wisdom and ignorance predicament
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 3 anchored passages
knowing nothing · the self-refuting measure · wisdom · wisdom versus ignorance
in the texts
Orations
The contrast between claimed ignorance (Socratic and the speaker's own) and the false self-assured wisdom of sophists.
and this, it seems to me, you would believe not of me only, but of Socrates as well, who made the same claim about himself to everyone, that he knew nothing;
15. Yet I tell you beforehand that you, so vast a multitude, have been eager to hear a man neither comely in appearance nor strong, one already past his prime in years, who has no pupil, who professes no art or science — neither of the more august nor of the lesser sort, neither divination nor sophistry, nor any power of rhetoric or flattery — who is no skilled writer and has no work worthy of pra …
Theaetetus
The argument that if every person's opinion is true, then no one could be wiser than another, yet people manifestly hold that some are wiser, and Protagoras's own doctrine winds up conceding its opponents are right.
That is true.
Yes, that is what he says.
That seems to be the inevitable deduction.