The Philosophy Book

222

See also: Socrates 46–49 ■ Søren Kierkegaard 194–95 ■ Michel Foucault 302–03 ■

Luce Irigaray 320

A

had Ha’am was the pen

name of the Ukrainian-

born Jewish philosopher

Asher Ginzberg, a leading Zionist

thinker who advocated a Jewish

spiritual renaissance. In 1890 he

claimed in a semi-satirical essay

that although we worship wisdom,

self-confidence matters more.

In any difficult or dangerous

situation, he says, the wise are

those who hold back, weighing up

the advantages and disadvantages

of any action. Meanwhile (and

greatly to the disapproval of the

wise) it is the self-confident who

forge ahead, and often win the day.

Ha’am wants to suggest—and

when reading him we should

remember that this is a suggestion

that is meant half-seriously and

half-satirically—that individual folly

can often yield a result, simply

because of the self-confidence that

goes along with it.

Wisdom and confidence

Although in his original essay

Ha’am seemed to celebrate the

potential advantages of foolishness,

this was a view from which he

later distanced himself, perhaps

afraid that others might read what

was essentially an exercise in

satire as if it were written with

high-minded seriousness. Self-

confidence is only warranted,

he later made clear, when the

difficulties of an undertaking are

fully understood and evaluated.

Ha’am was fond of quoting an

old Yiddish proverb: “an act of folly

which turns out well is still an act

of folly.” On some occasions we act

foolishly, without fully understanding

the difficulties of the task we are

undertaking, but we win through

because luck is on our side.

However, says Ha’am, this does

not make our prior foolishness in

any way commendable.

If we want our actions to bring

results, it may indeed be the case

that we need to develop and use

the kind of self-confidence that can

occasionally be seen in acts of folly.

At the same time, we must always

temper this self-confidence with

wisdom, or our acts will lack true

effectiveness in the world. ■

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Ethics

APPROACH

Cultural Zionism

BEFORE

5th century BCE Socrates

combines both confidence

and an admission of his

own foolishness.

1511 Desiderius Erasmus

writes The Praise of Folly, a

satirical work which appears

to praise foolish behavior.

1711 The English poet

Alexander Pope writes that

“Fools rush in where angels

fear to tread.”

1843 In his book Fear and

Trembling, Søren Kierkegaard

writes about founding faith

“on the strength of the absurd.”

AFTER

1961 Michel Foucault writes

Madness and Civilization, a

philosophical study of the

history of folly.

MEN WITH

SELF-CONFIDENCE

COME AND

SEE AND CONQUER

AHAD HA’AM (1856–1927)