Socrates and Human Wisdom

Socrates and Human Wisdom

  • Submitted By: kpmohr
  • Date Submitted: 03/10/2011 12:59 PM
  • Category: Philosophy
  • Words: 423
  • Page: 2
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“He went to Delphi at one time and ventured to ask the oracle…he asked if any man was wiser than I, and Pythian replied that no one was wiser.” Socrates thought of the god’s words as a riddle that he had to decipher because he could not truly be the wisest man for he knew that he did not have as much knowledge as others. He ventured to find other men thought to be wiser than he and on his journey he realized a trend. The trend was that all the “wise men” were learned when it came to their particular field but these men also thought they were wise when it came to other topics when they knew nothing about these matters. “‘I am wiser than this man, it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know.’” Socrates can be considered the wisest man because he is not ignorant of his ignorance.
To be not all knowing and to be wise seems to be a contradicting statement but what if you can consider recognizing what you do not know as knowledge? “‘This man among you, mortals, is wisest who, like Socrates understands that his wisdom is worthless.’” The gods are all knowing and humans can never be that knowledgeable. The closest humans can be to the gods is understanding that we don’t know everything and Socrates calls this “human wisdom”. The nature of this is that “human wisdom” is worth hardly anything, to have this kind of understanding is useless but it is superior to having no wisdom. “That in fact the god is wise and that his oracular response meant that human wisdom is worth little or nothing.” This kind of wisdom to the gods has no meaning, and to them the nature of this knowledge is inadequate to their understanding of everything. Socrates might have wisdom because he can distinguish what he doesn’t know from what he does but in the end the...

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