Admitting That You Don’t Know
Sometimes, when I hear people arguing about something, especially something political, one party gets put on the defensive and makes some wildly assertive claim that they definitely cannot verify. Unfortunately, sometimes I make some claim that I definitely don’t know the truth value of as well. But, especially when it’s just an argument between friends, I think responses like “I don’t know” or “I need to think about that” are really valuable if you want to really find some sort of deeper understanding. After all, are any of us going to claim that we know everything we could ever be asked about in an argument?
There’s a need for intellectual honesty to actually understand the world better. Not all questions have easy answers; that’s why philosophy exists! But it becomes drastically more difficult to reach hidden conclusions when we spend more effort grasping for straws to try and instantly have an answer. And yes, this admission of not knowing can stifle the pace of the conversation; but what’s the alternative, talking without thinking?
All of us have to confront the reality that there are a great many things we will never know if we want to effectively work toward success, as I talked about previously. For example, we will likely never know the personalities of celebrities outside the spotlight (unless they get caught in some sort of scandal), so we shouldn’t assert that they are good people if we haven’t met them in person. Furthermore, we will never know everything about any of the people we love, even children, parents, friends or partners; it may be because they are hiding something or simply because they never had a reason to tell us. The point is that, when you think about it, we don’t know all that much. This fact is what Socrates tried to point out when he questioned the Athenian officials, and he was executed for exposing all that they didn’t know.
Here, a combination of open-mindedness and a fixation on what we know best, ourselves, is key. In my opinion, although we may advise others, we should not force them to do what we think they should do, even if it is in their best interests, because they know themselves better than we do. In addition, geniuses of the past have often been considered eccentric and strange in some respects, a sure sign that permitting people to live many different lifestyles allows us to cultivate greater wisdom than otherwise. So I advise you to do your best to learn how you want to live your life, and if it’s different from most, that’s completely okay. Those differences may lead to hurdles you may have to face, but it might just be worth it in the end. It’s up to you to decide whether or not that will be the case. And if you don’t yet know what needs to be done, try to find out! There’s so much information at our fingertips online, but a lot of it is noise, so it takes experience to figure out which information is good and which is not worth thinking about. But if you’re willing to put the work in, you can learn a lot more than most people could throughout most of human history. And knowledge is power, so if you know you don’t know, try to know! Sometimes all you need to know is that you don’t know to know more than most people ever will.