What did Socrates mean when he said "I know that I know nothing"? (Quora)

It would have been most unlike Socrates, whose analytical technique (called elenchus) was based upon exposing contradictions in the statements of other people, to express himself in a contradiction. Obviously anything that I know is something, therefore if I claim that I know I know nothing, I am contradicting myself.

If, however, I start from the assumption that I know nothing, I may ask anyone who claims knowledge to explain a particular aspect of what it is that they know. Usually Socrates would invite his interlocutors to state a generally-applicable principle, and then he would offer a specific instance of the principle’s non-applicability. This would lead to the interlocutor redefining the principle more narrowly. The process would be repeated until it could be repeated no further, at which point Socrates would deem that they had arrived at a truth.

The process has considerable merit, but is inevitably limited in scope. Ironically, Donald Rumsfeld’s much-derided, but actually important, categorisation of knowledge into known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns helps us to understand this.

Most people are aware that there are limitations to their knowledge (or known knowns); for them there exist known unknowns. So, for example, I am aware that there is a field of human knowledge called quantum mechanics, but I have no detailed understanding of what that field encompasses.

Unknown unknowns have been usefully defined as “phenomena which cannot be expected because there has been no prior experience or theoretical basis for expecting the phenomena”.

But in later life Rumsfeld came to acknowledge the existence of a further category, possibly the most problematical of all, that of unknown knowns. These he defined as "the things you think you know, that it turns out you did not".

Like Rick in Casablanca, we can be misinformed. Sadly, we may act upon mistaken beliefs with all the intensity that would ideally be reserved for genuine certainties.

So, if we return to Socrates, we find that even the little that we think we know may be just waiting for some counter-argument or evidence to turn up.

Does Scotland really needs a referendum to get its independence? After all, they didn't need a referendum to join the union? (Quora)

Our island history is of a long series of ‘Unions’.

When Dalriada was united with Pictland to form Alba, was Alba one country or a union? When Alba was united with northern Northumbria to form Scotland, was Scotland one country or a union? When Northern Strathclyde was incorporated into Scotland, was the resulting country then a union? Likewise, when the Western and Northern Isles were incorporated into Scotland? Did each and every one of these former countries retain a right to secede?

Meanwhile further unions were taking place in the south to form a country called England out of countries called Wessex, Cornwall, Kent, Essex, Mercia, Northumbria, Rheged etc. Wales was the last piece to be fitted into this jigsaw.

I think it is quite important to mention these earlier amalgamations, because current discussions seem to take for granted that all of England is culturally the same, or that there is only one historic culture in Scotland.

Eventually the island consisted of only two kingdoms, each of which came first under the same rule, (effectively putting an end to border reiving, because malefactors could no longer flee from one king’s jurisdiction to the other’s), and then the two of them united together into one country called Great Britain.

What exactly is supposed to make the union, in 1707, of these two remaining kingdoms somehow different from all the unions between then-existing countries on this island that went before?

And incidentally, since both the formerly-divided former kingdoms of Northumbria and Strathclyde were at long last actually reunited in 1707, should we, as an alternative option, be offering a referendum to their residents to ascertain if they want to be split up again between their respective former owners?

A Political Parable

In politics, there are lighthouses, and there are sailing ships. There are far, far more of the latter. The lighthouse will stand where it stands, regardless of tempests, but when the weather gets rough, the sailing ships will run before the wind, irrespective of which way the wind is blowing. When the wind veers, the sailing ships can be blown right back where they started or even beyond. The lighthouse will still be where they last saw it.

Much more important than following the behaviour of the sailing ships therefore, is understanding what meteorological factors are causing the wind.

The most successful politicians will probably be ships. The most respected will usually be lighthouses.

Sadly, of course, whilst a ship may occasionally be blown on the rocks, a lot of lighthouses are on the rocks to start with!