Sokrates exemplifierar vad vishet kan bestå i (Apology, 21d):

And so, as I was going away, I was thinking to myself that I was wiser than this man, for starters. It’s likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but whereas he thinks he knows something when he doesn’t know it, I, when I don’t know something, don’t think I know it either. It’s likely, then, that by this I am indeed wiser in some small way than this man, in that I don’t think myself to know what I don’t know.

Bertrand Russell utfärdar ett beklagande i samma anda; och visst kommer man att tänka på F. A. Hayeks varning för konstruktivistisk rationalism.*

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*Se t.ex. Hayek, F. A. (1973). ”Reason and Evolution.” I Law, Legislation and Liberty: Rules and Order. London: Routledge, och Hayeks Nobelföreläsning ”The Pretence of Knowledge”.