Hi and welcome. This will also be my first activity on the website, so you'll be my first in a way =). This particular quote of Socrates has also resurfaced a couple of times throughout my short life, and has changed meaning each time for me. I understand it now in the context of the philosophy that Socrates represented and that of his time. The pre-socratic philosophers and Socrates himself were very pre-occupied with the notion of truth / knowledge. How can you now what is true? How is knowledge different from true belief etc. Socrates himself struggled with this question throughout his lifetime and died, I blieve, without ever finding a definitive answer. Hence, he says that the only thing he truly KNOWS to be true, is that he knows nothing. And when you think about it, isn't that all any of us can really be sure of? Barring Decartes' "I think, therefore I am" quote, of course.
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or to mention "know thyself"
I wanna add: create yourself!
Welcome on steemit!
I feel special to know your first activity was on here haha. Yes, exactly. How can we know that everything we think we know is in fact true? Or real? The Cartesian Method is very interesting but I think it has its flaws. Descartes says he thinks therefore he knows he exists but how can we know his thoughts are real? How can we prove what we're thinking is true? I remember he mentioned something about our reality could be manipulated by an unknown entity well our thoughts could be manipulated by that same unknown entity. So many questions yet so little answers.
I agree, and I don't think anyone has found the answers to these questions. What other philosopher tried to explain if what we're living is in fatc real? Found out about anyone interesting like Descartes?