Can we assume the wise men of history were gullible fools?

Question

Confucius (551-479 BCE), is considered by the Chinese to be one of the profoundly wise men of their history. He's also the source of an entire school of divination using the ancient I Ching [Book of Changes]. Today lesser men declare the entire concept to be ignorant and a fraud.

The last words Plato assigned to his character, Socrates, "Crito, we own a sacrifice to Aesclepious. Pay without fail." Today atheists of every stripe are evangelical in their declarations that any belief in dieties is folly, implying they're wiser than Plato.

More recently, Nicola Tesla expressed the belief many things are possible which less accomplished scientists today pronounce impossible, though many of Tesla's ideas haven't been put to the test.

Is modern man justified in believing himself wise simply because he lives in a time of television, airplanes and someone cloning sheep somewhere?

Answer 1

All of mankind past, present and future are fallible. Its part of the human condition.

Answer 2

It's not just technology which has changed, it's the entire way we look at things. The world has become so much bigger, the psychological effects cannot be overstated.

(Also, I don't think it is fair to put Tesla in with Confucius and Socrates.)

Wiser than Plato? Well, think about what we are exposed to as we grow up. The amount of information compared to what Plato had is absurdly much greater. We drink from a firehose. Half an hour of leisurely reading spent on Wikipedia can educate you on matters the ancient ones could not conceive of. But to us it is everyday fact, common, unnoticed.

Plato had to reason from what he had. We have so much more. We stand on the shoulders of giants who themselves stand on the shoulders of giants. Plato did not.

Also, his world was actually smaller as in: much less people. Back in the day, bet your *** there  were less very intelligent people simply because there were less people overall (about a hundred million in the world, in Plato's day).

Also, there is much more exchange of ideas going on. Plato could not communicate with people far outside the borders of Greece (assuming he even bothered).

But here we are, literally talking to people from all over the world.

I seriously wonder how many of us on this site alone could give Plato a match.

Answer 3

Human knowledge is always evolving and being enhanced.  Do we now understand things we did not in the past?  Of course.  the ancient wise man used his intelligence to try and divine how the world worked.  His world view required deities and spirits in order to explain what was not understandable.  In that way, he was wise enough to make it work in his world.

We, on the other hand, understand far more about the working of the world.  We can explain how the planets stay in the sky, we can explain how the heart works or the brain (in general terms).  We don't need to resort to supernatural explanations for common phenomena.

Do we know everything?  Of course not, and anyone who thinks we do is a fool.  

Do we have a far better understanding of the universe than Socrates, or Plato, or Pythagorus, of Confucious or even Albert Einstein? Yes.  

Are we wiser?  Ah, but there is the question.  Wisdom isn't just knowledge, it's the ability to see what is true, to understand the drives and the ambitions of man, and to understand what is important.  In that, we probably haven't progressed nearly as far.