". . . yet in a case where you set up to have knowledge and are ready to stand up and advise as though you knew, are you not ashamed to be unable, as appears, to answer a question upon it?"
-Socrates, Alcibiades I 108e - 109a
From: Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1955. URL: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0176%3Atext%3DAlc.%201%3Asection%3D109a
And so to be a philosopher is to ask yourself endless questions, poking and prodding your own views, to see that they stand up to scrutiny. A single smart question is all it takes to bring down a theory, or at least cast it in doubt. So one of the great challenges of philosophy is to anticipate all smart questions against your theories and have ready answers to them.
No comments:
Post a Comment