Wisdom and Antiquity

October 17, 2010

How much wiser people in ancient times would have been had they been able to look into a future that for us is looking into the past. I contend that we have wiser people today because of our advantage in seeing a broader scope of history.

That aside for the moment, looking at those considered by many to be Europe's wisest in ancient times, or looking at Confucius and his rivals in ideas, we find a lot of disagreement and confusion. The wise, one might think, would agree.

There were disagreements between Plato and his student Aristotle and others, but what can be described today as Plato's wisdom? A quick look online at brainyquote.com produces what some might consider profound observations and others might consider trite:

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.

Brainy.com does not tell us where Plato wrote any of the above, but we know for sure something on the subject of wisdom written by Plato in his work the Apology of Socrates. Plato writes of Socrates learning that the oracle at Delphi considers him, Socrates, to be the wisest of persons. Socrates believes instead that he is short on knowledge and wisdom, so he goes around town asking politicians, poets and craftsmen questions in hope of uncovering knowledge and wisdom. The craftsmen revealed knowledge about their craft, but they and the others failed to answer Socrates in a way that suggested that they had knowledge or wisdom beyond the obvious. Socrates was supposedly wiser because he was modest about his knowledge.

There is some truth here. We are wiser when aware of what we don't know, and wiser when we know our limitations. (Bill O'Reilly of Fox News take note!)

As for Socrates, we know enough about him to know that Plato was at least a little off in his story. Socrates was himself one of those who thought he knew more than he actually did. Socrates is said to have studied the art of debate and to have become a master at cross-examination and irony. He questioned Homeric religion and ethics, but it is said that he took oracles seriously -- as described in Plato's Apology. Socrates is described as hearing an inner voice that he believed was God's. Socrates, like others of his time, had only a primitive understanding of human psychology. He was a monotheist who believed that knowledge about his god would diminish wrongdoing, confusion and ugliness. And we know today how that worked out.

According to Xenophon, Socrates called people fools for studying the mechanics of nature -- the wind, rain, physics. Calling people fools in this instance rests on an assumption of knowledge that we can question whether Socrates really had. The study of natural phenomena, Socrates believed, produced nothing practical. Socrates and Plato were concerned with the divine as opposed materiality, and it is difficult to argue against the divine. But surely we can argue that Socrates was off in his "nothing practical" remark. And maybe we can excuse Socrates because he wasn't aware of the future that we now know well.