Wisdom in Ignorance? Socrates’ Answer (Pt 2)
This is Part 2 of a three-part series on Socrates.
“An unexamined life is not worth living.”
~ Socrates, a Greek philosopher
One of Socrates’ most famous quotes purportedly came from a speech he made during his trial that ultimately led to his death. Socrates was known for believing that everybody ought to acknowledge their ignorance in order to achieve greater wisdom and knowledge. In essence, he found ignorance of one’s limited perception of the world to be a philosophical disease many people were prone to carrying. It was this complacency of knowledge that made many people naive. The panacea to this problem was to acknowledge that one’s understanding of knowledge and the world is subjective, narrow, and incomprehensive. Only by professing one’s ignorance can one remain humble in learning and open to new ideas.
This is why Socrates often went into dialogues with the mindset that: “I know that I know nothing.” This cognizance of ignorance allowed him to listen more closely to his interlocutors’ arguments (the statements made by people he was discussing matters with) and then engage with them in dialogue.
Various societies have been inculcating good values of mutual understanding, humility, and cooperation in their members. Socrates’ statement, therefore, does not come as a surprise to many readers of today. Most people would agree that it is important to ‘know that you don’t know’ many things because that is how we learn from one another. The controversy surrounding Socrates’ claim of ignorance was that many people found Socrates to be feigning modesty. Socrates was seen as a philosopher full of wisdom and intellect, yet his statement, received by people with the wrong intentions, came across as ironic and proud.
In the modern day, there are people who pretend to be self-aware of their ignorance and shortcomings. They use that as a ruse to gain momentary rapport and understanding with another person but never truly listen to the other person. In fact, while ‘listening’ to the other person speak, they are constantly formulating rebuttals and refutations to the argument rather than truly listening for understanding. This translates into interpersonal arguments between friends, colleagues, and spouses, which are potentially damaging if sustained for an extended period. Many people know that they should put down their ego and self-righteousness when arguing with someone, but do they?
On a larger scale, this feigning of humility manifests itself when politicians pretend to understand each other’s points but end up aggressively rebutting them without properly understanding each other. Televised political debates often become sessions where politicians throw verbal attacks at one another, attacking the person rather than proposed policies.
Knowing the problems with ignorance in our modern day is just the first step. How can we rectify this problem?
Know that you don’t know
When it comes to living with an open mind, we should know that our understanding of the world is limited. This allows us to take in new perspectives from others with a truly open mind, not merely converting others’ ideas into ones that fit into our belief system. Children and students do this all the time. When they enter the classroom, most students have preconceived notions about the world they live in, as well as ignorance of certain aspects of the world. The role of a teacher is to expose students to things they know of, but have a lack of understanding about, such as in science classes where the teacher explains the concept of gravity or osmosis to their students. Processing this information means that students have to grapple with amendments to their belief systems, where a student who once believed that the world was flat now understands the earth to be similar to a sphere (I’m sure that most of us, when we were teeny little tots, probably believed that the world was flat until a teacher told us otherwise.)
As we age, we start to know more things, but we also realize that there is so much more that we do not know. Specialization of careers means that adults are more versed in knowledge related to their fields of expertise. This allows the cross-sharing of ideas between different communities and societies, which is something to be celebrated. In this community, knowing that you are not the expert in everything facilitates open discussion and learning.
To know that you don’t know, it means that you are aware of the vast amount of knowledge you have not learned as of now. But all of us can do something about it.
The contemporary day and age where people have greater access to information and technology also mean that we have the ability to learn so much more despite not having the knowledge initially. Capitalize on these technologies available at your disposal and learn with an open mind.
Know that you don’t know what you don’t know
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a phenomenon whereby the more incompetent a person is, the more likely he is to overestimate his ability in a particular field. There has been a lot of research on this effect, with explanations of the importance of metacognitive abilities as well as the cognitive bias of self-superiority. For those interested in this phenomenon, there are some supporting resources at the end of this article.
What Dunning and Kruger found was that people who were deficient in their capabilities to perform certain tasks turned out to be more confident of their own abilities, precisely because they did not know what they did not know. These people believe that their capabilities have reached the peak of the mountain, not knowing that this ‘peak’ is but the first step to scaling Mount Everest.
To avoid this trap, you need to know that you don’t know what you don’t know. Unlike the previous section, where you are simply aware that there is more information out there, avoiding the Dunning–Kruger effect is more difficult.
Knowing that you don’t know what you don’t know entails having a deeper understanding that there are complete bodies of knowledge outside of your consciousness, i.e., you are not even aware that they exist!
In some cases of ignorance, both aforementioned sections apply, and we should simply remain humble in learning. Nonetheless, a general rule of thumb would be to listen to others before forming an opinion of their ideas, as well as spend time learning about something before accepting or rejecting it.
In writing this article, I reflected on the assumptions that I was relying on in the earlier sections. I realized that some of the experiences and advice gave would barely apply to someone living in abject poverty or someone without access to technology. It would be wrong to assume that any reader could easily surf the internet to learn more about the world or to have intellectual discussions with learned teachers and professionals, as beautiful as it sounds. Perhaps this means that the rest of us — those with access to technology and knowledge — ought to be even more grateful that we can even be participating in this philosophical discussion of ignorance and wisdom. If you are someone with the ability to escape ignorance by recognizing your ignorance and doing something about it, that is a blessing.
Someone with the capacity to ‘examine his life’ should cherish that opportunity deeply. Otherwise, it is not just the case that an unexamined life is not worth living. Instead, it is the case that an intentionally unexamined life is truly not worth living.
Sources
https://www.thoughtco.com/socratic-ignorance-2670664
https://medium.com/illumination/what-is-socratic-ignorance-905aaf4ee68f