Apology Question 2

Primary text:

Apology 

Question:

What does Socrates try to get the others to recognize about their knowledge?

Answer:

Socrates inquired many who had good reputation, one man after another, including the artisans, and selected individuals for examination, who think they know but know nothing about the meaning of their words and poetry. 

Socrates tries to get others to recognize that they believe they possess wisdom when they actually do not. Through questioning politicians, poets, and artisans, he shows that true wisdom consists in recognizing one’s own ignorance rather than falsely claiming knowledge.

"After the politicians, I went to the poets, the writers of tragedies and dithyrambs and the others, intending in their case to catch myself being more ignorant than they. So I took up those poems with which they seemed to have taken most trouble and asked them what they meant, in order that I might at the same time learn some-thing from them. I am ashamed to tell you the truth, gentlemen, but I must. Almost all the bystanders might have explained the poems better than their authors could. I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understand-ing of what they say. The poets seemed to me to have had a similar experience. At the same time I saw that, because of their poetry, they thought themselves very wise men in other respects, which they were not. So there again I withdrew, thinking that I had the same advantage over them as I had over the politicians." (See Apology 22b - 22c)

Reference:

Plato (1997). Plato: Complete Works. Hackett Publishing. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781603846707