Conceit of knowledge

Use in the book

The structure first obstructs the acquisition of knowledge. At 106d–e Alcibiades agrees that he would not willingly seek or learn what he thought he already knew. Socrates applies the concession to justice at 109e–110c2. Even as a child Alcibiades accused others loudly and confidently of wrongdoing. He takes these remembered judgments as evidence of knowledge; Socrates takes them as evidence that the conviction of knowledge preceded any identifiable search. Confidence therefore closes the route by which its absence might be remedied.

The failure of the appeal to the many produces the personal verdict at 113b: Alcibiades does not know justice, thinks he does, and proposes to advise Athens about it. Socrates insists that the verdict follows from Alcibiades' own answers. The charge is consequently more than an older lover's disparaging opinion. The young man has committed himself to the premises that expose his entitlement as unsupported.

The systematic diagnosis follows the argument about justice and advantage. Alcibiades gives incompatible answers and confesses that he no longer knows what he is saying. Socrates first tests whether all ignorance produces wandering. It does not. Alcibiades does not know how to ascend to heaven, prepare a dish, or steer a ship, but neither supposes that he possesses the relevant knowledge. In the practical examples he can hand the matter over to someone who knows and refrain from improvising.

At 117d–118a2 Socrates distinguishes three positions: actual knowers, nonknowers who know that they do not know, and nonknowers who think they know. Mistakes are assigned to the third. The important mechanism is attempted action under false assurance: we undertake a task when we believe we know what we are doing. Acknowledged ignorance can stop the intervention and permit delegation; unacknowledged ignorance cannot.

The passage should be read as the speakers' agreed explanatory argument, with its strong premises visible. It treats genuine knowledge as excluding the relevant errors and successful deference as protecting the acknowledged nonknower. It does not examine every accidental failure, deceptive expert, or mixed practical situation. To translate its claim into the unrestricted modern thesis that every human error is caused solely by overconfidence would exceed what the examples establish.

The state is worst when its objects are the greatest matters: justice, the fine, the good, and advantage. Alcibiades' proposed authority amplifies the risk, because his mistakes would affect citizens as well as himself. The problem is therefore epistemic and ethical together. He is not blamed simply for having been born without knowledge, but challenged for acting as though the required understanding were already his.

The later self-care inquiry repeats this structure in another form. One may think one is caring for oneself while actually improving something else. Accurate identification of self and good is needed to break that error. The remedy is not a permanent performance of uncertainty about everything: Alcibiades does know ordinary facts and learned skills. It is the discrimination of what he knows from what he must still learn, followed by the work of inquiry.

Places to read

1. 106d–106eSupposed knowledge blocks willingness to seek or learn
2. 109e–110d2Childhood confidence cannot establish a discovery of justice
3. 113b–113cAlcibiades’ answers expose knowledge he claims but lacks
4. 116e–118b234Contradiction and practical examples diagnose the dangerous state
5. 127e–128a2Supposed self-care can likewise conceal failure to care for the actual self

Translation in this edition

The edition distinguishes “think one knows,” “not know,” and “be ignorant.” The third is not intrinsically more culpable by lexical definition; the combination of ignorance with false assurance produces the culpable state. No separate term for “double ignorance” is imposed on the Greek.

ἄγνοια

Attested: ἄγνοια (agnoia; 118a). At 118a: Ignorance qualified by the preceding false opinion of knowledge; this specified state is said to cause bad things. Lexical identification: lemma: ἄγνοια. See Conceit of knowledge.

οἴομαι

Attested: οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι (oiesthai eidenai; 117d); οἶμαι (oimai; 130c). At 117d: Suppose oneself to know while lacking knowledge, the mistaken self-assessment used to explain practical errors. At 130c: Socrates' ordinary qualification of a judgment, showing that this verb alone does not invariably mark false pretension to knowledge. Lexical identification: lemma: οἴομαι. See Conceit of knowledge.