The story of Socrates is a good place to start an exploration of self-knowledge. Consider his “origin story.”
In Ancient Greece, there were oracles. One of the most famous of these oracles was the oracle at Delphi (relatively close to Athens), named Pythia. Carved above the entrance to the temple was the phrase, KNOW THYSELF.
Oracles were believed to commune with the gods, but the answers they gave were usually cryptic and mysterious. So, you would go to the oracle and ask something like, “should I marry Elton?” and the oracle would respond, “sometimes the snows melt by moonlight.” Sure. Like most psychics and horoscopes of today, the answer is abstract enough that it can apply to any situation.
One day, Socrates’ friends went to the oracle at Delphi and asked, “is there anyone wiser than Socrates?” The oracle’s response: “No.” She responded in an uncharacteristically clear, unambiguous way: no. This was very strange indeed.
Keeping in mind that everyone back then believed in the prophesies of oracles, what would you do if your friends reported to you that a famous oracle declared that you were the wisest person in the land?
Consider that we now live in an age of rampant confirmation bias. We’ve probably always been prone to confirmation bias, but the internet has made it easier than ever to confirm our beliefs. For any idea we have about the world, it’s possible to find articles, blog posts, videos, and podcasts supporting that idea. But, going back to our analogy of the laboratory of self-inquiry, that’s not how science is done. To make scientific progress we have to look for evidence that confirms as well as evidence that refutes our hypotheses and assumptions about the world.
This is what Socrates did with the oracle’s claim that he was the wisest person around. Socrates did not claim to be wise. Instead, he tested the claim that he was the wisest person around by interrogating those who did claim to be wise. What he discovered is that those who claimed to be wise didn’t recognize who much wisdom or knowledge they lacked. Ultimately, he concluded that the oracle was correct only in that he seemed to be the only one around who understood how unwise he was.
What Socrates uncovered was the self-deception of those who claimed to be wise. Through dialogue fueled by probing lines of questioning, he revealed the holes in his interlocutors’ knowledge. His wisdom lay not only in his recognition of his lack of wisdom but in the method he employed to reveal self-deception. The implications of his view on wisdom extend beyond wisdom (or knowledge) for its own sake.
In one of Plato’s dialogues, the Euthydemus, he shows that the pursuit of happiness is inseparable from the pursuit of wisdom. He begins by establishing that all people desire happiness. To be happy, it follows, one must have “many good things.” These goods might include wealth, health, love, vocation, friendship, courage, etc. This is where it gets interesting: Socrates then shows that such goods alone cannot bring true happiness; we must also have the wisdom to know how to employ these goods in the service of happiness.
Then, I said, Cleinias, the sum of the matter appears to be that the goods of which we spoke before are not to be regarded as goods in themselves, but the degree of good and evil in them depends on whether they are or are not under the guidance of knowledge: under the guidance of ignorance, they are greater evils than their opposites, inasmuch as they are more able to minister to the evil principle which rules them; and when under the guidance of wisdom and prudence, they are greater goods: but in themselves they are nothing?
That, he replied, is obvious.
What then is the result of what has been said? Is not this the result—that other things are indifferent, and that wisdom is the only good, and ignorance the only evil?
He assented.
Let us consider a further point, I said: Seeing that all men desire happiness, and happiness, as has been shown, is gained by a use, and a right use, of the things of life, and the right use of them, and good-fortune in the use of them, is given by knowledge,—the inference is that everybody ought by all means to try and make himself as wise as he can?
To summarize:
- Wisdom begins with the acknowledgement of the limitations of our own knowledge. In this way, it is a matter of revealing our own self-deception.
- The pursuit of happiness requires the wisdom to know not just what goods to pursue in life, but also the right use of those goods in the service of happiness.
- Note: The kind of happiness referred to in these philosophical works is not happiness in the everyday sense, but rather eudaimonic happiness.
“[E]udaimonic happiness is not a passing mood or a fleeting feeling of elation but rather an abiding state of felicity emanating from leading a life that is worth living – which for Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle would be a life of virtue or moral excellence.” [@dhimanBeingGoodBeing2021]
In seeking to show that he was not the wisest person in the land, Socrates employed a method (now referred to as the Socratic Method) to cut through the self-deception of those who claimed to be wise. Another way of describing the Socratic project comes to us from an essay/book by the American philosopher, Harry Frankfort. In his essay, On Bullshit, Frankfurt distinguishes the liar from the bullshit artist as follows.
Definition: A liar “is essentially someone who deliberately promulgates a falsehood” [@frankfurtBullshit2005]. So, the liar cares about the truth value of the statements they make. They tell falsehoods in order to mislead others, to get them to believe something other than the truth. That truth could be an opinion they hold.
Definition: A bullshit artist or bullshitter, on the other hand, doesn’t care about the truth values of the claims they make. Instead, they care about how they are perceived or how they come across. “The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to.”
Here’s a question worth pondering: Is it possible to lie to yourself?
The cognitive scientist, John Vervaeke, argues that we can’t lie to ourselves, we can only bullshit ourselves. To lie is to know the truth and deliberately tell a falsehood so as to deceive. But, if we know a particular truth, telling ourselves a falsehood can’t possibly change our minds. If I know that I was at the beach yesterday morning, I can’t tell myself that I was at work and suddenly believe it. However, if I cut out of work early to go to the beach, though I can’t lie to myself about the facts (I skipped work and went to the beach instead), I can certainly bullshit my way into justifying skipping out on work, both to myself and to others.
So, we might say that one form of self-deception, the form Socrates dispelled through probing questioning and intellectual humility, is to bullshit ourselves. While Socrates showed that many, if not most, people bullshit their way into believing they are wiser than they are, we can turn to modern approaches to expose why we might do so, and highlight some other forms of self-deception.