/lit/ - Literature

>>13586490
I know Socrates says he knows he knows nothing (and the case may be that Socrates is unique in his midwifery (he is not a real person) and cannot conceive that one thing we can know, that which Socrates was trying to help Theaetetus conceive in Theaetetus), but I'm pretty sure Socrates' philosophy held the one beyond being, the good, as the only thing we can know. But I'd be interested to hear anybody else's take on it

>>13586490
Whitehead: one knows togetherness of both many and one: http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/whitehead.html

>>13586490
if you can know one thing doesn't that mean that you can know that you know that thing, which means that you know more than one thing?

if you know nothing then that mean you can't know what knowledge is, thus you can't know if you know nothing.

>>13586554
I know the good exists because...

>>13586628
Maybe, beyond being means beyond existence, so maybe the question is invalid, or maybe im just an asshole, but if you think about the contrast between order and disorder alongside the contrast between good and bad long enough, you might see that all that is came from the Good. A possibility that maybe shouldn't be discarded. I'm a vain bastard

>>13586490
to know that you know nothing is to know something

>>13587292
The Good is order? How do you know that?

>>13586490
>>13586554

its a rhetorical technique that socrates uses to be tactful and polite. He pretends he is just asking questions, and then proceeds to present his well thought out views.

The fact that this trick worked on athens is surprising, but even more impressive is that all our idiot professors give lectures and write books about socrates falling for the same trick.

Intellectual humility is certainly a positiion he holds. But socrates is hardly a guy who walks around town believing nobody can know anything

>>13587707

what does "socrates" believe then? cite xenophon