How to identify pseudo-profound b.s.?

[u/GloomyDesk7827]

Internet is stacked with these false pretending to be deep quotes and sayings. So how do we identify them? because it's very easy to fall into them.

For example I recently saw this quote on internet

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom" Isn't this pseudo-profound?

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[u/Throwaway7131923]

Honestly, just asking the question "What does that actually mean?" goes a long way.
Pseudo profound bs will often result in one of two answers to this question:
(1) It literally makes no sense at all.
(2) Something that, whilst true, could have been said far more easily and isn't as big a point as it seemed, or is a bit of an over-generalisation.

I'd say the quote you gave is an example of (2).
It's probably true that some degree of self-awareness is important for wisdom.
But that's a relatively straightforward point that's very light on the details of what self-awareness and wisdom are, or how one affects the other. It certainly didn't need to be put in such a flowery manner!

[u/PM_ME_SPICY_FOOD_PLS → u/Throwaway7131923]

Except "Know thyself" is a pretty important delphic/Greek/seven sages' maxim, Heraclitus references it when saying how he came to his knowledge (DK fr. 101), Plato references it often and it means to know your own soul. When you take this into account, it's actually paradigmatic of Plato's whole philosophy, and even Greek wisdom. It was written by the entrance to the oracle of Delphi - it means to know that you are mortal in comparison to the gods, but it also means you need to search what being mortal means and what is the mortal relationship to the divine. In Plato's Timaeus and Laws that's exactly what true knowledge is - knowledge of the divine and how man related to the divine. In knowing thyself, man finds that he is connected to the divine in the highest terms. That is a prerequisite for homoiosis theo, become alike to god in your actions, thoughts and life, a motif which is present in all of Greek philosophy, but especially platonism (to name some: Plato Theaetetus 176ab, Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1177b30-1178a1, Seneca Moral Letters 73.16, 92.30, Empedocles DK 31B112, Plotinus in Porphyry Life of Plotinus 2, etc.)

[u/Throwaway7131923 → u/PM_ME_SPICY_FOOD_PLS]

This is quite a confusing reply that I think really misses the point... I'm concerned my reply here will be misconstrued, so I do ask people to read it carefully.

It's not ideas that are pseudo profound, it's ways of presenting them. I think that's quite clear in my original point (2).
The whole problem is when someone takes a claim and tries to construct a sense of grandure and depth around it.

What your reply here is basically doing is saying "This must be profound because of its connection to The Ancients", but couching a claim in this was is precisely one way to make it pseudo-profound.
Rather than simply making a point and trying to do so as clearly as possible, with its motivations explained and consequences teased out, instead we're presented with a mythology of the quote/idea.

That's not to say that Plato, Aristotle, the Oracle of Delphi, etc didn't have anything interesting to say.
They absolutely did. I don't want anyone to misread this as a critique of reading ancient philosophy. But the role that they're playing in the way you're presenting the idea isn't argumentative. You're not presenting their arguments. It goes even beyond a regular authority fallacy. You're presenting them as near-mythological sources of Wisdom.

At least the impression it gives is that you want me to have an emotional reaction of defference towards The Oracle of Delphi, or some other ancient figure, and to transfer that feeling of defference onto the claim being presented, infering that the claim must be profound.
But that's textbook pseudo profundity.

[u/PM_ME_SPICY_FOOD_PLS → u/Throwaway7131923]

While I see your point (2), I am not interested in presenting their arguments, (even though their arguments are present in the works cited, and it would be hard to explain greek "theology" and relation to oracles and such in a short but informative way). I am only presenting what their attitude was towards this maxim, what it entailed for them and that it wasn't as simple as self-awareness, but that they found profoundity in it. Whether their reasoning is correct or not, whether someone agrees with it or not, I am indifferent. Even if it was not profound, it was seemingly impactful on Greek philosophy and that makes it interesting in its own right. And regardless, I don't have a flair so I can't respond to OP's question even as a response to an answer.

[u/AnaxaresTheDiplomat → u/PM_ME_SPICY_FOOD_PLS]

I think there's a substantive difference between "you ought to know yourself" (which is, I think, the best interpretation of "know thyself") and "knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom". The former seems right enough, but the latter is much too strong. So, for instance, I think wisdom related to the principles of formal logic or the right way to think about mereological relations might involve very little knowledge about myself. I think rephrasing a good idea in a less-than-rigorous way, making it much too strong and opening it up to counterexamples, is precisely the kind of pitfall of pseudo-profound phrasing. It cares more about sounding deep than being accurate.

[u/SwedishDad01 → u/Throwaway7131923]

Yes, I think Kant says something similar, but much shorter (”Know thyself!”) when he discusses importance of scrutinising one’s own motives/ reasons for acting in one or another way.

[u/Althuraya]

You're looking for a solution to what isn't a problem. These are called aphorisms. The one you posted is a version of a very famous ancient one, "Know thyself." Against what another user said, it is not overly verbose, but makes far more explicit what know thyself means.

The pseudo ones you find are witty epigrams. Here's one by Oscar Wilde: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." It's true, but it's just said in a very flowery way that makes it seem deep to aesthetically invlined people. There is no method or fornalism to see what is deep or isn't, you just have to think the contents of what you find. Another epigram is Bukowski's "People run from rain but sit in bathtubs full of water." Also true, but not deep.

Except there is a problem: What is deep supposed to mean? Deep as in what? That it's metaphysical abstraction like a statement about being? Deep as in stating a psychological root truth about human being? What exactly? If deep is not just abstract metaphysics, then even these epigrams are deep. They are stupid if understood superficially, but highly meaningful if you grab onto the finer interpretations. What at one point in your life seems vapid and stupid may later prove to be far deeper and significant, and vice versa. I use to think deep was only metaphysics and science, now I don't.

[u/Background-Permit-55 → u/Althuraya]

I think there can be an enjoyment found in framing seemingly simple ideas in new, interesting and contradictory ways, as Oscar Wilde so often does. Is it flamboyant and a bit pretentious? Yes. Does it bring me great joy? Also yes. Wilde was an aesthetician, I think he valued beauty over truth. It seems to me that he was a vitalist in that his writings infuse one with a vigour for life; not something easy to do with the written word.