined life mean?

The life of anyone who does not think for himself about all the things we have been discussing as "Socratic ignorance", one who obeys instinct and habit and without thinking accepts tradition or modern authority. It is the life that has not awakened to philosophical questions and directed reason towards their solution.

Thinking oneself wise, thinking that one knows how to live, what the good is for man -- without examining whether one is or is not in fact wise is "the unexamined life", the life lived in indifference to the Delphic inscription "Know thyself".

Query: Know thyself, Xenophon, Memorabilia iv, 2, 24

"Know Thyself"

[24] Hereupon Socrates exclaimed: "Tell me, Euthydemus, have you ever been to Delphi?"

"Yes, certainly; twice."

"Then did you notice somewhere on the temple the inscription 'Know Thyself'?"

"I did."

"And did you pay no heed to the inscription, or did you attend to it and try to consider who you were?"

"Indeed I did not; because I felt sure that I knew that already; for I could hardly know anything else if I did not even know myself."

The two parts of "Know thyself"

[25] "And what do you suppose a man must know to know himself, his own name merely? Or must he consider what sort of creature he is ..." (Tr. E.C. Marchant)

Here I should stop to think about this question for myself: What must man know to know himself -- what does 'to know oneself' mean? (Xenophon continues Socrates' dialog.) There are two parts to "Know thyself": (1) to know what the nature of man as man is, and therefore what the distinctive excellence proper and unique to man is. And (2) to know your own nature as an individual human being -- i.e. to know your own limits (Memorabilia iv, 2, 26), neither over- nor under-estimating your abilities ("Nothing too much" in either direction was the Delphic precept).

These two parts when taken together show each of us how we should live our life.

[Notes. One limit to Know thyself is shown by Socrates' questioning of Euthyphro, if moral virtue is knowledge, that is. | Cf. "Know thyself" in Plato's Philebus 48a-49a. What is the opposite of the inscription at Delphi?]

Seeing that one doesn't know is knowing oneself

Query: I was a little wiser than that man because I did not think myself wise.

When Socrates says, "Although neither of us is wise, I am a bit better off than that fellow who thinks he is wise when he is not, because I don't think I am wise when I am not," he could have said: Because I do not imagine myself to be what I am not -- namely, wise. That is, I "know myself" a bit more than that fellow does because I don't think I know what I don't know. (This is self-knowledge. The man who does not know himself is a stranger to himself.)

The first and last step of "Know thyself" is "to know the state of your own mind" (Epictetus, Discourses i, 26) -- that is, to know whether you think you are wise when you are not, to know whether you think you know what you don't know.

If a man would pursue Philosophy, his first task is to throw away [the] conceit ... that he already knows. (ibid. ii, 17)

[Plato questions whether the proposition 'Knowing what you know and what you do not know is the same as knowing yourself' is clear in meaning (Charmides 170a), because if it is not, then neither can it be known whether it is true or false.]

Throwing away conceit

The fear of death is only an instance of thinking oneself wise when one is not; for it is to think one knows what one does not know. (Plato, Apology 29a, tr. Guthrie)

Confess thine ignorance. (Thomas à Kempis, 1380-1471)

The Medieval text says that is difficult, because it means breaking down your own hubris or pride that is vanity rather than self-respect. Because it is that hubris, the conceited presumption, that thinks itself wise, that thinks it knows, although it is not wise and does not know. For that Christian author -- as indeed for Socrates himself -- humility is self-knowledge (not thinking you are what you are not).

Nothing is more difficult for a man of false pride than to confess his ignorance, to confess its fundamentalness even to himself, because that is to descend into a childlike state of wonder, and of feeling lost before the mystery that is existence.

What does Socrates investigate and why?

Query: What does Socrates mean "Know thyself"?

That is a question Socrates examined all his life. "I investigate not these things but myself, to know whether I am a monster more complicated and more furious than Typhon or a gentler and simpler creature" (Phaedrus 230a; quoted by Rhees in Recollections p. 175). Asking "What is the good for a being of my nature?" is one meaning of "Know thyself".

In our context "these things" would be an allusion, broadly, to metaphysics [although Plato is talking about a skeptic working to replace mythological explanations with plausible natural explanations ("naturalizing miracles")], about which Socrates says, "I want to know not about this, but about myself" (tr. Jowett).

