Dear Readers,
Welcome to Part V of our course, Wisdom is the Way: The Timeless Art of Leading a Life. In today’s meditation, we explore the topic of not knowing. This concludes our study of perspectives; next week, we will turn our attention to principles (or virtues).
***As a reminder, for those who are available, our first virtual meetup will be on Wednesday (24 January) at noon EST (Register here).
The Wisdom of Not Knowing
What can we know for sure?
A curious paradox of wisdom is the need to let go of the traditional idea of knowing. Socrates famously stated, “All that I know is that I know nothing.”
Plato, a student of Socrates, put it this way,
We do not know — neither the sophists, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I — what the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are. But there is this difference between us: although these people know nothing, they all believe they know something; whereas, I, if I know nothing, at least have no doubts about it. As a result, all this superiority in wisdom which the oracle has attributed to me reduces itself to the single point that I am strongly convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know.
The philosopher Michel de Montaigne also stressed the notion of not knowing. He famously lived by the maxim, “All that I know is that I know nothing, and I am not even sure of that.”
In his Essays, Montaigne explained,
If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of inanity and nonsense. Get rid of it. I cannot without getting rid of myself. We are all steeped in it, one as much as another, but those aware of it are a little better off — though I don’t know.
Whether we call it skepticism, not knowing, intellectual humility, or the beginner's mind. Recognizing that these terms are not about simply knowing nothing is essential.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Perennial Meditations to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.