True Knowledge Exists in Knowing That You Know Nothing.

Famous maxim by Socrates

"I know that I know nothing" is a saying derived from Plato's business relationship of the Greek philosopher Socrates. Socrates himself was never recorded every bit having said this phrase, and scholars by and large hold that Socrates only e'er asserted that he believed that he knew nothing, having never claimed that he knew that he knew naught. It is also sometimes called the Socratic paradox, although this name is often instead used to refer to other seemingly paradoxical claims made by Socrates in Plato'south dialogues (well-nigh notably, Socratic intellectualism and the Socratic fallacy).^[1]

This saying is also continued or conflated with the respond to a question Socrates (according to Xenophon) or Chaerephon (according to Plato) is said to take posed to the Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi, in which the oracle stated something to the result of "Socrates is the wisest person in Athens."^[ii] Socrates, believing the oracle but besides completely convinced that he knew goose egg, was said to have ended that nobody knew anything, and that he was only wiser than others because he was the merely person who recognized his own ignorance.

Etymology [edit]

The phrase, originally from Latin (" ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat "),^[3] is a possible paraphrase from a Greek text (see below). It is likewise quoted as " scio me nihil scire " or " scio me nescire ".^[4] Information technology was afterwards dorsum-translated to Katharevousa Greek as " [ἓν οἶδα ὅτι] οὐδὲν οἶδα ", [hèn oîda hóti] oudèn oîda).^[5]

In Plato [edit]

This is technically a shorter paraphrasing of Socrates' statement, "I neither know nor recollect I know" (in Plato, Apology 21d). The paraphrased saying, though widely attributed to Plato's Socrates in both aboriginal and modern times, actually occurs nowhere in Plato's works in precisely the form "I know I know nothing."^[6] 2 prominent Plato scholars have recently argued that the merits should not be attributed to Plato's Socrates.^[seven]

Testify that Socrates does not really merits to know nothing tin exist found at Apology 29b-c, where he claims twice to know something. See also Amends 29d, where Socrates indicates that he is so confident in his claim to noesis at 29b-c that he is willing to die for it.

That said, in the Apology, Plato relates that Socrates accounts for his seeming wiser than any other person because he does not imagine that he knows what he does not know.^[8]

... ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.
... I seem, and then, in simply this niggling thing to be wiser than this man at whatsoever rate, that what I do not know I practice not recall I know either. [from the Henry Cary literal translation of 1897]

A more than commonly used translation puts it, "although I do not suppose that either of united states of america knows anything really cute and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows naught, and thinks he knows. I neither know nor call back I know" [from the Benjamin Jowett translation]. Whichever translation we use, the context in which this passage occurs should be considered; Socrates having gone to a "wise" homo, and having discussed with him, withdraws and thinks the above to himself. Socrates, since he denied any kind of knowledge, then tried to find someone wiser than himself among politicians, poets, and craftsmen. Information technology appeared that politicians claimed wisdom without knowledge; poets could touch people with their words, but did not know their pregnant; and craftsmen could claim knowledge only in specific and narrow fields. The estimation of the Oracle's answer might be Socrates' sensation of his own ignorance.^[ix]

Socrates also deals with this phrase in Plato's dialogue Meno when he says:^[10]

καὶ νῦν περὶ ἀρετῆς ὃ ἔστιν ἐγὼ μὲν οὐκ οἶδα, σὺ μέντοι ἴσως πρότερον μὲν ᾔδησθα πρὶν ἐμοῦ ἅψασθαι, νῦν μέντοι ὅμοιος εἶ οὐκ εἰδότι.
[So now I do not know what virtue is; perhaps you knew before you contacted me, simply now you are certainly like one who does not know.] (trans. M. Yard. A. Grube)

Here, Socrates aims at the change of Meno's opinion, who was a firm believer in his own opinion and whose merits to cognition Socrates had disproved.

Information technology is substantially the question that begins "mail service-Socratic" Western philosophy. Socrates begins all wisdom with wondering, thus one must begin with albeit one'due south ignorance. Later all, Socrates' dialectic method of teaching was based on that he as a teacher knew nada, so he would derive cognition from his students by dialogue.

