Socrates
* 469 bc
† 399 bc
was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy.
Said to be an Athenian, he is described as having been condemned to death by an Athenian court that had found him guilty of impiety and of corrupting Athenian youth through his teachings. Those giving the account say he chose to die by drinking hemlock, though he had been given the opportunity to go into exile, as he believed exile would both further dishonor the agreement he had willingly made to abide by the laws of Athens, and that he would fare no better teaching in other cities.
Life
Most of what is now known about Socrates is derived from information that recurs across various contemporary sources: the dialogues written by Plato, one of Socrates' students; the works of Xenophon, one of his contemporaries; and writings by Aristophanes and Aristotle. Anything Socrates wrote himself has not survived. Additionally, Aristophanes' account of Socrates is in fact a satirical attack on philosophers and does not purport to be a factual account of events in the life of Socrates. Another complication is the Ancient Greek tradition of scholars attributing their own ideas, theories and sometimes even personal traits to their mentors, a tradition Plato appears to have followed. Gabriele Giannantoni, in his monumental 1991 work Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, attempts to compile every scrap of evidence regarding Socrates, including material attributed to Aeschines Socraticus, Antisthenes and a number of others supposed to have known him.
According to accounts from antiquity, Socrates' father was the sculptor
Sophroniscus and his mother Phaenarete, a midwife. Socrates married Xanthippe,
who bore him three sons – Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus – who were all
quite young at the time of his death. Traditionally, Xanthippe is thought to
have been an ill-tempered scold, mainly due to her characterization by Xenophon.
It is unclear how Socrates earned a living. According to Xenophon's Symposium,
Socrates is reported as saying he devotes himself only to what he regards as the
most important art or occupation: discussing philosophy. Although he inherited
money following his father's death, it is unlikely it was sufficient to keep him
for long. Xenophon and Aristophanes respectively portray Socrates as accepting
payment for teaching and running a sophist school with Chaerephon, whilst in
Plato's Symposium Socrates explicitly denies accepting payment for teaching. It
is possible Socrates relied on the generosity of wealthy and powerful friends
such as Crito.
Characters such as Alcibiades – the name of one of Socrates' friends – in the
dialogues indicate that Socrates served in the Athenian army during the
Peloponnesian War. Plato's Symposium indicates that he was also decorated for
bravery. In one instance, Socrates is said to have stayed on the battlefield to
protect Alcibiades, probably saving his life; he then sought Alcibiades'
recognition rather than accepting any of his own. It is also claimed he showed
great hardiness during these military campaigns, such as his walking without
shoes or coat during winter.
Trial and death
Socrates lived during the time of the transition from the height of the
Athenian Empire to its decline after its defeat by Sparta and its allies in the
Peloponnesian War. At a time when Athens was seeking to stabilize and recover
from its humiliating defeat, the Athenian public court was induced by three
leading public figures to try Socrates for impiety and for corrupting the youth
of Athens. This was a time in culture when the Greeks thought of gods and
goddesses as being associated with protecting particular cities. Athens, for
instance, is named after its protecting goddess Athena. The defeat of Athens in
the Peloponnesian War was interpreted as Athena judging the city for not being
pious. The last thing Athens needed was more punishment from Athena for one man
inciting its citizens to question her or the other gods. In the Apology,
Socrates insists that this is a false charge.
According to the version of his defense speech presented in Plato's Apology,
Socrates' life as the "gadfly" of Athens began when his friend Chaerephon asked
the oracle at Delphi if anyone was wiser than Socrates; the Oracle responded
negatively. Socrates, interpreting this as a riddle, set out to find men who
were wiser than he was. He questioned the men of Athens about their knowledge of
good, beauty, and virtue. Finding that they knew nothing and yet believing
themselves to know much, Socrates came to the conclusion that he was wise only
in so far as he knew that he knew nothing. Socrates' superior intellect made the
prominent Athenians he publicly questioned look foolish, turning them against
him and leading to accusations of wrongdoing.
He was nevertheless found guilty as charged, and sentenced to death by drinking
a cup of hemlock. Socrates turned down the pleas of his disciples to attempt an
escape from prison, drinking the hemlock and dying in the company of his
friends. According to the Phaedo, Socrates had a calm death, enduring his
sentence with fortitude. The Roman philosopher Seneca attempted to emulate
Socrates' death by hemlock when forced to commit suicide by the Emperor Nero.
