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PAST IS PROLOGUE
The Wisdom of Foolishness
Philosophy is the love of wisdom. But sometimes, wisdom requires that we embrace our foolishness.
Philosophy is literally “the love of wisdom.” And because of this, you might think that philosophy has no time for wisdom’s opposite: foolishness. But the relationship between wisdom and foolishness is, in fact, complicated and vexed.
Throughout the history of philosophy, wisdom and foolishness have gotten tangled up in all kinds of interesting ways. Many philosophers have argued that there is a kind of wisdom in foolishness—and a kind of foolishness in what passes for wisdom.
Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was a self-confessed know-nothing. Over in China, the ancient Daoist text, the Zhuangzi, counsels us that we should give up in the pursuit of wisdom. So when thinking through what it means to be wise, we are going to have to ask what it means to be foolish.
Looking for the light: The wise fool and the lamp
The idea of the wise fool has a long history. This history goes back at least as far as Socrates. Arguably, Socrates was both a fool (he was ignorant) and wise (he knew he was ignorant). Being both wise and a fool, he was able to fool with those who claimed wisdom for themselves, and in fooling with them, he could demonstrate that they too were fools — only more foolish fools than he was himself.
The wise fool is someone who, in their search for wisdom, appears foolish in the eyes of the world. In the ancient Greek world, philosopher Diogenes the Cynic was famed for his foolish wisdom. One famous story about Diogenes notes this:
Plato defined Man as a featherless biped. The definition was generally well received. But Diogenes refuted it by plucking a chicken, bringing it to Plato’s Academy, plopping it down and proclaiming, “There’s Plato’s Man for you!” [1]
