Quotes Chosen
“Socrates: This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything].” -Plato, Phaedo
“It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.” – Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
Interpretation of the Quotes
These two quotes remind people that there is no truth in the world. People may know something, but we will never understand whether it is complete or false knowledge. The two quotes complement each other. The first shows that people are ignorant because they do not know what they claim to know. The second quote shows that it is wrong to be confident in knowledge, as there is no truth in one’s knowledge.
From Socrates’ point of view, any knowledge or information he did possess was probably trivial (or even entirely wrong) in light of how much remained to be learned. A French philosopher, René Descartes, took the infinite regression so far that he believed the entire universe to be a sophisticated hoax concocted by an evil demon to deceive him. The Evil Demon scenario demonstrates how the infinite regression can frequently go so deep that it makes it difficult to determine whether the information entering your brain is real. Since all the information you are taking in through your senses is an illusion, you cannot possibly know anything.
The physical reality we inhabit—where you can hold a glass of water or read this article on a computer—is only a shadow, according to the theory of forms. The world we live in now is one of “ideas” or “forms.” These are non-physical essences that reside outside the physical universe. Everything in our dimension is merely a projection of or imitating these shapes and concepts. Comparing something actual to its ideal representation is another approach to thinking about the forms. Consider the ideal apple, then contrast it with actual apples you have tasted or seen.