According to Xenophon and Plato, Socrates had an opportunity to escape, as his
followers were able to bribe the prison guards. After escaping, Socrates would
have had to flee from Athens. In the painting "Death Of Socrates", under the
death bed, there is a tile, which many believe is an escape hatch. As the
dialogue Crito makes clear, Socrates refused to escape even in order to evade
the execution of his death sentence. Having knowingly agreed to live under the
city's laws, he implicitly subjected himself to the possibility of being accused
of crimes by its citizens and judged guilty by its jury. To do otherwise would
have caused him to break his 'contract' with the state, and by so doing harming
it, an act contrary to Socratic principle.
Socratic method
Perhaps his most important contribution to Western thought is his dialectic
(answering a question with a question) method of inquiry, known as the Socratic
Method or method of elenchos, which he largely applied to the examination of key
moral concepts such as the Good and Justice. It was first described by Plato in
the Socratic Dialogues. For this, Socrates is customarily regarded as the father
of political philosophy and ethics or moral philosophy, and as a fountainhead of
all the main themes in Western philosophy in general.
In this method, a series of questions are posed to help a person or group to
determine their underlying beliefs and the extent of their knowledge. The
Socratic method is a negative method of hypothesis elimination, in that better
hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those which lead to
contradictions. It was designed to force one to examine his own beliefs and the
validity of such beliefs. In fact, Socrates once said, "I know you won't believe
me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.
Philosophical beliefs
Detailing the philosophical beliefs of Socrates is no easy matter; as he wrote
nothing himself, we must rely on the (sometimes) conflicting reports of Xenophon
and Plato. There is ongoing debate (see also Socratic problem) as to what,
exactly, Socrates believed as opposed to Plato, and little in the way of
concrete evidence when demarcating the two. There are some who claim that
Socrates had no particular set of beliefs, and sought only to examine; the
lengthy theories he gives in the Republic are considered to be the thoughts of
Plato. Others argue that he did have his own theories and beliefs, but there is
much controversy over what these might have been, owing to the difficulty of
separating Socrates from Plato and the difficulty of interpreting even the
dramatic writings concerning Socrates. Consequently, distinguishing the
philosophical beliefs of Socrates from those of Plato and Xenophon is not easy
and it must be remembered that what is attributed to Socrates might more closely
reflect the specific concerns of these writers.
Evidence from the dialogues suggests Socrates had only two teachers: Prodicus, a
grammarian, and Diotima, a priestess from Mantinea who taught him about eros, or
love. His knowledge of other contemporary thinkers such as Parmenides and
Anaxagoras is evident from a number of dialogues, and historical sources often
include both of them as Socrates' teachers. John Burnet argued that his
principal teacher was the Anaxagroean Archelaus but that his ideas were as Plato
described them; Eric A. Havelock, on the other hand, considered Socrates'
association with the Anaxagoreans to be evidence of Plato's philosophical
separation from Socrates. Apollo himself may be considered one of his teachers,
as Socrates claims (in Plato's Apology) that his habit of constant conversation
was obedience to God. See below for more on the divine sign.
Knowledge
Socrates seems to have often said that his wisdom was limited to an awareness
of his own ignorance. Socrates may have believed that wrongdoing was a
consequence of ignorance, that those who did wrong knew no better. The one thing
Socrates consistently claimed to have knowledge of was "the art of love" which
he connected with the concept of "the love of wisdom", i.e., philosophy. He
never actually claimed to be wise, only to understand the path that a lover of
wisdom must take in pursuing it. It is debatable whether Socrates believed that
humans (as opposed to gods like Apollo) could actually become wise. On the one
hand, he drew a clear line between human ignorance and ideal knowledge; on the
other, Plato's Symposium (Diotima's Speech) and Republic (Allegory of the Cave)
describe a method for ascending to wisdom.
In Plato's Theaetetus (150a) Socrates compares himself to a true matchmaker
(προμνηστικός), as distinguished from a panderer (προᾰγωγός). This distinction
is echoed in Xenophon's Symposium (3.20), when Socrates jokes about his
certainty of being able to make a fortune, if he chose to practise the art of
pandering. For his part as a philosophical interlocutor, he leads his respondent
to a clearer conception of wisdom, although he claims that he is not himself a
teacher (Apology). His role, he claims, is more properly to be understood as
analogous to a midwife (μαῖα). Socrates explains that he is himself barren of
theories, but knows how to bring the theories of others to birth and determine
whether they are worthy or mere "wind eggs". Perhaps significantly, he points
out that midwives are barren due to age, and women who have never given birth
are unable to become midwives; a truly barren woman would have no experience or
knowledge of birth and would be unable to separate the worthy infants from those
that should be left on the hillside to be exposed. To judge this, the midwife
must have experience and knowledge of what she is judging.
