True Knowledge...

Socrates was wise and right. Knowledge is infinate and what we know is very little of it. Compared to the quantam of all knowledge say 100% what we know may not be even .00000000000000000001% of it, which is as good as nothing. Thats why socrates said knowing that yu almost know nothing out of the total universal knowledge is the truth. Even if we acknowledge this truth like Einestein did at the end of his life, it is an achievement by itself.Man's ego does not allow him to agree with Socrates. Even if you search the whole world you will not find a single individual who knows every thing that is known to man ie even from the negligible percentage of the knowledge with the humanity.So was socrates wrong in saying true knowledge is knowing that you know virtually nothing.There is a sayimg " a man in the beach taking a hand full of sand and saying i have the oceans in my palm."How far his statement reflects the truth?

I'd tend to agree with the opening statement, but now for the difficult bit.... Truth is only ever an opinion gathered by subjective experience(you can only ever KNOW you own truth). Whereas knowledge is understanding gained through the processes of experience. I dont think it is ignorant for a person to believe they know the Truth, but if enough people agree then it becomes the truth for all of them. Id have to say that anyone who thinks they KNOW they are right all the time is ignorant, because information always changes, better ways of doing things are constantly being discovered and even if you disagree with someone you have to respect their opinion.

I agree with Socrates. No one EVER know the truth one hundred percent..and I always thought someone with a inkling of wisdom would know that compared to the vast amount of knowledge in the world -- we as individual people know basically nothing compared to it. I mean granted, we all know bits of things and the more we've learned on that subject the more the probability is that we're right about that subject. But even experts in certain areas of study can't know that science backward to forwards, sideways, slantwise..or any angle you can tink of it. Which is why there's different denominations of experts within a single subject. Heck, maybe we DO know nothing, literally, because maybe we don't even exist lol. I guess it's just all in how you look at things.

I appreciate your initiative about the subject. i think that i'll have to break down your questions in mainly three categories. first is about the quote itself and that is "True knowledge", the second is "knowing the truth" which may appear, at first glance, same as first but in my opinion is different and the third is about a person who believes, what he knows is always right. i will elaborate my position and perception which might not be right. I would really go with him about the True knowledge. Psychologically, human nature suggests that a person will never try to get deep into the matter if he is content with whatever he already knows. This satisfaction about one's knowledge will not only bring about arrogance in him but will never allow him to go beyond his knowledge. but when the knowledge itself is about ignorance, only than a person will jump into the valley of unknowns, to know about the things and the facts he don't known. this very aknowledgement of ignorance gives one motivation, zeal, thrust and continuous struggle to go forward and aquire the facts about his unknowns. . For example if one says, seeing the sky, that it is blue and he is content with his knowledge about the color of the sky, he will stop here. now if this person besides knowng the color of sky also knows that he doesn't know many other things about it, like why it is blue? what makes it blue? whith what the sky is made of? is it really blue or i am seeing it blue? can it be of any other color? how far it is? and many other. now only by knowing that he doesn't know many things about the sky, he will start to look for the answers. his very human instincts and nature will not let him sit idle now but will push him to search the answers to unknowns. All human civilization, knowledge and greatness came from the very fact of acceptance of ignorance first and then searching for the answers. if our forefathers had been content and would not have been moved by quest for unknowns, we would never be here with all these scientific and social developements. I would like to share another of his quotes, "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance". About knowing the truth (wich in my perception is quite dfferent from first case): i don't really agree that socrates suggested that it is ignorant to believe for a person that they truly know the truth. "Knowing truth" and "knowing everything" are two different things. I would like to share another of his quotation so as to have an idea about himself. "You will know that divine is so great and of such a nature that it sees and hears everything at once, is present everywhere, and is concerned with everything". This and many of his statements and quotations show that he believed that he knows the truth which is, every thing is divine or everything comes under divinity. there are many other human values which are considered to be known true and universal. like truth itslef, freedom, equality, justice, peace, love, honesty and so on. we all claim to know the truth of their goodness. then there are issues which are semi universal or controversial. like existance of GOD, for some is undeniable truth (theists), for others the undeniable truth is that the above is not true (atheists), yet for others the truth is we don't actually know and we can never know (agnostics) thus making it a subjective issue. My answer to third question is, yes, anyone who believes that what he knows is always right is obviously an ignorant, in my opinion. because even if we know a truth, we may be knowing only a little fraction about the details. Lastly, this is just my percepton of the matter in hand and every body has perfect right to disagree. anyways i enjoyed replying to this topic

I think history has pretty much shown us we hardly know anything. Every theory we based our existance on has changed over time. We once believed the world was flat, the sun and stars revolved around us. We thought the main elements were water, fire, earth and air. I would say our knowledge changes daily with our understanding of the world around us. Who knows how foolish we will seem to future generations.