If You Dont Know What You Dont Know... Is a Lot Quote

Famous proverb by Socrates

"I know that I know nothing" is a maxim derived from Plato's account of the Greek philosopher Socrates. Socrates himself was never recorded every bit having said this phrase, and scholars by and large hold that Socrates simply ever asserted that he believed that he knew nothing, having never claimed that he knew that he knew zero. It is besides sometimes called the Socratic paradox, although this name is often instead used to refer to other seemingly paradoxical claims made past Socrates in Plato's dialogues (most notably, Socratic intellectualism and the Socratic fallacy).^[1]

This saying is also connected or conflated with the answer to a question Socrates (according to Xenophon) or Chaerephon (according to Plato) is said to have posed to the Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi, in which the oracle stated something to the outcome of "Socrates is the wisest person in Athens."^[ii] Socrates, believing the oracle but also completely convinced that he knew cipher, was said to have concluded 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 beneath). It is also quoted as " scio me nihil scire " or " scio me nescire ".^[four] Information technology was later back-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 think I know" (in Plato, Apology 21d). The paraphrased saying, though widely attributed to Plato's Socrates in both ancient and modernistic times, actually occurs nowhere in Plato's works in precisely the class "I know I know zip."^[6] Two prominent Plato scholars have recently argued that the claim should not be attributed to Plato'south Socrates.^[7]

Evidence that Socrates does not actually merits to know aught tin can 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 knowledge at 29b-c that he is willing to die for information technology.

That said, in the Amends, 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 so, in just this lilliputian thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not call up I know either. [from the Henry Cary literal translation of 1897]

A more commonly used translation puts it, "although I do not suppose that either of the states knows anything really beautiful and expert, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks he knows. I neither know nor retrieve I know" [from the Benjamin Jowett translation]. Whichever translation we use, the context in which this passage occurs should exist considered; Socrates having gone to a "wise" man, and having discussed with him, withdraws and thinks the in a higher place to himself. Socrates, since he denied whatever kind of noesis, then tried to find someone wiser than himself among politicians, poets, and craftsmen. It appeared that politicians claimed wisdom without noesis; poets could touch people with their words, but did non know their pregnant; and craftsmen could claim noesis but in specific and narrow fields. The interpretation of the Oracle's respond might be Socrates' sensation of his own ignorance.^[9]

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

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 lot knew before you contacted me, only now yous are certainly like 1 who does not know.] (trans. M. M. A. Grube)

Hither, Socrates aims at the alter of Meno'due south opinion, who was a firm believer in his own opinion and whose claim to noesis Socrates had disproved.

It is essentially the question that begins "mail service-Socratic" Western philosophy. Socrates begins all wisdom with wondering, thus one must brainstorm with albeit one's ignorance. After all, Socrates' dialectic method of teaching was based on that he as a teacher knew nothing, so he would derive knowledge from his students past dialogue.

There is besides 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 aught except that he knew that very fact (i.due east. that he knew null)".

Over again, closer to the quote, there is a passage in Plato's Apology, where Socrates says that later 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 groovy and proficient; only he fancies he knows something, although he knows goose egg; whereas I, as I exercise not know annihilation, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, considering I practice not fancy I know what I do non know.

It is likewise a marvel that at that place is more than one passage in the narratives in which Socrates claims to have knowledge on some topic, for example on honey:^[12]

How could I vote 'No,' when the just thing I say I understand is the art of love (τὰ ἐρωτικά)^[13]

I know near zilch, except a certain modest subject – love (τῶν ἐρωτικῶν), although on this discipline, I'm thought to be amazing (δεινός), improve than anyone else, past or nowadays^[14]

Culling usage [edit]

"Socratic paradox" may also refer to statements of Socrates that seem opposite to common sense, such as that "no one desires evil".^[15]

Run into also [edit]

• Acatalepsy
• Academic skepticism
• Metamemory
• Apodicticity
• Cogito
• Dunning–Kruger effect
• 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 November 2021.
2. ^ H. Bowden, Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy, Cambridge Academy Press, 2005, p. 82.
3. ^ "He himself thinks he knows one thing, that he knows zip"; Cicero, Academica, Book I, section 16.
4. ^ A variant is establish 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 lone, that (or considering) I know, that I practice not know]."
5. ^ "All I know is that I know nothing -> Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα, Εν οίδα ότι ουδέν οίδα, ΕΝ ΟΙΔΑ ΟΤΙ ΟΥΔΕΝ ΟΙΔΑ". www.translatum.gr.
6. ^ Gail Fine, "Does Socrates Merits to Know that He Knows Goose egg?", Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy vol. 35 (2008), pp. 49–88.
7. ^ Fine argues that "it is improve not to attribute it to him" ("Does Socrates Claim to Know He Knows Goose egg?", Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy vol. 35 (2008), p. 51). C. C. Due west. Taylor has argued that the "paradoxical formulation is a clear misreading of Plato" (Socrates, Oxford University Printing 1998, p. 46).
8. ^ ^{a b} Plato, Apology 21d.
9. ^ Plato; Morris Kaplan (2009). The Socratic Dialogues. Kaplan Publishing. p. ix. ISBN978-1-4277-9953-1.
10. ^ Plato, Meno 80d1–3.
11. ^ Diogenes Laërtius Two.32.
12. ^ Cimakasky, Joseph J.. All of a sudden: The Role of Ἐξαίφνης in Plato's Dialogues. Doc of Philosophy Dissertation. Duquesne University. 2014.
13. ^ Plato. Symposium, 177d-e.
14. ^ Plato. Theages, 128b.
15. ^ Terence Irwin, The Evolution of Ethics, vol. 1, Oxford Academy Press 2007, p. fourteen; Gerasimos Santas, "The Socratic Paradoxes", Philosophical Review 73 (1964), pp. 147–64.

External links [edit]

• Quotations related to Socrates at Wikiquote

If You Dont Know What You Dont Know... Is a Lot Quote

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

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