Note 716 — Chapter LXVIII · SOKRATES.

There is no part of Plato in which this doxosophy, or false conceit of wisdom, is more earnestly reprobated than in the Sophistês, with notice of the elenchus, or cross-examining exposure, as the only effectual cure for such fundamental vice of the mind; as the true purifying process (Sophistês, c. 33-35, pp. 230, 231).

See the same process illustrated by Sokratês, after his questions put to the slave of Menon (Plato, Menon, c. 18. p. 84, B; Charmidês, c. 30, p. 166, D).

As the Platonic Sokratês, even in the Defence, where his own personality stands most manifest, denounces as the worst and deepest of all mental defects, this conceit of knowledge without reality, ἡ ἀμαθία αὐτὴ ἡ ἐπονείδιστος, ἡ τοῦ οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι ἃ οὐκ οἶδεν, c. 17, p. 29, B,—so the Xenophontic Sokratês, in the same manner, treats this same mental infirmity as being near to madness, and distinguishes it carefully from simple want of knowledge, or conscious ignorance: Μανίαν γε μὴν ἐναντίον μὲν ἔφη εἶναι σοφίᾳ, οὐ μέντοι γε τὴν ἀνεπιστημοσύνην μανίαν ἐνόμιζεν. Τὸ δὲ ἀγνοεῖν ἑαυτὸν, καὶ ἃ μή τις οἶδε δοξάζειν, καὶ οἴεσθαι γιγνώσκειν, ἐγγυτάτω μανίας ἐλογίζετο εἶναι (Mem. iii, 9, 6). This conviction thus stands foremost in the mental character of Sokratês, and on the best evidence, Plato and Xenophon united.