This theory also explains how Socrates can claim that he doesn’t know anything and yet still have beliefs about hard questions—that doing wrong is worse than suffering it, or whatever else. Those beliefs aren’t quite things he knows. They just seem true to him because they’ve survived all testing so far. An argument, or an adversary, might still appear and be sharp enough to show that the claims Socrates makes don’t hold together in some way. So if consistency is the test of truth, it never settles a question once and for all. It forces you to hold views provisionally, and to always be in a
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