How can Socrates' claims to knowledge be reconciled with his standard disavowal of knowledge?
>>1730441
He didn't "disavow knowledge", he admitted that he "knew nothing".
>>1730446
he admitted he knew nothing and that's what set him apart from everyone else who claimed to know something. While everyone knows nothing, Socrates was the only one to acknowledge his own ignorance
>>1730455
And?
>>1730464
his claim to knowledge is his admission to ignorance
>>1730464
He's pointing out that you shouldn't view him as an absolute authority, because he was smart enough to recognise that he could never 'know' anything for certain.
>>1730446
/stupid thread
>>1730492
This becomes much more intelligible when you juxtapose Socrates' admission with what his interlocutors and adversaries say in Plato's dialogues. They are often (Protagoras, Hippias, etc.) sophists: men of purported wisdom that charge large fees to educate young men. They are not only teachers but also men of high stature and pride. Socrates inquires whether or not they should be so. After all a general that only (successfully) pretends to be good at leading armies will cause a disaster if he's entrusted with leading an actual army. Socrates thinks that sophists are such pretenders in the realm of knowledge, which he believes having challenged them multiple times (check the dialogues Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Protagoras, for example).
When Socrates inquires and challenges his interlocutors, no definite answer is, in fact, reached. They explore the topic, he shows that his interlocutor does not have a viable answer to the problem, and they find themselves unable to reach a satisfactory answer. This state is called aporia.
Thus 'I know that I know nothing' runs against 'i know everything' approach of the sophists, and, crucially, against 'you don't know, but I have an answer'. Socrates is able to expose flaws in a position, without arguing for his own position: he does not know the answers himself.
With this background in mind, for the phrase 'I know that I know nothing' to make sense, we have to assume that it is not meant literally, to get rid of the contradiction. He obviously knows how to disprove and point out inconsistencies, but, seeing how hard the task of actually getting the RIGHT answer is, he admits he has no right answers--unlike others; the sophists. So 'i know i know nothing' becomes 'I know that I do not know the answers to all these dilemmas'.
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This is the simplest explanation I could come up with here. There are many other related issues regarding the reasons for aporia and its relationship to Platonism, etc. Hope this helps.
>>1730661
based
He was a clever sophist
"I am a good lawyer Socrates"
"why?"
"I'm excellent at administering justice"
"justice partakes of the good?"
"indubitably Socrates!"
"and excellence at administering justice is also good?"
"Incontrovertibly so"
"all you have revealed to me is that you are good because you are good"
"by Zeus, you have shown me to be a fool, Socrates!"
It's slippery because he could claim that all things partake of "existence" and then use all things interchangeably. So "I love my child" is manipulated as "you and your child exist" --> "you love yourself", the assumption is that two elements of the same set are the same, which is a contradiction of "two elements". All throughout Plato's dialogues I found assertions that formed the trapeze for Socrates' verbal gymnastics.
>people will be good if you show them the good life
>knowledge is the ultimate good
>muh forms
The forms are probably the absolute bedrock of all of Socrates' word play. He says he doesn't know anything and yet believes in absolute forms of love and beauty. He also uses sets and axioms. I think that the forms may have been introduced by Plato and not Socrates, although the belief that people cannot knowingly commit evil acts is a strong claim. It is most likely a tonic against arrogance and grandiose claims of knowledge. It's a "meaningless" collection of words that sounds pleasing and witty. An ironic joke perhaps.
It's amazing that people were so mad with his irl shitposting, that they killed him, only because he was able to fool, embarrass, and enrage thinkers from Gorgias to Nietzsche and beyond.
>>1730907
Socrates' committed suicide.
t. Nietzsche
>>1730907
Forms are without a doubt Plato's stuff.
He basically said, others think they are wise and know little, I know I am a fool and thus know more because i am not deceived. We are both wrong, but i know I'm wrong, so im more right than you.
Could be a pleb thing to say if it wasnt the father of western philosophy to say it. It probably sounds pleb because it's become such a ubiquitous thought in the West, kind of like the cogito and the demon of Descart