🗣️ Plato on Dialogue: Knowledge vs Ignorance

SOCRATES: ...Only I beg that you will observe this condition: do not be unjust in your questions. It is the height of unreasonableness that a person who professes to care for moral goodness should be consistently unjust in discussion. I mean by injustice, in this connection, the behavior of a man who does not take care to keep controversy distinct from discussion; a man who forgets that in controversy he may play about and trip up his opponent as often as he can, but that in discussion he must be serious, he must keep on helping his opponent to his feet again, and point out to him only those of his slips which are due to himself or to the intellectual society which he has previously frequented. If you observe this distinction, those who associate with you will blame themselves for their confusion and their difficulties, not you. They will seek your company, and think of you as their friend; but they will loathe themselves, and seek refuge from themselves in philosophy, in the hope that they may thereby become different people and be rid forever of the men that they once were. But if you follow the common practice and do the opposite, you will get the opposite results. Instead of philosophers, you will make your companions grow up to be the enemies of philosophy.

Theaetetus, Plato

Distinguishing Arguments from Discussions

There is a clear distinction between an argument (mentioned as 'contraversy' above) and a discussion. One seeks to defeat his opponent through confusion and make him into an enemy, wheras the other seeks to win his opponent through clarity and foster friendship. The former enters the dialogue with intention of proving himself to be right and the other wrong, wheras the latter only wants to discover what is true, and to discern what we know from what we do not know.

Arguments tend to happen when one (or the other, or both) does not want to apply himself in search for the truth and accordingly defends himself as though his whole pride and soul were in his position. Victory equates to shaming the opponent through confusion and by causing him to stumble over his own words. Victory means that there is one winner and loser and that is it.

A discussion however, is more fruitful, because it does not leave the interlocutors in an unpleasant sourness or conflict. Discussions do not provoke us to a defensive position but an open one. It allows for the possibility for either one to change: joyfully, eagerly, and sincerely, without any feeling of hostility towards his opponent. I can only compare 'winning an opponent' to giving someone the thousand dollars they previously lost and had forgotten about; or thanking the surgeon for the operation they did, even though he had to cut him open and leave so many scabs behind. It takes a particular person to understand the nuance between an argument and a discussion, and few - a very, very few - are willing to engage in a real discussion.

The Character of Socrates

To pursue wisdom one must first consider what kind of character is the most receptive to it. Socrates was so wise, and was the greatest philosopher on the basis that he knew he that knew nothing, and that there was so many things he was ignorant of, but of which he did not know. In other words, Socrates saw himself as only slightly aware of the domain of his ignorance, and this is what made him so exceptionally wise.

Many of the things we think we know about, like what a happy life consists of, what virtue is and whether it can be taught, what piety is, what temperance is, what knowledge is - all of these we have not the slightest clue if we probe smartly and honestly into our ready 'answers'. In this sense then, many of Plato's most fruitful dialogues is when both interlocutors, Socrates and another (sometimes a entire group), admit ignorance on the topic of discussion, as paradoxical as that sounds. For Plato, it is the pursuit of Truth itself that matters, the desire to know and to enlarge the domain of one's own ignorance. It is infinitely better to know that you do not know than to exist thinking that you knew when you really did not!

Socrates and the Art of Dialogue

In conversation with Socrates, one so accustomed to argumentation would quickly rage at his persistent questions, because these probe at his unrevealed ignorance. Funnily enough, even though Socrates too would admit ignorance, everyone who talks to him will likely consider him to be infinitely wiser than they. How incredible! How absolutely fascinating! There is something indeed that we must emulate and study earnestly in the character and life of Socrates! If Plato, being a student of Socrates, saw fit to feature him in almost all of his works - there is so much in the way of Socrates that we can learn through them!

Socrates on Ignorance

An intruiging position which Socrates adopts (as represented by Plato), is his claim that evil is ignorance such that one's capacity to do good depends only on him knowing what is right. That is, if one knows what his right, by his nature he would immediately and without hesitation choose it!

Many of us adopt Aristotle's position which claims that knowledge of doing good is a necesssary condition, but it is not, and he stresses so well, a sufficient condition. To Aristotle, one has to struggle to choose the right thing, especially if the evil thing is pleasurable. But not to Socrates!

But consider this: what if Aristotle is completely wrong? What if we really did not know the harm something did us, and that became the reason why we choose to do it? If one truly pursues the truth in understanding why certain actions are evil, perhaps this is the remedy to doing good. By knowing, with the fullness of truth, the extent of the consequences for pursuing evil surely none of us would choose it? But oftentimes we see something good in the evil that we commit, and it the good in the act which attracts us.

Those who are addicted to substances cannot leave the addiction unless they know why it is bad for them, but surely - and this is in genuine earnestness - their inability to quit perhaps lies not in their lack of self-control, but in their ignorance of the damage that they cause both to themselves and others. They must be in a sense profoundly ignorant of these things, and that is why they remain in the thrall of their addictions!

This is why genuine discussion can be so fruitful, because it is the only way to lead us to knowledge, and also to the Good!