Socrates once said "I know that I know nothing" and he was by no means calling himself unintelligent when he said this. In fact, he was indirectly admitting that he is wiser than he who claims to know everything. If people take what they believe are fact as inherently true, is to be more ignorant than he who understands that no one who is not a god can know everything, therefore there is always something we don’t know that can make any fact untrue.
If more people in the world were like Socrates, we would have more people accepting other people’s points of views and searching for more knowledge. It all starts by admitting one’s ignorance, which might even potentially lead to world peace…
Think about it: if the members of Al Qaeda or ISIS believed that they are not the ultimate truth, that maybe they don’t know everything that they claim to know and were accepting of other people, would we really be having a modern day Holocaust?
We probably wouldn’t have the gender, race, sexual orientation and age discriminations that we do now.
We would probably have a wider variety of people and ideas circling the globe. If people were more open minded and accepting of other people’s thoughts and opinions than more people might feel the freedom to be who they are and express themselves the way they see fit, instead of feeling that they need to follow a set of rules and guidelines set by society.
He has also said that "wisdom begins in wonder." If we are never curious about things we see, hear and discover we won’t ever take the time to find out more.
I think what Socrates was saying here is that we need to seek out conversations with children, senior citizens, psychiatrists, prisoners, teachers, students, lawyers: really anyone who crosses our paths in life in order to fulfill our minds. By seeking other people’s thoughts and ideas, it will help those seeking see their own beliefs and opinions more clearly. We should go out and ask questions for the simple reason of it being healthy for us as humans. We should seek dialogues that are candid, insightful, bewildering, intelligent, bland and provocative. I think what Socrates meant is that finding wisdom through wonder lies in the contentious and wonderful space of human interaction.
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves and the world around us.
