Practice question · Multiple choice
Why does Socrates conclude he is wiser than those who claim knowledge?
Hints
- The oracle’s pronouncement puzzled him and he set out to test it.
- Examining the confident revealed they did not know either, but did not know that.
Show the answer
B. He alone recognises that he does not know
Why
Examining people who claimed knowledge showed they did not have it either. The difference is that Socrates knows this about himself, and that recognition is the only wisdom he claims, everything in the method follows from it.
Practise Socrates
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Philosophy I is free to start.
More questions on Socrates
- Socrates was tried and executed in 399 BC. How many years ago was that, counting from the year 2000 AD?
- The elenchus typically concludes in aporia rather than a positive definition. What follows from this outcome…
- Socrates held that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it.
- Arrange these events in the order they occurred.
- Which claims are attributed to Socrates?
- Sort each statement by whether it is a fair or unfair characterisation of the elenchus.