Knowledge – ElPropósito4 min de lectura

Three levels of knowledge

This week I started a book by one of my favorite authors, Massimo Pigliucci (I’ll leave the details in the VELA at the end of this post). On the kinds of knowledge and ignorance, he draws on Plato’s dialogues, one with Alcibiades in particular, and concludes there are three possibilities regarding the knowledge we can have. Possibility 1: someone has knowledge of the subject under discussion. Possibility 2: someone lacks knowledge and is aware of their ignorance. Possibility 3: someone lacks knowledge and is unaware of their ignorance. The question is, which of the three is most beneficial and which is most harmful? I want to start with the third, which is the worst of all. Someone who lacks knowledge and is unaware of their ignorance may be the most common case and the one we are most likely to see, especially in our part of the world and more specifically in politics.

Someone who lacks knowledge and is unaware of it lives in an unreal world where their truth is the only truth. Perhaps the most telling trait is little or no ability to reason through any problem. They jump straight to conclusions, wrong ones, simply so they don’t have to stay quiet. It is very hard to reason with someone who insists on being right even when the other person is showing them empirical evidence on the subject. Today more than ever we see the world swayed more by feelings and emotions than by the ability to reason, and it is pushing us to unimaginable extremes, almost as if we were returning to the Dark Ages, carried along by whatever we feel first. We urgently need to climb out of this unconscious ignorance. We have centuries of educational material behind us to help us leave this box anyone can so easily fall into.

Of the three possibilities, you might think the most mature is the one who has knowledge of a subject, assuming they have cultivated it and invested enough time to master it. I consider the most mature to be the one who lacks knowledge but is aware of their ignorance. Someone aware of how little they know has two roads: stay as they are, or take the time and effort to educate themselves. A distinctive trait of this possibility is the humility to admit ignorance in a debate and stop in time before going further, along with the wisdom to recognize what they do not know. The first step someone in this position takes is to start asking questions. The question is where the spark of wisdom turns. Listening attentively and thinking critically about what they take in as knowledge are key to moving beyond this possibility and, above all, to avoid falling into the kind of ignorance that can creep into possibility one.

Possibility one, the person with knowledge of the subject, defends their ideas with solid arguments, contributes precise and relevant information and influences others’ opinions. This is someone who researches deeply, and that is one of the most important points and perhaps the one I like most, for a simple reason: they dig so deep, almost to the roots of their ideas, and are so wise and reasonable that they can tell whether they are still right or were wrong all along, even after forty years of arguing their case. These are the people I admire most in life, the ones who have corrected the course of their ideas because, like Saint Augustine and the child by the sea, they went to the ends of the earth only to realize they were wrong, and from there changed course. Having the knowledge to argue is never the final goal. What matters is the inclination to keep learning continuously so we become more effective and more virtuous in life.

Have a good Sunday, a good start to the week and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

• This week’s VELA:
• What I was watching: Javier Milei’s full speech at the opening of the 2024 legislative sessions. Milei is fighting on every front and defending the most important cause of all, the ideas of liberty. He is opening the way for many people to leave possibility three of this post, their unconscious ignorance. A memorable speech
  – What I was listening to: "Sobre las pequeñas cosas" (On the little things). Fresh out of the oven, I just listened to it while working out. A great episode from another Stoic I admire enormously, Pepe García
  – What I was reading: La forja del carácter (A Field Guide to a Happy Life). A great book by Massimo Pigliucci, a one-of-a-kind Stoic I thank God for discovering. His handbook for getting through the pandemic was key for me
  – What I was learning: The Enemies of Commerce. Every lecture Antonio Escohotado gave is a gem, and this one is no exception. However often his lectures on the same subject repeat, it is fascinating to watch someone who masters his topic, a clear member of possibility one in this post

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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