{"id":33697,"date":"2023-04-29T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-29T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=33697"},"modified":"2023-05-02T12:07:16","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T12:07:16","slug":"what-socrates-know-nothing-wisdom-can-teach-a-polarized-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-socrates-know-nothing-wisdom-can-teach-a-polarized-america\/","title":{"rendered":"What Socrates\u2019 \u2018know nothing\u2019 wisdom can teach a polarized\u00a0America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

J. W. Traphagan<\/a>, The University of Texas at Austin<\/a><\/em> and John J. Kaag<\/a>, UMass Lowell<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A common complaint in America today is that politics and even society as a whole are broken<\/a>. Critics point out endless lists of what should be fixed: the complexity of the tax code<\/a>, or immigration reform<\/a>, or the inefficiency of government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But each dilemma usually comes down to polarized deadlock between two competing visions and everyone\u2019s conviction that theirs is the right one. Perhaps this white-knuckled insistence on being right is the root cause of the societal fissure \u2013 why everything seems so irreparably wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As religion<\/a> and philosophy<\/a> scholars, we would argue that our apparent national impasse points to a lack of \u201cepistemic humility,\u201d or intellectual humility \u2013 that is, an inability to acknowledge, empathize with and ultimately compromise with opinions and perspectives different from one\u2019s own. In other words, Americans have stopped listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why is intellectual humility in such scarce supply? Of course, the quickest answer might be the right one: that humility runs against most people\u2019s fear of being mistaken<\/a>, and the zero-sum view that being right means someone else has to be totally wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we think that the problem is more complex and perhaps more interesting. We believe epistemic humility<\/a> presents something of a twofold danger that makes being humble frightening \u2013 and has, ever since Socrates first put it at the heart of Western philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing you don\u2019t know<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If your best friend told you that you were the wisest of all human beings, perhaps you would be inclined to smile in agreement and take the dear friend for a beer. But when the ancient Athenian Socrates was delivered this news, he responded with sincere and utter disbelief \u2013 even though his friend had confirmed it with the Delphic oracle<\/a>, the fortune-telling authority of the ancient world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This nascent humility \u2013 \u201cNo, get out of here, I\u2019m definitely not the wisest\u201d \u2013 helped spark what became arguably the greatest philosophical life of all time<\/a>. Despite relative old age, Socrates immediately embarked on a journey to find someone wiser than himself and spent many days seeking out the sages of the ancient world, a quest Plato recounts in his \u201cApology of Socrates<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem? He discovered that the sages thought they knew more than they actually did. Eventually, Socrates concluded that he himself was, in fact, the wisest of all men, because at least he \u201cknew that he didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not to say that Socrates knew nothing: He demonstrates time and again that he knows a lot and routinely demonstrated good judgment. Rather, he acknowledged there were definite limitations to the knowledge he could claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the birth of \u201cepistemic humility\u201d in Western philosophy: the acknowledgment that one\u2019s blind spots and shortcomings are an invitation for ongoing intellectual investigation and growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
Reminder to self: Keep it humble. tumsasedgars\/iStock via Getty Images Plus<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Provoking the powerful<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But this mindset can feel dangerous to other people \u2013 especially if they feel absolutely certain in their convictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In ancient Athens, as much as in the U.S. today, being perceived as right translated into money and power. The city-state\u2019s culture was dominated by the Sophists, who taught rhetoric to nobles and politicians, and the Poets, ancient playwrights. Greek theater and epic poetry were closely related to religion<\/a>, and their creators were treated as mouthpieces for aesthetic and moral<\/a> truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, theater and poetry were also major moneymakers, which motivated artists to adopt a mentality of \u201cfail fast, fail better,\u201d with an eye to eventually proving correct and getting paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By critically interrogating the idols and polarized views of his culture, Socrates threatened the power holders of his city. A constantly questioning figure is a direct threat to individuals who spend their lives defending unquestioned belief \u2013 whether it\u2019s belief in themselves, their superiors or their gods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take Euthyphro, for example, one of Socrates\u2019 principal interlocutors<\/a>. Euthyphro is so sure that he knows the difference between right and wrong that he is bringing his own father to trial. Socrates quickly disabuses him of his certainty, famously debating him about the true meaning of piety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or take Meletus, the man who eventually brought Socrates to trial<\/a> on accusations of corrupting youth. In Plato\u2019s account of the trial, it takes Socrates no time to show this \u201cgood patriot,\u201d as Meletus calls himself, that he does not understand what patriotism truly means. Without any pretensions to knowing the absolute truth, Socrates is able to shed light on the underlying assumptions around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s frustrating to read the Platonic dialogues<\/a>, the works of philosophy that recount Socrates\u2019 life and teaching, in part because Socrates rarely claims the final word on any subject. In short, he gives more questions than answers. But what remains constant is his openness to uncertainty that keeps his inquiry on the move, pushing his inquiries further and deeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paying the price<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The second danger of epistemic humility is now probably in view. It\u2019s the danger that Socrates faced when he was brought to trial for corrupting Athens\u2019 youth \u2013 the danger to the humble skeptics themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is brought up on two very serious charges<\/a>. The first was an accusation that he taught students to make the weaker argument appear to be the stronger \u2013 which is actually what the Sophists did, not Socrates. The second was that he had invented new gods \u2013 again, he didn\u2019t do that; poets and playwrights did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was he really guilty of? Perhaps only this: Socrates criticized the arrogant self-assertion of his culture\u2019s influencers, and they brought him to trial, which concluded in his death sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vibrant<\/a>
He asked the big questions, and he paid a price. Roland Gerth\/The Image Bank via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Socrates taught that being humble about one\u2019s own views<\/a> was a necessary step in searching for truth \u2013 perhaps the most essential one. That was and perhaps still is a revolutionary view, because it forces us to challenge preconceived ideas about what we believe, what we worship and where we tap meaning. He placed himself in the middle of Athenians\u2019 sharply polarized debates about what truth and goodness were, and he was the one who got hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHumility like darkness,\u201d wrote American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, \u201creveals the heavenly lights<\/a>.\u201d Put another way, humility about the verity, accuracy and wisdom of one\u2019s ideas can reveal the fact that others have understandable reasons for thinking as they do \u2014 as long as you try to see the world as they are seeing it. In contrast, arrogance tends to extinguish the \u201cheavenly light\u201d about what we still don\u2019t fully understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being humble about one\u2019s position in the world is not an invitation for a post-truth, anything-goes opinion free-for-all. Truth \u2013 the idea of truth \u2013 matters. And we can pursue it together, if we are always open to being wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J. W. Traphagan<\/a>, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, The University of Texas at Austin<\/a><\/em> and John J. Kaag<\/a>, Professor of Philosophy, UMass Lowell<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

J. W. Traphagan, The University of Texas at Austin and John J. Kaag, UMass Lowell A common complaint in America today is that politics and even society as a whole are broken. Critics point out endless lists of what should be fixed: the complexity of the tax code, or immigration reform, or the inefficiency of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":33698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[292,2450],"tags":[3350,13959,2001,196,6349,13637,5815,13960,581,1234],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33722,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33697\/revisions\/33722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}