As portrayed in the Gorgias, the Republic, the Crito, and several other places, Socrates is apparently a man of strong opinions since, in his discussions with Crito, Euthyphro, Thrasymachus, Polus, and others, he is shown to have quite clear ideas about how to question what they say. Yet, in the Apology, Socrates professes to be largely ignorant of the most important things. Are these two aspects of Socrates, his apparently strong opinions, on the one hand, and his profession of ignorance, on the other, inconsistent with one another?
The first thing to note is that Socrates held his opinions undogmatically; he was willing, even happy, to have them altered, for he held that it is only by the correction of one’s opinions that one can learn. But they were not easily refuted because they were based in careful reflection.
But consider the expertise of any specialist, say, that of a physician. Her expertise may be characterized as a knowledge of what questions to ask, what information to gain, to solve a medical problem. If you are sick, she knows, on the basis of the appearances, what questions to ask in diagnosis to get behind the appearances; each question leads to another, depending on the answers, until she knows enough to test for specific pathologies. This knowledge of what differential sequence of questions to ask is precisely the knowledge that you, as a non-physician, lack. You know that you don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you are at sea about it. She also knows that she doesn’t know, but her ignorance is more precisely defined and subject to remedy. She is aware of her ignorance in such a way that she can ask the right questions to make progress. Similar remarks can be made about any sort of expertise.
Now generalize this expert, question-guiding awareness of one’s ignorance to the level of philosophy where the question is not a specialized one for a lawyer or a doctor, but the most general one of what it takes to make a human being flourish, and there you have Socrates’ wisdom. It’s a wisdom that gives him a sure awareness of what question to pursue in any given conversation to get at the essentials of what is of basic and common concern to those engaged in the conversation, including Socrates. Socrates’ opinions are like the physician’s background knowledge that enables her to diagnose specific questions.
Each new case should be allowed to test that background knowledge for its adequacy and to teach the physician something new; dogmatism in a physician is no more desirable than in a philosopher. But it’s only because the physician already has a highly developed background knowledge that she is able to learn anything new at all. The non-physician is not able to recognize new and interesting medical cases and so is not able to learn from them. In like manner, Socrates is in a position to learn from each new conversation because he has a highly developed background knowledge about human nature. But, like a good physician, he knows that his education is incomplete and so attempts to transform his opinions in each new conversation.[1]
One of the recurring comic motifs of the dialogues is the exasperation of people like Thrasymachus and Polus with Socrates’ questioning and their mistaken belief that it is easier to question than to answer. When the role of questioner is handed over to Polus, for instance, he clearly has no sense of how to pursue a question.[2] His questions are random, out of sequence, and don’t develop the subject.
Socrates’ docta ignoratio, then, is not simply a command to be modest about one’s own opinions. One frequent error made by beginning students is to think that Socratic wisdom is the governing belief that one’s own opinions are “only one person’s opinions,” and that they are therefore not especially worthy of defense. It would seem, on this sophomoric view, that one should, ideally, hold no opinions at all since every opinion is just about as worthless as any other. But this interpretation of Socratic ignorance conflicts with the portrait of Socrates guiding conversations with men such as Thrasymachus and Polus.
Consider the Greek original of our English, ‘opinion’. Transliterated, this original is ‘doxa’. ’Doxa’ also means ‘appearance’ as well as ‘what is generally accepted.’ Now, all conversations must start from the appearances, as it were. An exchange of opinions begins a conversation. But the art of conversation consists in going beyond the mere initial exchange. Conversation puts the initial opinions into play; it plays out the meaning of those opinions in an interplay that brings about a common view between the interlocutors, which view then transcends and supersedes the former opinions. Real conversation consists in rising above your first opinion for the sake of a more enlightened view that emerges in the common interplay of the conversation. This is the conversation that Socrates always desires.
Opinions, therefore, are not all of the same value. Some opinions are better than others since they are the products of more and better conversations and thus will, in turn, enable the development of even better opinions. This progress, this advance, as it is relevant to the issues of living a human life, may be considered to be knowledge; opinions are the rungs of this ladder, and each rung is of temporary use.
Socrates is only apparently strongly opinionated, then. His strength is not that of an opinion, but that of a question that leads beyond prior opinion, beyond the appearances so trusted by every tragic hero.
[1] See also the entry for ‘virtuous ignorance’ in the glossary. Unlike the physician, Socrates knows that his education is not just partially, but radically incomplete.