Typhon

... a terrible monster with a hundred serpents' heads, fiery eyes, and a tremendous voice, whom Zeus attacked with thunderbolts, set on fire, and flung into Tartarus ... [Also Typhoeus]. (Paul Harvey, Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (1937))

Typhoeus was the child of Earth and Tartarus, "a dark and horrible region" as far below the earth as the heavens are above the earth, a sealed vault from which there is no escape either for gods or for men. (Theogony c. lines 720-733, tr. with notes M.L. West)

What manner of man is Socrates?

And so in order to "Know thyself", Socrates asks whether he is "a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than [Typhoeus], or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort [with] a diviner and lowlier destiny" (tr. Jowett). That is hyperbole, of course, but Socrates must ask himself both what manner of creature man is, and what manner of man Socrates is, if he is to respond to the Delphian command.

And, possibly, if it were a thing obvious and easy for every man to know himself, the precept had not passed for an oracle. (Plutarch, Life of Demosthenes, Dryden's tr., rev. Clough)

And maybe if I truly knew myself, that is, my own limitations, I would not presume to write about philosophy, because it often seems to me that when I revise what I have written, I only replace one stupid remark with another.

It is as difficult to know oneself as it is to see one's own nose.

'Reason is the excellence proper to man'

As in geometry, don't try to prove the truth of your thesis; try to prove the truth of the negation of your thesis. (If not-p, then q; but not-q. Therefore p.)

The answer to the question of whether there is (or is not) a particular excellence that is proper to man (and if so, what that excellence is) is, as is all Socratic philosophy, an answer that must stand to the tests of thoroughgoing reason and experience or be refuted by those tests; and to presume that one knows the answer to that question without such testing is "conceited ignorance", the foolishness Socrates most did not want (Apology 22d-e).

Socrates and areté

The following is from W.K.C. Guthrie's A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume 3, Part 1, "The World of the Sophists" [later reprinted separately as The Sophists (1971)].

In the Republic (353b ff.) Socrates claims that there is a proper areté belonging to whatever has a particular function or job to perform, namely the condition in which it will be best able to perform that function [cf. Guthrie, iii ("Socrates"), p. 442: distinctive function: the work a thing is designed to perform] .... the psyche ["the aspect of mind concerned with ethics or the conduct of life"] of man also has its function, namely ... in general to ensure a life lived to the best of human capacity ... [That is the psyche's] own areté ... (Guthrie, iii, p. 252-3)

Note that as Guthrie explains the meaning of areté, the distinctive excellence proper to man is not reason, but sound reason, just as, I imagine, the excellence proper to a knife is not having an edge, but having a sharp edge. (On the other hand, an unreasonable person is not demonstrating a kind of reason; unsound reasoning = illogical reasoning is unreason.)

[The Greek word areté is usually translated by the English word 'virtue', but the Greek word does not necessarily have] the moral implications usually attached to 'virtue'.... At [Republic] 353a-b Socrates speaks of the areté of eyes and ears: even a knife has it if it is well designed and sharp. (Guthrie, iii, p. 90n1) [Comment: a dung basket is also "beautiful" -- i.e. has the excellence that is proper to a dung basket -- if it is fit for the purpose of collecting and carrying dung (Xenophon, Memorabilia iii, 8, 4-7).]

The concept areté broadened to include Moral excellence

... it was Socrates who enlarged the meaning of areté from talent or proficiency in a particular art or function to something like virtue in our sense [i.e. not only natural, but also moral areté], the prerequisite of a good human life.

The absolute use of the word had always existed ... to stand for what its users thought was human excellence in general.... Used thus it was liable to "persuasive definitions" by reforming spirits who claimed that excellence "really" consisted in this or that, as when Heraclitus (fr. 112) declared that "the greatest areté is self-control". The general use is seen in the title of a work of Democritus "On Areté or Manly Virtue" [Diog. L. ix, 46]. (Guthrie, iii, p. 253)

The grammar of 'excellence'

0

Guthrie seems to me mistaken, however, when he writes that the word 'excellence' or 'human excellence' is subject to "persuasive definition" -- because the very grammar [In Wittgenstein's jargon, "any description of the use of language" is "grammar", and thus the concept 'grammar' is explicitly broadened to include rules, to the extent that there are rules, of language meaning as well as of syntax] of the word 'excellence' allows us to argue that human excellence is one thing rather than another. It does not break with our normal use of the word 'excellence' -- and therefore it is not a persuasive definition -- if a philosopher states reasons why "Human excellence is not A, but is instead B" -- even if what he says human excellence is, is different from what the philosophers who have gone before him have said.