There is likewise a passage by Diogenes Laërtius in his piece of work Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers where he lists, among the things that Socrates used to say:^[11] " εἰδέναι μὲν μηδὲν πλὴν αὐτὸ τοῦτο εἰδέναι ", or "that he knew nil except that he knew that very fact (i.e. that he knew aught)".

Again, closer to the quote, at that place is a passage in Plato'south Apology, where Socrates says that later on discussing with someone he started thinking that:^[8]

τούτου μὲν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐγὼ σοφώτερός εἰμι· κινδυνεύει μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν οὐδέτερος οὐδὲν καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὗτος μὲν οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι οὐκ εἰδώς, ἐγὼ δέ, ὥσπερ οὖν οὐκ οἶδα, οὐδὲ οἴομαι· ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows null; whereas I, as I exercise not know anything, so I exercise not fancy I do. In this trifling detail, then, I appear to be wiser than he, considering I do not fancy I know what I do non know.

It is too a curiosity that there is more than one passage in the narratives in which Socrates claims to have knowledge on some topic, for case on dear:^[12]

How could I vote 'No,' when the only thing I say I understand is the fine art of beloved (τὰ ἐρωτικά)^[thirteen]

I know virtually zilch, except a sure small-scale subject area – dear (τῶν ἐρωτικῶν), although on this subject, I'm thought to be astonishing (δεινός), better than anyone else, past or present^[14]

Alternative usage [edit]

"Socratic paradox" may besides refer to statements of Socrates that seem contrary to mutual sense, such equally that "no one desires evil".^[15]

Meet too [edit]

• Acatalepsy
• Academic skepticism
• Metamemory
• Apodicticity
• Cogito
• Dunning–Kruger issue
• Doxastic logic, Doxastic attitudes
• Epistemology
• Gnothi seauton
• Ignoramus et ignorabimus
• Maieutics
• Münchhausen trilemma
• Pyrrhonism
• Sapere aude
• Skepticism
• There are known knowns
• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

References [edit]

1. ^ "Socratic Paradox". Oxford Reference . Retrieved 19 Nov 2021.
2. ^ H. Bowden, Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 82.
3. ^ "He himself thinks he knows one thing, that he knows cipher"; Cicero, Academica, Book I, department xvi.
4. ^ A variant is plant in von Kues, De visione Dei, Xiii, 146 (Werke, Walter de Gruyter, 1967, p. 312): "...et hoc scio solum, quia scio me nescire [sic]... [I know alone, that (or because) I know, that I do not know]."
5. ^ "All I know is that I know nix -> Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα, Εν οίδα ότι ουδέν οίδα, ΕΝ ΟΙΔΑ ΟΤΙ ΟΥΔΕΝ ΟΙΔΑ". www.translatum.gr.
6. ^ Gail Fine, "Does Socrates Claim to Know that He Knows Nothing?", Oxford Studies in Aboriginal Philosophy vol. 35 (2008), pp. 49–88.
7. ^ Fine argues that "it is meliorate non to aspect it to him" ("Does Socrates Claim to Know He Knows Zilch?", Oxford Studies in Aboriginal Philosophy vol. 35 (2008), p. 51). C. C. W. Taylor has argued that the "paradoxical conception is a clear misreading of Plato" (Socrates, Oxford Academy Press 1998, p. 46).
8. ^ ^{a b} Plato, Amends 21d.
9. ^ Plato; Morris Kaplan (2009). The Socratic Dialogues. Kaplan Publishing. p. 9. ISBN978-1-4277-9953-one.
10. ^ Plato, Meno 80d1–3.
11. ^ Diogenes Laërtius 2.32.
12. ^ Cimakasky, Joseph J.. All all of a sudden: The Role of Ἐξαίφνης in Plato's Dialogues. Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation. Duquesne University. 2014.
13. ^ Plato. Symposium, 177d-e.
14. ^ Plato. Theages, 128b.
15. ^ Terence Irwin, The Development of Ethics, vol. 1, Oxford University Press 2007, p. 14; Gerasimos Santas, "The Socratic Paradoxes", Philosophical Review 73 (1964), pp. 147–64.

External links [edit]

• Quotations related to Socrates at Wikiquote

graypood1962.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing

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