Socrates on the Aporetic Method
“In the end, very often we do not know, or there is some way that we know, which is in fact the way that we do not know. Thus, it may be said that the Sophists were wise, for although they knew, they also knew that they knew not.”
The aporetic method, or an aporetic argument, is such that it generates a state of puzzlement ( aporia in its subjective sense) by way of the equality of opposite reasonings, that is, by way of a problem or difficulty (aporia in the objective sense) put forward in the course of philosophical investigation.
Plato on Not Knowing the Way
This every soul seeketh and for the sake of this doth all her actions, having an inkling that it is; but what it is she cannot sufficiently discern, and she knoweth not her way, and concerning this she hath no constant assurance as she hath of other things.
Socrates on Wisdom and Not Knowing
Perhaps you may wonder why I relate this story: it is because I am going to show you how the calumnies rose against me. For when the oracle was brought to me, I began to ask myself, What does the god mean, and what is the reading of his riddle? Certainly so far as I know myself I am not conscious of being wise in any matter great or small. What, then, does he mean by calling me the wisest? At any rate he does not lie, for that were contrary to his nature. So for a long while I was in doubt about the oracle, until at length I bethought me of the following method of testing it. I went straight to one of our reputed wise men, thinking that here, if anywhere, I should be able to refute the oracle and say to the god, Look youl this man is wiser than I, and yet you call me wisest. Well, I examined this man (never mind his name,
but my first adventure was with one of our politicians) and conversed with him, and it soon became apparent that to many people and most of all to himself he seemed quite wise, whereas in truth he was not so at all.
Thereupon I undertook to show him how he was wise in opinion only and not in reality; but I only made myself a nuisance to him and to many of those about him. So I went away reflecting that at least I was wiser than this man. Neither of us apparently knows anything much worth while, but he in his ignorance thinks he knows, whereas I neither know nor think I know.
Surely I may claim a little more of wisdom than he, in so far as I do not think I know what I do not know. After this I approached one whose character for wisdom was still higher, but with no different result; I only gained the ill will of him and a host of others.
So I went from one to another in succession, perceiving all the while that I was but making enemies, sorrowing and fearing, and yet compelled, as it were, to honour the god above all things and to prove his oracle by approaching all who were reputed to have any knowledge. And I swear by the dog,1 men of Athens — for I must declare the truth — I swear that this was
all my profit. Searching by command of the god, I found that those who had the greatest renown for wisdom were in general the most lacking of all, whereas others of no reputation were really the better and wiser men. But
1 Socrates’ favourite oath. Tradition says that Rhadamanthys forbade swearing by the gods, but permitted such a use of the names of animals.
Lactantius on the Inability of Men to Ascertain the Divine
But the error of these men, because it is very great, and tends to overthrow the condition of human life, must be refuted by us, lest you yourself also should be deceived, being incited by the authority of men who deem themselves wise. Nor, however, are we so arrogant as to boast that the truth is comprehended by our intellect; but we follow the teaching of God, who alone is able to know and to reveal secret things. But the philosophers, being destitute of this teaching, have imagined that the nature of things can be ascertained by conjecture. But this is impossible; because the mind of man, enclosed in the dark abode of the body, is far removed from the perception of truth: and in this the divine nature differs from the human, that ignorance is the property of the human, knowledge of the divine nature.
Aristotle on Love and Longing
The pleasure of the eye is the beginning of love. For no one loves if he has not first been delighted by the form of the beloved; but he who delights in the form of another does not, for all that, love her, but only does do when he also longs for her when absent and craves for her presence.
Aristotle Presaging the Cogito and Categorical Imperative
Now, the good man has the same relation to his friend as he has to himself; for a friend is another self; in the same manner, therefore, as to exist one’s self is eligible to every one, so also is it for one’s friend to exist, or nearly so. But existence was said to be eligible on account of the perception of that which is a good: and such a perception is pleasant in itself. We ought, therefore, to be conscious of the existence of our friend; and this would result from associating with him, and sharing his words and thoughts; for this would seem to be the meaning of the word society, when applied to men, and not, as in the case of cattle, the merely feeding in the existence. If, then, existence is in itself eligible to the happy man, being by nature something good and pleasant, and if the existence of a friend is nearly the same, then a friend must also be of the number of eligible things. But that which is eligible to a man, he ought to possess; or else he is deficient in that respect; he, therefore, that is to be happy will need good friends.
Aristotle on Love and Possessing Goodness
It is pleasant to be loved, for this makes a man see himself as the possessor of goodness, a thing that every being that has a feeling for it desires to possess: to be loved means to be valued for one’s own personal qualities.
The Psalter on the Human Station
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.