Why Ignorance Isn't That Bad (This Is Worse)
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“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” — This unsourced quote perfectly describes the reasoning behind Socrates’s quest to help his countrymen purify their minds of mistaken notions and intellectual conceit.
The Socratic Method reveals our false beliefs, hopefully causing us to discard them. This won’t make us wise, but it will make us less foolish, and probably more humble.
Luckily, removing falsehoods opens us up to true knowledge.
In Plato’s “The Sophist,” a stranger suggests those cross-examined by the Socratic Method realize how little they know about their moral beliefs, and if they humbly accept their ignorance, they become receptive to higher truths.
There is only one good,” Socrates said, “that is, knowledge, and only one evil, that is, ignorance.”