QuestionsCan we be certain of anything?Knowing that you do not know: the unexamined life
Can we be certain of anything?We must doubt

Knowing that you do not know: the unexamined life

Socratic ignorance

Socrates c. 470 BC · c. 399 BCI know that I know nothing.
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What it claims

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Why

Nobody truly knows what matters most; the only human wisdom is not to think one knows, which self-examination allows.

In short

"Knowing that you do not know: the unexamined life" is an argument by Socrates (Plato, Apology, 21d, 23a-b, 29a, 38a (Socrates according to Plato)) on the question "Can we be certain of anything?" (answer: we must doubt). Its claim: The unexamined life is not worth living. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3, P4). AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Plato, Apology, 21d, 23a-b, 29a, 38a (Socrates according to Plato)
Valid with an implicit premise

At his trial, Socrates tells how he set out to test the Delphic oracle, which had declared him the wisest of men. He questions men reputed to be learned and concludes that they think they know what they do not. His "wisdom" is not thinking himself learned. This is Plato's version; we have no direct witness. The famous formula "I know that I know nothing" is not in this text. The P1..P4 → C form is our reconstruction. Filing: we place the argument under "We must doubt" for its starting point (nobody really knows what is fine and good); it is a doubt limited to the great questions, not the complete doubt of the ancient Sceptics, and the conclusion is about how to live.

P1About what matters most (the fine, the good, the just, death), nobody really knows: neither the man reputed wise nor Socrates. Human wisdom is worth little or nothing.
P2In these conditions, the only human wisdom is not to think you know what you do not. Whoever thinks himself learned without being so lacks human wisdom.
P3 · implicit premiseWhen you do not examine yourself, you keep your beliefs without testing them and think yourself learned without being so. (Socrates' example: fearing death as if one knew it were an evil.)
P4 · implicit premiseA life without the only wisdom open to humans is not worth living: the greatest good is to discuss virtue every day while examining oneself and others.
Therefore the unexamined life is not worth living.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where one lacks human wisdom and life is nonetheless worth living: the premises stay true, the conclusion falls. One may object that many people live happily without examining themselves; in the Apology Socrates does not discuss this case, he asserts P4 as a conviction.
The argument is valid: without examination, one thinks oneself learned (P3); but since nobody really knows (P1), thinking oneself learned loses human wisdom (P2); and without it, life is worth nothing (P4). P3 and P4 are added out of charity. P4 is a value judgement: Socrates throws it to his judges as a conviction, not as a demonstration. Another point to keep in mind: in the same text, Socrates claims to know one thing (that it is wrong to do wrong, 29b). His ignorance is therefore limited to the great questions, not total.
Analogy. A pupil who never rereads his papers stays convinced he made no mistakes. Another rereads them and finds his errors. The second knows little, but knows he can be wrong: that is what Socrates calls being a little wiser.

Objections

2

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Meno (Plato, Meno) 385 BC · attacks the conclusion

If you do not know at all what virtue is, how will you look for it? And if you came across it, how would you know it was the thing? Socrates' perpetual enquiry would be impossible: one does not search for what one entirely ignores.

Socrate replies
Socrate Socrates (according to Plato, in the Meno)
Socrates answers with what he says he has from priests and poets: the soul has already learned everything before this life. Searching and learning are therefore only recollection. He adds that Meno's argument should not be believed, as it would make us lazy.
The debate goes on (our summary) This answer (recollection) is above all a thesis of Plato, which the historical Socrates may never have held. Readers are divided: for some it is an escape into myth; for others a real thesis about learning, which Socrates immediately puts to the test by getting a young slave, through mere questions, to find a geometrical truth (Meno 82b-85d).
Confucius (Analects 2.17, comparison) 479 BC · attacks premise 1

Confucius also holds that knowing means acknowledging what you do not know. But he adds the first term: knowing that you know what you know. For him, some things can be known, and the virtues are learned from the ancients. Socrates says that nobody knows what is fine and good. The two sages never knew each other.

no reply
We have not yet found a direct reply by Socrate in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) The two men never met: Confucius died around 479 BC, when Socrates was about ten. There is therefore no historical reply, only a comparison. It shows that Socrates' position is more radical, and that his own words ("I know that it is wrong to do wrong") bring him closer to Confucius than is usually said.
What today's voices say
Defend it
Alain de BottonHe often cites Socrates: knowing one's ignorance is the root of good thinking, and the unexamined life makes us suffer more than we need to.