Topics Philosophers

Question I have heard the saying "the beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms" attributed to Socrates. I can't find a dependable source for this (or for attributing it to anyone else) Can you point me to a source or let me know if you believe this attribution to be invalid ? Thanks !

Accepted:
May 15, 2013

Comments

When I saw your question the phrase struck me as unknown in Plato’s writings. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, so I did a search through all his dialogues looking for some plausible Greek analogue to “beginning of wisdom.” I did not find your quote. I did notice, in the process, that it pops up around the Internet; but then so do other sayings supposedly in Plato’s works, like “Only the dead have seen the end of war,” or “Be kind, because everyone you meet is carrying a heavy burden.” Those two don’t correspond to anything in Plato, but they are widely attributed to him.

It’s not exactly like Socrates to speak of the “beginning of wisdom,” although he does talk about summoning the soul or the intellect to think about issues, and he does speak (again, in Plato’s dialogues) as if this were the beginning of a process whose conclusion would be wisdom. I am also suspicious for the reason that “the beginning of wisdom” is a phrase we find in the Bible, specifically in the Book of Proverbs. That makes me suspect that someone misstated something in Plato in somewhat Biblical terms.

Having made all those negative points, let me say what might seem like the contradiction of my answer thus far. The thought at work in this quote does correspond to ideas in what Socrates says in Plato’s dialogues. In the Republic he says that certain experiences “summon the soul” to investigate more closely (Book 7, 523-524). These are experiences involving certain vague or ambiguous properties, like softness and hardness. If you believe that the outcome of the investigation is a definition of those properties, then in a general way Socrates is indeed describing the beginning of wisdom and linking it to the definition of terms.

Furthermore, Aristotle tells us that the great contribution Socrates made to philosophy was his quest for the definitions of terms. If any philosophical enterprise can be confidently associated with the name of Socrates, it would be that one. Again, we are in the neighborhood of the idea you asked about, even if we can’t find those exact words in Plato’s writings.