Socratic Wisdom

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” (Socrates-cite website). Socrates was the wisest person in Athens according to the Oracle of Delphi. In Plato’s Apology we read about Socrates’ journey to find a man wiser than him, his trail, and finally his death.

In these, he tested to see how wise so-called wise men were and each and every time he claimed that these men were not wise at all. Socrates went and tested all sorts of men from poets, politicians, and artisans. He claimed that all were inferior to him because they claimed to know much when they knew not much at all. And that, although he did not know all the tings these men knew, he was still wiser. He went so far as to tell these men what he thought, and even stated all these feelings in the court. This, no doubt, led to his general hatred more than any other act. But I wonder, had anyone ever questioned Socrates? And on what basis did he judge wisdom? Socrates claimed that a man who thought themselves the wisest were the least, but that is exactly what he was, a man who thought himself the wisest. Maybe he was the type of person to dislike any man who’s intellect challenged his own. “Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general.”

Dylan, the senior lecturer of the Department of Philosophy at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and author of several articles provides the argument that a satisfactory interpretation of human wisdom can be given in terms of “philosophia”.He confirms his analysis by its resolution of some enduring difficulties in the interpretation of Apology and also by providing the answer as to why Socrates continued to search for knowledge which he thought was impossible to attain. He tries to explain the concept of human wisdom with the help of Socrates sayings. Overall, Dylan provides a clear analysis with the proper tone and style.

Plato encouraged in his writings that the view that sophists were concerned with was “the manipulative aspects of how humans acquire knowledge.” (Lecture) Sophists believed that only provisional or probable knowledge was available to humans but both Plato and Isocrates did not agree with a lot of what the Sophists had to say. They both believed in wisdom and having a connection with rhetoric but vary in defining wisdom in itself. Wisdom for Socrates and Plato is having an understanding of speech, knowledge of truth and being able to question the speaker in order to seek and reveal truth. Isocrates defined wisdom as having a sense of integrity and character along with the ambition and ability to speak well with others.

Wisdom is a very abstract term for a great deal of people and for the purpose of this paper it is important to turn to Socrates himself to understand. There a few passages which can be referred to obtain a define idea of what wisdom is to Socrates. In passage 21d Socrates describes a resulting thought about wisdom on his journey to prove that he is not wise, “Well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of, but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems

Socrates thinks that it requires wisdom to know the difference between the knowledge and an opinion. And what he means by that is knowledge is based on reasoned ideas beliefs, and can be proved and confirmed by rational arguments, where’s other opinion is not proved. For Socrates, the reason is the bigger way to show the truth. Socrates explained that role model is how to act well for example an equivalent way, knowledge is in an unqualified manner, according to Socrates statement beauty and wealth could benefit us sometimes if we used correctly, however, also harm to us if we did not use it the right way. This is means with knowledge we know how to act well. Socrates explained of wisdom and knowledge, as expressed by Plato in The Apology (StevenM. Cahn 29p-30), is sometimes interpreted as an example of a humility theory of wisdom Socrates and his friend Chaerephon visit the oracle at Delphi. As the story goes Chaerephon asks the oracle

In Apology, Plato 's representation of Socrates states "as I thought and believed, to live the life of a philosopher, to examine myself and others". This statement is a response to the scornful remarks of the accusers asking him if he is not ashamed of where his "human wisdom" has gotten him. Socrates states that a "man who is any good" should only consider "whether he is acting like a good or a bad man". It is evident that Socrates views good character as an important trait of a wise person. He goes on to say that all men should take care

Socrates was a pompous man who believed that he was wiser than most, if not all, Athenian men of his time. He is also credited as one of the fathers of western philosophy, his own philosophy revolving around the welfare of one’s soul and reflecting on what the good life was. He was told by an oracle that he was the wisest of men and spent a great deal of time trying to prove it false, he decided that he was considered wise for accepting that he knew nothing, and never claimed to know anything that he questioned. In Plato’s text “Apology” Socrates is depicted as a man who was arrogant, hypercritical of others, and fixed on his ways no matter the consequences. He had the qualities of a man who saw no error in what he was doing because he

In order to determine whether or not Socrates was wise about God, we must first define the term “wise” in this context. What is the definition of wisdom? What makes someone wise? The literal meaning, or etymology, of the word is derived from the Indo-European stem woid which means to see. It also relates to similar words such as the Greek idein and the Latin videre, both also meaning “to see” (Mohr, pg. 3). Whereas, in English and Germanic languages the verb “wit” took on the meaning of knowing, because of the likeness to knowing to seeing, and thus resulting in the modern word “wisdom” which is defined as a type of knowledge (Mohr, pg. 3). So, the literal meaning of wisdom is to see and to know, which typically means same they are substitute of each other. As I mentioned above that wisdom is a type of knowledge, then what is knowledge? It is defined as a union of the consciousness of a subject, the knower, and an object, the thing known by means of an idea. Similarly, vision is a union between a seer and a thing seen by means of an image. (Mohr, Pg. 3). But, there are two kinds of knowledge. There is theoretical knowledge, such as knowledge of what love is, and there is practical knowledge, such as knowing how to love somebody. Wisdom could be described as a union between these two kinds of knowledge.

Throughout The Apology, Socrates shows his true philosophical standpoint of not knowing anything, he provides his form of questioning to prove that no one actually has wisdom. Those who think they are wise, have subjective and human wisdom. Basically, they do not have any wisdom, like those Socrates refers to, the Sophists. While he refutes his charge of not acknowledging the gods, he proves this further by explaining that the Oracle simply used him as an example to show he views wisdom. He claims to not know anything and this is considered subjective, superhuman wisdom.

Throughout the piece Socrates, deals largely with the examination of others. In “The Apology”, Socrates said, "above all I should like to spend my time there, as here, in examining and searching people's minds, to find out who is really wise among them, and who only thinks that he is." In this, we see how the philosopher views the people around him. He thought that it was his responsibility to examine the “wise” men around him and expose their false claims of wisdom as ignorance (“The Apology”, n.d.). He is implying that it is important to evaluate the people around you, and their claims of being wise as well as that should not take everything at face value and should gain our own sense wisdom by examining ourselves and the people around us.

Wisdom is cement. Wisdom is used to make new pathways but is often referred to as intelligence. However they are not the same, some who are intelligent cannot receive wisdom because they are arrogant, but there are few that break this barrier and realize that they actually know nothing because they are forever learning. Such as Socrates in the dialogue Apology by Plato, Plato analyzes Socrates journey to disprove his wisdom by questioning the most respected and talented people in Athens. Through ethos and paradox Plato reveals a respectful tone for his mentor Socrates.

Indeed failure to prove wisdom after examination of all that were thought to be wise made Socrates believes that he was the wisest. Such views came by the fact those cross-examined by Socrates such as the politicians, artisans and poets among others had no wisdom beyond their professional areas. For instance, unlike Socrates who possessed span knowledge, the Artisans and Poets would work on assumption by speculating issues of high matters that they could not understand. In such sense, Socrates would cross-examine and expose their

Socrates knowing himself, held in certain that he had “no wisdom small or great” (Plato, trans. 1871). Upon

Wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement. Knowledge is facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education. You may gain knowledge through education but you can't be taught wisdom. Sometimes that's a hard learned lesson. In Siddhartha, Herman Hesse uses the theme wisdom cannot be learned nor gained through teachings but can only be achieved through experience. Which is very evident through seeing Siddhartha going through his journey of life to reach full enlightenment/wisdom on his own.