Single Idea 20184

[catalogued under 11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 3. Value of Knowledge]

Full Idea

The only real kind of faring ill is the loss of knowledge.

Gist of Idea

The only real evil is loss of knowledge

Source

Plato (Protagoras [c.391 BCE], 345b)

Book Reference

Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.776


A Reaction

This must crucially involve the intellectualist view (of Socrates) that virtuos behaviour results from knowledge, and moral wickedness is the result of ignorance. It is hard to see how forgetting a phone number is evil.