True Belief

Re-reading the Symposium Sunday night, I stumbled across a passage which I had not noticed before, and it is quite intriguing. As Diotima’s speech begins (202a), she points out to Socrates that there is something between wisdom and ignorance: correct judgment¹. Specifically, “judging things correctly without being able to give a reason.” This is an interesting definition,as it amounts to a true belief rather than knowledge, which would constitute the additional constraint of being able to give a reason. Looking to the road to Larissa passage in the Meno (97b-99b), Socrates notes:

True opinions [true belief]. For true opinions, as long as they remain, are a fine thing and all they do is good, but they are not willing to remain long, and they escape from a man’s mind, so that they are not worth much until one ties them down by (giving) an account of the reason why. [...] After they are tied down, in the first place they become knowledge, and then they remain in place. That is why knowledge is prized higher than correct opinion, and knowledge differs from correct opinion in being tied down. (98a)

True belief, however, is not inferior to knowledge in its ability to direct one’s actions, it is just not as reliable as when it is tethered by good reasons. It is interesting that true belief is set between wisdom and ignorance in the Symposium, and that later in the dialogue Diotima notes that Love, as the son of Poros and Penia, is both a lover of wisdom–a philosopher–and between wisdom and ignorance (203a-204a). This differs from the gods, who are already wise, and the ignorant, who do not seek wisdom. It is the distinct quality of the philosopher. To fall between the two extremes, then, is to have correct judgment, or to hold true beliefs: to be a philosopher.

A distinction needs to be made between judgement and belief, however, for correct judgement would lead one to hold true beliefs, but would not itself be a belief, it would be more along the lines of an intuition. The philosophers intuition, then, leads one closer to wisdom than the intuitions of the ignorant, but it is striking that good reasons are not required. If knowledge is more reliable than true opinions, but not necessary for correct judgement, what use does the philosopher have for knowledge in the first place? More to the point, the philosophers intuitions are learned by the practice of philosophy. It is only by learning from one’s mistakes and from one’s teachers that this kind of philosophic intuition is cultivated. If this is the case, then these experiences would constitute background reasons for one’s proceeding judgements, and without these experiences one’s intuitions would be no better than those of the ignorant. In the platonic framework, however, it would seem that simply having the correct state of mind would be enough.  If one seeks wisdom in the way of the philosopher, then, something magical happens²: one’s intuitions become more reliable.