If a philosopher says that one thing rather than another is the distinctive excellence proper to man, he is not redefining the word 'excellence', for he is not saying "The meaning of the word 'excellence' is to be this rather than that" -- any more than a philosopher who says "This way rather than that way is the way we should live our life" is redefining the combination of words 'how we should live our life'.

Note that Heraclitus and the Socrates of Xenophon seem to have the same view: that the excellence proper to man is self-control, because self-control is what allows man to live the life that is best for him. But self-control without wisdom (or "justice or righteousness" (Guthrie, iii, p. 253; Plato, Republic 335c)) -- i.e. without knowing man's function or purpose -- may merely allow man to live a bad life.

And this, I think, may be why Charmides wants to equate wisdom (knowledge in ethics) with self-control, because if moral virtue is knowledge, then self-control, if it is a moral, and not only a natural, virtue, is knowledge.

[But if self-control is knowledge, then "self-control" seems superfluous -- because if anyone knows what is good he will do what is good; it would be contrary to nature to do otherwise. Self-control is superfluous only if self-control is pictured as an "act of willing to do what one is disinclined to do" (which is why knowledge makes "self-control" superfluous). Choosing to do what is good is not an act of self-control, because knowledge is not an act of self-control. In this context the words 'temperance' and 'prudence' might be better than 'self-control'.]

"Demanding an essential definition of moral virtue (areté)"

The originality of Socrates did not lie in recognizing the general use [of the word areté], but in (a) the emphasis which he laid on it as a moral quality [i.e. moral virtue], rather than simply the prerequisite of success [cleverness], and (b) his attempt to give it a philosophical justification by demanding a universal definition. In his eyes [Comment: the eyes of Plato's Socrates] a general term was only valid if it corresponded to a single "form" [archetype, pattern, absolute] or reality whose "essence" could be defined in a single verbal formula.

When [Socrates] asks Meno to tell him "what areté is", Meno ... is puzzled when [Socrates] replies that he does not want a list of virtues but a statement of the essence [of] virtue [Meno 77a], which in his view must be common to them all to justify calling them by the one name. [This is] a lesson in elementary logic [for Meno] who genuinely does not understand the difference between enumerating a string of instances and drawing an inductive generalization from them. (Guthrie, iii, p. 253)

Ergon and areté

Cf. Republic 352e54a. Everything -- say a horse, an implement, a bodily organ -- has its particular function (ergon), defined as "what it alone can do, or can do better than anything else", which it performs by its own particular virtue (areté). (Guthrie, Aristotle (1981), p. 341n2; cf. Nicomachean Ethics 1177b35-1178a10, where Aristotle says that reason is the specific excellence proper to man [Comment: in contrast, for Socrates it is rational moral virtue].)

... for Socrates everything, from a horse to a knife, has its own ergon and therefore its own areté or distinctive excellence ... (Guthrie, Socrates (1971), p. 122n1)

Thus the good for a thing is its function, in contrast to its malfunction. (Everything functional is also dysfunctional.) Ethics, i.e. knowledge of good and evil, may direct man to do what is good, but also, if he is mistaken about what is good, it will direct him do what is evil rather than good. (Conceited ignorance is a dysfunction of wisdom.)

Socrates' Home - Philosophy Outdoors

Query: What did Socrates' home look like?

Fairly empty, although there was a bed to lie on (Protagoras 310c), and the shield, spear, sword and armor of a hoplite ("heavy-armed infantryman"), I think. From about the age of forty he had little money because he had no time for work apart from philosophizing, and his wife Xanthippe complained that she could offer very little to friends who came to visit; Socrates said that if they are our friends, they won't mind. (This story is told by Epictetus, and also in Diog. L. ii, 34.)

