Dear Coasters

WAS SOCRATES RIGHT?

“So as you sit there, defending your belief box of the world, ask yourselves, was (i can’t remember who) right when he said, “Wisdom is knowing everything we don’t know.” illuminate

In addition to being a misquotation – Socrates never said “Wisdom is knowing everything we don’t know” – but rather, “All I know is that I know nothing” – the misquotation itself is incoherent. To say that wisdom is knowing everything we don’t know is a simple self-contradiction in terms. It is meaningless. But what did Socrates actually mean?

What he meant was wisdom consisted in knowing that one was never in prior possession of objective truth. One was never in prior possession of certainty as to the real nature of the world. Wisdom, in other words, was not some higher-level state of knowledge but rather an attitude, an intellectual posture in respect to obtaining knowledge. So what was knowledge?

Socrates distinguished “episteme” from “doxa,” the first being knowledge while the second was merely rank opinion. Knowledge was knowledge by virtue of the fact that it was supported by evidence. So how was one to support one’s claim to knowledge? What sort of evidence was required?

To gain some foothold on knowledge one had to engage others in the “Socratic dialogue” which reduced to the two questions: “What do you mean?” and “How do you know?” It is only by engaging one’s interlocutor, by examining and giving counter-examples that one might – might – advance upon the path of knowledge. But Socrates was not interested is “evidence” as it is currently understood – those scientific claims about the nature of physical reality. He was interested in evidence as it relates to philosophical claims, the meaning of life. So how does this relate the current bitch?

Note that “illuminate” rebukes the Coasters for “sitting there, defending your belief box of the world.” But does “illuminate” reveal just how the views of the Coasters add up to merely a “belief box” while his views add up to something more? No he doesn’t. What are the contents of “illuminate’s” belief box? He doesn’t say. Can “illuminate” indicate even the possibility of a belief box-free view of the world? What would it look like? Since everyone, including “illuminate” himself, must have what he dismisses as a “belief box” in order to render the world comprehensible, he is unable to do so. So what is the conclusion?

The conclusion is that “illuminate” condemns himself to the same incoherence for which he falsely rebuked the Coasters. By means of a Socratic engagement with “illuminate” we have shown that his claims have proven not only to be empty of meaning but also incoherently self-contradictory. The conclusion is that Socrates was right and “illuminate” was wrong.

Thank you.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

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