I Am Not Saying What You Know I Want to Be Alone

Famous maxim by Socrates

"I know that I know nada" is a saying derived from Plato'due south business relationship of the Greek philosopher Socrates. Socrates himself was never recorded as having said this phrase, and scholars more often than not agree that Socrates merely ever asserted that he believed that he knew nothing, having never claimed that he knew that he knew nada. It is also sometimes chosen the Socratic paradox, although this name is often instead used to refer to other seemingly paradoxical claims made by Socrates in Plato's dialogues (most notably, Socratic intellectualism and the Socratic fallacy).^[1]

This maxim is likewise connected or conflated with the answer 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 effect of "Socrates is the wisest person in Athens."^[ii] Socrates, assertive the oracle but also completely convinced that he knew nothing, was said to have concluded that nobody knew annihilation, and that he was only wiser than others considering he was the but 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 (run across beneath). Information technology is also quoted as " scio me nihil scire " or " scio me nescire ".^[four] Information technology was later dorsum-translated to Katharevousa Greek every bit " [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 remember I know" (in Plato, Apology 21d). The paraphrased saying, though widely attributed to Plato's Socrates in both ancient and modern times, actually occurs nowhere in Plato's works in precisely the form "I know I know nil."^[6] Ii prominent Plato scholars have recently argued that the claim should not be attributed to Plato'due south Socrates.^[7]

Prove that Socrates does not actually claim to know nothing can be establish at Amends 29b-c, where he claims twice to know something. Run across as well Apology 29d, where Socrates indicates that he is and then confident in his claim to knowledge 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.^[viii]

... ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.
... I seem, then, in just this piffling thing to be wiser than this man at any charge per unit, that what I do not know I do not remember 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 us knows annihilation really cute and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows naught, and thinks he knows. I neither know nor think I know" [from the Benjamin Jowett translation]. Whichever translation nosotros 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 cognition, so tried to find someone wiser than himself amidst politicians, poets, and craftsmen. It 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 but in specific and narrow fields. The interpretation of the Oracle'southward reply might be Socrates' awareness of his own ignorance.^[nine]

Socrates too deals with this phrase in Plato'southward 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.
[And then now I practise not know what virtue is; possibly you knew before you contacted me, just at present you are certainly like i who does non know.] (trans. Thousand. Thousand. A. Grube)

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

It is substantially the question that begins "post-Socratic" Western philosophy. Socrates begins all wisdom with wondering, thus ane must begin with admitting one's ignorance. Later on all, Socrates' dialectic method of didactics was based on that he as a teacher knew nothing, so he would derive noesis from his students by dialogue.

There is also a passage past Diogenes Laërtius in his work Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers where he lists, amidst the things that Socrates used to say:^[xi] " εἰδέναι μὲν μηδὲν πλὴν αὐτὸ τοῦτο εἰδέναι ", or "that he knew nothing except that he knew that very fact (i.eastward. that he knew aught)".

Again, closer to the quote, there is a passage in Plato's Apology, where Socrates says that subsequently 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 usa appears to know anything nifty and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nada; whereas I, equally I do not know anything, and so I do not fancy I exercise. In this trifling detail, then, I announced to exist wiser than he, because I practice non fancy I know what I do non know.

It is also a curiosity that there is more than 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 love (τὰ ἐρωτικά)^[13]

I know virtually goose egg, except a certain pocket-size subject area – dearest (τῶν ἐρωτικῶν), although on this field of study, I'm thought to be amazing (δεινός), better than anyone else, past or nowadays^[14]

Culling usage [edit]

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

Encounter also [edit]

• Acatalepsy
• Academic skepticism
• Metamemory
• Apodicticity
• Cogito
• Dunning–Kruger outcome
• Doxastic logic, Doxastic attitudes
• Epistemology
• Gnothi seauton
• Ignoramus et ignorabimus
• Maieutics
• Münchhausen trilemma
• Pyrrhonism
• Sapere aude
• Skepticism
• At that place 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 University Press, 2005, p. 82.
3. ^ "He himself thinks he knows 1 affair, that he knows zilch"; Cicero, Academica, Book I, section sixteen.
4. ^ A variant is found in von Kues, De visione Dei, Thirteen, 146 (Werke, Walter de Gruyter, 1967, p. 312): "...et hoc scio solum, quia scio me nescire [sic]... [I know alone, that (or considering) I know, that I do non know]."
5. ^ "All I know is that I know naught -> Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα, Εν οίδα ότι ουδέν οίδα, ΕΝ ΟΙΔΑ ΟΤΙ ΟΥΔΕΝ ΟΙΔΑ". world wide web.translatum.gr.
6. ^ Gail Fine, "Does Socrates Merits to Know that He Knows Cypher?", Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy vol. 35 (2008), pp. 49–88.
7. ^ Fine argues that "it is better not to aspect it to him" ("Does Socrates Claim to Know He Knows Nothing?", Oxford Studies in Ancient 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, Apology 21d.
9. ^ Plato; Morris Kaplan (2009). The Socratic Dialogues. Kaplan Publishing. p. 9. ISBN978-1-4277-9953-i.
10. ^ Plato, Meno 80d1–iii.
11. ^ Diogenes Laërtius II.32.
12. ^ Cimakasky, Joseph J.. Suddenly: The Function of Ἐξαίφνης in Plato's Dialogues. Medico of Philosophy Dissertation. Duquesne Academy. 2014.
13. ^ Plato. Symposium, 177d-eastward.
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

coleyreords.blogspot.com

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

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