Socratic Ignorance

 Knowing That You Know Nothing

A case can be made here that the Socratic ignorance involves an existential concern. The term "existential" here is used to mean the ontological state which involves one's total being once the conceptual construction has been demolished by intellectual questionings.

 อาจกล่าวได้ว่าความไม่รู้ของโสกราตีสเกี่ยวข้องกับความกังวลเกี่ยวกับการดำรงอยู่ คำว่า "การดำรงอยู่" ในที่นี้หมายถึงสถานะออนโทโลยีซึ่งเกี่ยวข้องกับความเป็นทั้งหมดของตนเองเมื่อโครงสร้างเชิงแนวคิดถูกทำลายลงด้วยคำถามทางปัญญา

"I know that I know nothing" 

 I do not think that I know what I do not know. ฉันไม่คิดว่าฉันรู้สิ่งที่ฉันไม่รู้ 

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) 

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". กล่าวอีกนัยหนึ่ง แม้ว่าสิ่งที่โสกราตีสรู้ก็คือ เขาไม่รู้สิ่งสำคัญอะไรจริงๆแต่ความรู้นั้นก็ไม่ได้ "มีค่าอะไรเลย" That is the irony of the oracle's words, that Socratic ignorance is Socratic wisdom. ความไม่รู้ของโสกราตีสคือภูมิปัญญาของโสกราตีส

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Query: self-knowledge, being aware of your ignorance is wisdom. คำถาม การสอบถาม : การรู้จักตนเอง การตระหนักรู้ว่าตนเองไม่รู้ ถือเป็นภูมิปัญญา

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, สามารถอธิบายสิ่งที่คุณอ้างว่ารู้ให้ผู้อื่นฟังได้  and (2) be able to defend your claim against unclarity or contradiction when cross-questioned. สามารถปกป้องข้ออ้างของคุณจากความไม่ชัดเจนหรือความขัดแย้งเมื่อถูกซักถามโต้แย้ง (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". เป็นการดีที่สุดสำหรับฉันที่จะเป็นอย่างที่ฉันเป็นอยู่ (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 เพราะว่าหากคุณคิดว่าคุณรู้สิ่งที่คุณไม่รู้ คุณเองก็ถูกหลอกตัวเองและทำร้ายเพื่อนของคุณโดยการหลอกพวกเขา (Memorabilia iii, 9, 6), and (2) because no one seeks to become wise if he thinks he already is wise ไม่มีใครพยายามที่จะเป็นคนฉลาดถ้าเขาคิดว่าเขาฉลาดอยู่แล้ว (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 รู้จักตัวเองและความบ้าคลั่ง

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)[โสกราตีส] ไม่ได้ถือว่าความไม่รู้เป็นความบ้า แต่การไม่รู้จักตัวเองและการคิดว่าตนเองรู้สิ่งที่ตนไม่รู้นั้น ถือเป็นการเปรียบเทียบกับความบ้า

He only errs who thinks he knows what he does not know. เขาจะทำผิดได้ก็ต่อเมื่อคิดว่าตนรู้สิ่งที่ตนไม่รู้เท่านั้น(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.  การยึดมั่นในความเห็นที่ไม่ได้รับการทดสอบอย่างละเอียดถี่ถ้วนในการอภิปราย ก็คือการตั้งสมมติฐานว่าตนเองรู้สิ่งที่ตนเองไม่รู้

"I know only that I do not know"

ฉันรู้เพียงว่าฉันไม่รู้

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 ภูมิปัญญาของโสกราตีสคือเขาไม่คิดว่าเขารู้ในสิ่งที่เขาไม่รู้ เพราะเมื่อผู้คนที่โสกราตีสตั้งคำถามถูกแสดงให้เห็นว่าพวกเขาไม่รู้ว่าพวกเขาคิดว่าพวกเขารู้ (เช่น มนุษย์ควรใช้ชีวิตอย่างไร มนุษย์มีความดีอย่างไร ความศรัทธาและความยุติธรรมคืออะไร) พวกเขาก็จะคิดต่อไปว่าพวกเขารู้ดีอยู่แล้ว ในขณะที่โสกราตีสอย่างน้อยก็ฉลาดพอที่จะไม่ทำอย่างนั้น (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. 

โสเครตีสเป็นทั้งคนฉลาดและไม่ฉลาดทั้งรู้และไม่รู้

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.

 ความรัก เพราะปรัชญาคือความรักของปัญญา ความรักผลักดันให้คนๆ หนึ่งมีความละเอียดรอบคอบ คิดไตร่ตรองทุกอย่างอย่างถี่ถ้วน ซื่อสัตย์อย่างที่สุด

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

ตั้งคำถามกับตัวเองก่อนที่จะตั้งคำถามกับเพื่อนร่วมทาง

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).

Query: what does man know about himself? Socrates. มนุษย์รู้เรื่องของตัวเองมากเพียงใด? โสกราตีส

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