Socratic "Double Ignorance"

Excerpts from Ward Farnsworth’s (amazing) book “The Socratic Method: A Practitioner’s Handbook”

Plato comes back to this idea repeatedly. “Ignorance … may be conveniently divided by the legislator into two sorts: there is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offences, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom; and he who is under the influence of the latter fancies that he knows all about matters of which he knows nothing. This second kind of ignorance, when possessed of power and strength, will be held by the legislator to be the source of great and monstrous crimes, but when attended with weakness, will only result in the errors of children and old men.”

“But there’s a special tier of Socratic dread and contempt for double ignorance—the ignorance of those who don’t know but think they do. Everyone is in that position sometimes. We have a felt sense of confidence built on sand. It wouldn’t survive cross-examination but doesn’t receive any. Those in that position are badly off and also dangerous to others, like drunk drivers who think they are sober.”

“Double ignorance can be linked to a more basic problem of human nature: self-serving bias, one form of which is thinking of oneself as the center of the universe. Freud described the discoveries made by Copernicus, by Darwin, and by himself as a tradition of assaults on the “naïve self-love” of mankind.

“Double ignorance has practical consequences. Being wrong isn’t a terrible problem if you know it’s a risk and account for it. But when people are wrong but feel unshakably right it takes away their will to learn and eventually involves them in disaster. And if they are put in charge of anything, their double ignorance produces disaster for everyone else, too.

From 03. Manifesto - “Why I Should Learn the Socratic Method”

• "Double ignorance" is the worst sin
• If you don’t know something but know that you don’t know it (ignorance), then at least you’re humble, and cautious.
• Whereas, if you don’t know something, and you don’t know that you don’t know it… that is, if you think you do possess a truth, when actually you are confused, then this is very dangerous
• Some examples
  • Self-delusion w/r/t plans and priorities → acting, spending time and resources on “I will do this thing because it is the correct thing to do”, when actually it may not be
    • When you realise that you were deluded, acted too quickly based on “certain” beliefs that turned out to be provisional and in need of further inspection, you pivot again — shiny object syndrome, recency bias, being too action-biased (AKA, the story of my life)
  • Self-delusion w/r/t your own wisdom and knowledge: professing to know the truth, to have certainty re: xyz, when actually you’re mistaken and could be disproven. May cause you to be pompous, judgemental, superior
    • Also the story of my life: “oh, this person lives in a foolish way, why don’t they do x like me, it’s so ridiculous that they do y” → the Socratic method is very humbling re: “I have a huge amount of false beliefs and contradictions, and I should clean these up myself, and have much more patience and empathy with other people”