Wisdom, as a highly subjective construct, is often taken for granted as being the quality of having knowledge. This is a notion that Socrates both confirms and challenges in TheApology when he states that he is wise by virtue of knowing that he knows nothing of importance. Therefore, he has knowledge, which is the basis of his wisdom, but this idea challenges the intuitive foundation of the accepted definition of wisdom.
To best understand Socrates’ point, we must follow the journey he himself took to understand wisdom. He began by stating the charges against him, that he was a busybody who pondered things he ought not to ponder, and then proceeded to explain he was not this “character” who professed to know everything (Plato, The Apology). Next follows the story of the Delphic oracle in response to Socrates’ anticipated confusion from the listeners, who might wonder why such a charge had been raised if Socrates really was innocent. Socrates recounts the tale of an acquaintance who journeyed to the oracle and asked if anyone was wiser than Socrates. The oracle responded that there was no one wiser, an answer which threw Socrates into a state of confusion when he heard it reported to him, for Socrates was adamant that he was not wise “in any manner, great or small” (Plato, The Apology).
Socrates has now twice asserted that he knows nothing and is not wise, yet the oracle at Delphi has pronounced it to be otherwise. Socrates uncovers his answer after interviewing the reputable men of Athens. They all prove to be falsely confident in their knowledge of the world, which Socrates invariably discovered to be faulty after questioning. Even the poets and craftsmen thought themselves authorities on matters of which they knew nothing.
The conclusion that Socrates draw from these interviews was that the oracle had spotted the “human kind of wisdom” that Socrates possessed, the wisdom of realizing his own ignorance (Plato, The Apology). Socrates concluded that only the gods can truly be wise, and the height of human wisdom is achievable only by realizing man’s limitations and knowing that one knows nothing.
This view of wisdom, that it is defined by knowing that one is not wise, is applicable to Socrates but, some argue, does not work as an epistemological definition. The simplest interpretation of the Apology says that:
S is wise if S believes S is not wise
OR:
S is wise if S believes S does not know anything.
We can clearly think of counter-examples to these theories; an unwise person can see that he is not wise, yet he does not instantly become wise because he has recognized a fact about himself. The same counter-example holds for an unwise person who acknowledges that he knows nothing. We can even argue that Socrates did not truly believe he was unwise, else he would have completely disregarded the oracle; additionally, had he believed he was unwise then gone to investigate and subsequently uncovered his wisdom, the mere fact that he later labeled himself wise would ostensibly have “retracted” his wisdom.
Therefore, philosophers have greatly refined the criteria for wisdom, though the theory from the Apology is a valuable lesson in rejecting unjustified beliefs. The value of Socrates’ wisdom is clear in that it is humble and does not threaten to misinform others by advocating knowledge that is false. For example, in the Theaetetus the only conclusion to which Socrates and his pupil come after much debate is that they do not know what constitutes knowledge. However, Socrates has done Theaetetus a great service by showing him what knowledge is not, so that he will not be “burdensome” to those with whom he associates by assuming he knows something he does not (Plato, Theaetetus).
This second order of knowledge (K(q) where q is of the form K(p), and where p is a non-knowledge claim) is valuable in terms of matters of import, when nobody knows whether p, but Socrates recognizes that he does not know that p. To put this in more understandable terms, people who, ignorant of the issues, make claims about candidates and political issues that are false at election time, thereby misleading other voters. For instance, if one person who belongs to the Democratic party talks to a Republican and says, “The Democratic party appeals to a much larger demographic, so they will get much more votes, so you might as well just vote Democrat.” His original premise was true, yet his conclusion was false (the large demographic to which the democratic party appeals is also the demographic least likely to vote), and he based his suggestion to the Republican off this false conclusion. The Republican in our example may therefore be lured by this argument of efficacy to vote a democratic ticket, rather than a republican one. We know, intuitively, that making important decisions based on flawed logic is improper and can even be dangerous, especially in a situation such as the presidential election. This spreading of incorrect knowledge could have been stopped if our Democrat had subscribed to Socrates’ theory of wisdom and identified his own ignorance.
Thus the value of Socrates’ wisdom lies not only in the wise person but also in anybody with whom the wise person associates. This is the most charitable way to understand this aspect of The Apology– to be wise, one must not believe that one knows what one does not, but this is not the complete extent of the definition of wisdom.
Bibliography
Plato. The Apology, in Introduction to Philosophy, John Perry, Michael Bratman, and John Martin Fischer (ed. 5), Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 22-36.
Plato. Theaetetus, in Introduction to Philosophy, John Perry, Michael Bratman, and John Martin Fischer (ed. 5), Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 126-133.
Ryan, Sharon. “Wisdom.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 08 Jan 2007. Stanford
University, Web. 7 Oct 2009. .
