Ignorance

Use in the book

The opposition first becomes ethically consequential when Critias rejects temperance without awareness of being temperate (164a–d2). At 165b–c2 Socrates insists that he inquires because he himself does not know. At 166c–d he identifies the danger more exactly: thinking that he knows when he does not, without noticing the discrepancy. The point is not that the word “ignorance” itself always implies culpable self-deception. Acknowledged ignorance motivates examination; unacknowledged ignorance makes examination necessary.

Knowledge of lack of knowledge enters at Socrates' suggestion (166e): if temperance knows knowledge, will it not also know its absence? Critias immediately agrees. This agreement should not be treated as a proved universal principle that every knowledge of one condition knows its contrary. Its subsequent content is precisely what is tested. At 167a it promises identification of false epistemic confidence in oneself and others; at 170d the claim is reduced to identifying that one does not know, without determining what one does not know.

The dream makes ignorance an intrusive assistant that temperance would prevent from slipping into human undertakings (173d). Personification highlights the attraction of complete expert supervision. Yet eliminating technical ignorance still does not explain the value of the resulting life. That requires attention to good and bad (174b–d).

At 175c Socrates raises a final puzzle about knowing ignorance: can one know in any way what one does not know at all? This is not an unqualified denial that someone can recognize inability to answer a question. The contrast between total lack of acquaintance and partial identification of an unknown field is left undeveloped. Charmides' candid “I don't know” at 176a, followed by his wish to continue, makes it especially inappropriate to present the whole dialogue as proving that acknowledging ignorance is impossible.

Places to read

1. 164a–d2Critias rejects temperate action unknown to its agent
2. 165b–166d23Socratic ignorance and fear of unnoticed false confidence
3. 166e–167aLack of knowledge added as an object of temperance
4. 170a–d2Limits of knowing ignorance without its field
5. 173dIgnorance excluded from the imagined expert-governed life
6. 175c–176aFinal puzzle and Charmides’ admitted uncertainty

Translation in this edition

“Lack of knowledge” keeps the verbal connection to epistēmē audible. At 156e “they do not know the whole” belongs to a manuscript alternative, ἀγνοοῖεν; Burnet prints ἀμελοῖεν, “they neglect”. That variant must not be quoted as the accepted dialogue text.

ἀγνοέω

Attested: ἀγνοεῖν / ἀγνοῶν / ἀγνοεῖ (agnoein / agnoōn / agnoei). Not know or fail to recognize; especially whether someone can act temperately without knowing himself or what he does. References: 162e, 164a, 170c, 164c. Lexical identification: lemma: ἀγνοέω. See Lack of knowledge.

ἀνεπιστημοσύνη

Attested: ἀνεπιστημοσύνης / ἀνεπιστημοσύνῃ (anepistēmosynēs / anepistēmosynēi). Lack of knowledge or expertise; proposed together with knowledge as temperance’s object. References: 166e, 167c, 169b, 171c, 174e, 170a. Lexical identification: lemma: ἀνεπιστημοσύνη. The datives at 170a–b are Burnet’s adopted conjectural construction; see the source and textual note. See Lack of knowledge.

συνεργός

Attested: συνεργὸν (synergon). A co-worker or accomplice; ignorance is personified as a would-be collaborator excluded from action. References: 173d. Lexical identification: lemma: συνεργός. See Lack of knowledge.

παρεμπίπτουσαν (parempiptousan)

Slipping in or intruding; personified ignorance would be prevented from joining the community’s work. References: 173d. Lemma: παρεμπίπτω. See Lack of knowledge.

Use in the book

Socrates challenges Alcibiades' assumption that every nonknower must wander in judgment. Ignorance of how to ascend to heaven is a counterexample. More practically, Alcibiades knows that he lacks culinary or navigational expertise and can leave those matters to the competent person. This is explicit second-order awareness: knowing that one does not know a subject. It does not amount to knowing that subject.

The practical safety of such ignorance comes from restraint and delegation. The person does not act on a fabricated expertise. The argument therefore offers an alternative to both omniscience and reckless independence: recognize a limit and rely on the relevant knower. Its claim that such people live without mistakes is tied to handing these matters over, not to a guarantee that they never err in any respect.

Ignorance remains a limitation even when acknowledged. At 128e–129b ignorance of what one is prevents knowledge of the appropriate care of oneself. Alcibiades must proceed to inquiry rather than regard confession as a completed education. The dialogue values awareness of ignorance because it removes a barrier to correction and proper action.

At 133e–134a2 ignorance of one's own affairs extends to others and civic affairs. That final warning concerns an aspiring actor and ruler. It should not erase the earlier demonstration that acknowledged ignorance can appropriately refrain from acting. The text distinguishes ignorance itself, the self-assessment attached to it, and the practical conduct that follows.

Places to read

1. 117b–117e2Acknowledged ignorance differs from wandering and permits deference
2. 128e–129bIgnorance of the self prevents identification of proper care
3. 133e–134a2Uninformed management produces error

Translation in this edition

“Be ignorant” and “not know” are kept distinct in the English, though they overlap semantically. The adjective “ordinary” is an explanatory heading, not a claim that the dialogue supplies a special name for a harmless class.

ἀγνοέω

Attested: ἀγνοεῖν (agnoein; 110c). At 110c: Be ignorant of justice, a condition Alcibiades cannot recall acknowledging before his supposed discovery. Lexical identification: lemma: ἀγνοέω. See Ordinary ignorance.

Use in the book

Alcibiades introduces the noun in his response to the poet’s safe prayer at 143a. Ignorance seems responsible for doing and even praying for the worst things without noticing. Socrates does not deny the danger; he objects to blaming ignorance at random. At 143c he requires specification of what is unknown, by whom, and in what condition. A term that appeared to name an unqualified evil becomes a question requiring an object and a situation.

