Something else I learned from the Platonic dialogues relates to our Thoreau readings as regards wisdom. From the Platonic dialogues I learned that a philosopher can do everything in their power to "teach" but it is only the pupil that can "learn." What I mean by this is that Socrates does all he can, provides all he can, to try to make Eurythro understand wherefore he is wrong. Eurythro goes aw
ay unchanged. Thus, the best a philosopher can do is give approximations of wisdom, little pebbles that become ripples and then waves, but only in the minds of those thinkers who will admit to their admit ignorance like Meno. It is as Thoreau says in Walden "Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by human beings to man" (1).
This is because a man must experience these ideas in experience (reality) and come to his own recognitions and awarenesses intellectually.
Faith: Security & Risk. Online: hypertext transfer protocol://www.google.com. 26 Sept. 2000, 109.
Thoreau, H. D. Walden. New York: Bantam Classic Edition, 1981.
In other words, I have become suspect of all my previous definitions of wisdom. I utilise to think it was something one arrived at, like a destination at a train stop. I used to think there was an ending stop, a place where one only arrived at after longer periods of time and overmuch experience. I used to think that I could define without a doubt virtue, knowledge and wisdom. Now I see that I know very little about the real earthly concern of any of these ideas or concepts. I see this as a positive and not a negative aspect of life. If I knew everything I would be closed off in my idea to learning anything new. That would either be self-destructive or boring. If, instead, I am honest and say I know very little about such complex concepts that have control philosophers and great thinkers for thousands of years, then at least I am in
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