The Barefoot Coach

by Paddy Upton

On leadership and Socrates, Karl Popper wrote: It is not unlikely that (Socrates) demanded (…) that the best should rule, which would have meant, in his view, the wisest (…). And we should realise that, if he demanded that the wisest men should rule, he clearly stressed that he did not mean the learned men; in fact, he was sceptical of all professional learnedness, whether it was that of the philosophers of the past or of the learned men of his own generation, the Sophists. The wisdom he meant was of a different kind. It was simply the realisation: how little do I know! (…) The true teacher can prove himself only by exhibiting that self-criticism (…). ‘Whatever authority I may have rests solely upon my knowing how little I know.’ (…) Socrates had stressed that he was not wise; that he was not in the possession of truth, but that he was a searcher, an inquirer, a lover of truth. This, he explained, is expressed by the word ‘philosopher’, i.e., the lover of wisdom, and the seeker for it, as opposed to ‘Sophist’, i.e., the professionally wise man.1