The qualification is proved by an intentionally narrow case. Someone convinced that killing a particular person would be best may be prevented from acting by failure to recognise that person. The missing identity knowledge does not correct the destructive purpose, but prevents its successful execution. Ignorance of the best remains bad at 143e; ignorance that blocks an act chosen under that deficiency can be good at 144c. These are different evaluations of different absences, not a withdrawal of the need for judgment.

The later argument extends the pattern to skills that equip people to act more readily. Its purpose is not to commend ignorance as the completed human ideal. The conversation ends with the need to learn and to become able to distinguish bad from good. The verb at 147c, where Homer supposedly could not be ignorant that “knowing badly” is impossible, belongs instead to the defence of a poetic interpretation.

Places to read

1. 143a–c2Alcibiades condemns ignorance and Socrates requires qualification.
2. 143eIgnorance of the best is specifically declared bad.
3. 144a–cFailure to recognise an intended victim can prevent harmful action.
4. 146d–eThe argument extends to action-producing knowledge without guidance.
5. 147cThe verb is used in the claim about what Homer could not have failed to know.

Translation in this edition

The English deliberately retains “be ignorant of” even at 144b–c, where ordinary English would more naturally say “fail to recognise”. At 143a the printed hosōn kakōn yields “of how many bad things”; the manuscripts’ alternative would give “how great a bad thing”.

Use in the book

The noun is explicitly called a bad thing in the comparison with the presence of badness. Yet having ignorance does not always make a person so bad that love of wisdom is impossible.

Those who still think that they do not know what they do not know retain the capacity to philosophize. The crucial difference is therefore not between possessing every answer and possessing none, but between manners of being affected by ignorance. The word should not be treated as interchangeable with the stronger descriptions ἀμαθής and ἀγνώμων in this passage.

Places to read

1. 218aτὸ κακὸν τοῦτο, τὴν ἄγνοιαν — This bad thing, ignorance.
2. 218a–b2

Use in the book

The Hermetic creator’s illumination opposes ignorance and assists recognition of the divine. Another Hermetic passage proposes keeping certain hearers unaware of doctrines so that fear restrains wrongdoing. The juxtaposition reveals different uses of ignorance within teaching: a condition to overcome and a condition deliberately maintained for particular hearers.

Places to read

1. I.49.44.4Divine illumination assists the seeker against ignorance.
2. I.41.1.23Restricted disclosure is defended through the supposed effects of ignorance.

Translation in this edition

“Ignorance” should identify what is unknown without automatically implying culpable stupidity.

Use in the book

Perfect innocence is called perfect ignorance in a formulation that admires its lovableness while denying its prudence and reliability. The later literary remark explicitly distinguishes fields: ignorance can mitigate a moral fault yet itself constitute a first and capital fault in literature. The final contrast between knowing evil and ignoring good questions an age’s distribution of knowledge rather than its sheer quantity. One can therefore be learned in one respect while ignorant in the respect Joubert values most.

Places to read

1. I, p. 32, entry 3, ¶1Innocent ignorance is lovable but not prudent or reliable.
2. II, p. 652, entry 5, ¶1Ignorance has different consequences in morals and literature.
3. II, p. 832, entry 5, ¶1An age knows evil and foolish doctrines while lacking knowledge of good and wise opinions.

Translation in this edition

The English translation leaves A. C. unexpanded in the literary quotation and preserves the unfinished addition “and on the contrary.” Both science and scavoir become knowledge in the last witness, so their French difference cannot be recovered from English alone.

Use in the book

Ignorance of God, the world, and one’s own powers prevents enjoyment of an inheritance already given. It can act like a lid shutting a reflective eye, withholding the love that fuller perception would awaken. Yet the infant’s ignorance of quarrels, exactions, sickness, and death helps explain the freedom of the first apprehensions. Traherne does not propose preserving every childhood error. Adult reason is to recover what was true in that early vision. The refusal to remain ignorant thus belongs to a mature Christianity that loves wisdom, while freedom from corrupt assumptions remains a condition of learning.

Places to read

1. I.16Ignorance can destroy the joy available through knowledge of God, self, and world.
2. III.2The child’s ignorance of certain injuries and conventions is described as advantageous.
3. IV.5Christian identity is associated with loving wisdom rather than consenting to ignorance.
4. IV.86Ignorance is one lid by which a soul interrupts the reception and return of love.

In this edition

The favourable childhood occurrence is deliberately qualified by its objects. It does not make ignorance generally superior to learning, nor cancel the book’s insistence on mature understanding.

Use in the book

Theophrastus reports a symmetrical account: thinking occurs by likes, ignorance by unlikes. He presents this immediately before comparing thought with perception. Ignorance therefore has a place in the physical explanation, rather than being left as a mere gap in an otherwise successful act of knowing.

His later objection uses this symmetry against the theory. Pain too is attributed to opposites or unlikes; if shared physical causes are enough to identify mental states, ignorance must always be accompanied by pain, just as thought must bring pleasure. The claim is a consequence the critic draws, not an empirical assertion he reports Empedocles making. It is especially important not to read agnoia as moral wickedness or as the whole condition of a transmigrating soul merely because other parts of the corpus discuss purification. The present passage concerns a cognitive contrast within the perception dossier.

Places to read

1. A 86 §§ 10–11 (testimony)Theophrastus, On the Senses 10. Explicitly contrasts ignorance through unlikes with thought through likes.
2. A 86 §§ 22–23 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Senses 23. Infers an unwanted correlation of ignorance with pain.

Translation in this edition

The English “ignorance” can suggest absence of acquired information. The report instead associates it with unlike constituents or encounters, without spelling out a theory of learning, false belief, or memory.