About the climate of Attica's neighbor Boeotia, Hesiod said about his village near Helicon, that it was "bad in winter, worse in summer; never good" (Works and Days, c. line 636). Nevertheless, the Athenians were able to live most of their life outdoors, and a homeless philosopher like Diogenes the Cynic was possible there.

[The word hoplite comes from 'hoplon' = 'shield' (N.G.L. Hammond, A History of Greece to 322 B.C. (2nd. ed. 1967), p. 110), which was round, weighed twenty pounds (C.E. Robinson Days of Alkibiades (3rd. ed. 1925), p. 65), and was supported by the left hand and forearm.]

Query: What did Socrates look like?

He is said by Plato to have resembled a satyr (Symposium 215a-b; cf. Xenophon, Symposium v, 7). The following account is from C.E. Robinson's books:

Born in 469, Socrates was a proletarian [an artisan rather than laborer, however], and an ugly one at that, with a stout stocky figure, large earnest bulging eyes, and a snub nose. He worked as a sculptor, married to a shrewish wife [cf. Diog. L. ii, 36-37]; and since he possessed no private means, it meant, as he said, "myriad poverty" [Plato, Apology 23b-c] when he came to devote himself entirely to the life-long mission of philosophic enquiry. (Zito Hellas (1946) [Hellas (1955), xi, 1, p. 135])

... pot bellied [presumably from advanced age, for "he himself never neglected the body, and reproved such neglect in others" (Xenophon, Memorabilia i, 2, 4)], bald headed, snub nosed, with bulging earnest eyes which he rolled from side to side as he walked [See Aristophanes' The Clouds 362, quoted in Diog. L. ii, 28; cf. Plato's Symposium 221a-b: during the Athenian army's retreat from Delium, "he was walking with the same 'lofty strut and sideways glance' that he goes about here in Athens" (tr. Joyce), "just as he is in the streets of Athens, stalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes" (tr. Jowett)].... Socrates was much ridiculed for swinging his arms in the air [when he was walking] for a bustling gait was thought vulgar ... (Everyday life in ancient Greece (1933), p. 146, 74)

In Xenophon's Symposium (v, 5) Socrates nonetheless argues that his eyes are more beautiful than those of his companion, because "while yours see only straight ahead, mine, by bulging out as they do, see also to the sides" (tr. Todd). [Note.--The the Greek word translated 'beautiful' is not always equivalent to the English word in meaning. Sometimes it does mean 'handsome' (which is not a word one would apply to Socrates), but it may also mean, as Socrates does here, 'admirable because useful' or 'fit for purpose and therefore worthy of admiration'. And that answers the query: "How can Socrates be both beautiful and ugly?" Because something can be outstandingly, even perfectly, suitable for its purpose without being pretty to look at.]

Vatican head of Socrates of type A, 14 KB

Image source: the cover of W.K.C. Guthrie's Socrates (Cambridge: 1971), which is based on a head of the philosopher commissioned shortly after his death by a repentant Athenian populace (p. 67n1).

"... a repentant Athenian populace." Or so the story is told some six hundred years later (Diog. L. ii, 43). But if Socrates' execution was delayed for a month by the annual sacred embassy to Delos, as according to Plato (Phaedo 59a-c) and Xenophon (Memorabilia iv, 8, 2) it was, then there had been time enough for the populace to have found some pretext to free him. But did the majority, the populace, ever change its mind about "the Sophist Socrates"? And so I wonder if that image is anything other than an "artist's conception"; indeed, it could be Silenus the satyr himself.

Head of Silenus, Gela Museo Archeologico, 470-460 B.C., 21 KB

Image source: M.I. Finley's The Ancient Greeks (Penguin: 1963), Plate 4c: terra-cotta head of Silenus from before 450 B.C.

Who was Socrates?

On the other hand, maybe the Athenians, even after Socrates was condemned to death and sent to the prison to await his execution, did not yet understand him, still did not know who he was. And they expected him to do what they thought most men would do, namely not to stay and be executed, but to run away, to escape into the safety of voluntary exile. In a word, maybe they did not yet know what manner of man he was, and they had not yet understood what it was that Socrates was trying to teach them: namely what philosophy is, and what a philosopher is.

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