Virtue
Socrates believed that the best way for people to live was to focus on
self-development rather than the pursuit of material wealth. (Gross 2). He
always invited others to try to concentrate more on friendships and a sense of
true community, for Socrates felt that this was the best way for people to grow
together as a populace. His actions lived up to this: in the end, Socrates
accepted his death sentence when most thought he would simply leave Athens, as
he felt he could not run away from or go against the will of his community; as
above, his reputation for valor on the battlefield was without reproach.
The idea that humans possessed certain virtues formed a common thread in
Socrates' teachings. These virtues represented the most important qualities for
a person to have, foremost of which were the philosophical or intellectual
virtues. Socrates stressed that "virtue was the most valuable of all
possessions; the ideal life was spent in search of the Good. Truth lies beneath
the shadows of existence, and that it is the job of the philosopher to show the
rest how little they really know." (Solomon 44)
Ultimately, virtue relates to the form of the Good; to truly be good and not
just act with "right opinion"; one must come to know the unchanging Good in
itself. In the Republic, he describes the "divided line", a continuum of
ignorance to knowledge with the Good on top of it all; only at the top of this
line do we find true good and the knowledge of such.
Politics
It is often argued that Socrates believed "ideals belong in a world that only
the wise man can understand" making the philosopher the only type of person
suitable to govern others. According to Plato's account, Socrates was in no way
subtle about his particular beliefs on government. He openly objected to the
democracy that ran Athens during his adult life. It was not only Athenian
democracy: Socrates objected to any form of government that did not conform to
his ideal of a perfect republic led by philosophers (Solomon 49), and Athenian
government was far from that. During the last years of Socrates' life, Athens
was in continual flux due to political upheaval. Democracy was at last
overthrown by a junta known as the Thirty Tyrants, led by Plato's relative,
Critias, who had been a student of Socrates. The Tyrants ruled for about a year
before the Athenian democracy was reinstated, at which point it declared an
amnesty for all recent events. Four years later, it acted to silence the voice
of Socrates.
This argument is often denied, and the question is one of the biggest
philosophical debates when trying to determine what, exactly, it was that
Socrates believed. The strongest argument of those who claim that Socrates did
not actually believe in the idea of philosopher kings is Socrates' constant
refusal to enter into politics or participate in government of any sort; he
often stated that he could not look into other matters or tell people how to
live when he did not yet understand himself. The philosopher is only that, a
lover of wisdom, and is not actually wise. Socrates' acceptance of his death
sentence, after his conviction by the Boule (Ancient Greece) (Senate), can also
support this view. It is often claimed that much of the anti-democratic leanings
are from Plato, who was never able to overcome his disgust at what was done to
his teacher. In any case, it is clear that Socrates thought that the rule of the
Thirty Tyrants was at least as objectionable as democracy; when called before
them to assist in the arrest of a fellow Athenian, Socrates refused and narrowly
escaped death before the Tyrants were overthrown. He did however fulfill his
duty to serve as prytanie when a trial of a group of generals who presided over
a disastrous naval campaign were judged; even then he maintained an
uncompromising attitude, being one of those who refused to proceed in a manner
not supported by the laws, despite intense pressure. [1] Judging by his actions,
he considered the rule of the Thirty Tyrants less legitimate than that of the
democratic senate who sentenced him to death. He died in the company of his
friends and disciples.
Mysticism
When reading the dialogues of Plato, Socrates often seems to manifest a mystical
side, discussing reincarnation and the mystery religions; however, this is
generally attributed to Plato. Regardless, this cannot be dismissed out of hand,
as we cannot be sure of the differences between Plato and Socrates; in addition,
there seem to be some corollaries in the works of Xenophon. In the culmination
of the philosophic path as discussed in Plato's Symposium and Republic, one
comes to the Sea of Beauty or to the sight of the form of the Good in an
experience akin to mystical revelation; only then can one become wise. (In the
Symposium, Socrates credits his speech on the philosophic path to his teacher,
the priestess Diotima, who is not even sure if Socrates is capable of reaching
the highest mysteries). In the Meno, he refers to the Eleusinian Mysteries,
telling Meno he would understand Socrates' answers better if only he could stay
for the initiations next week.
Perhaps the most interesting facet of this is Socrates' reliance on what the
Greeks called his "daemonic sign", a voice that Socrates heard only when
Socrates was about to make a mistake. It was this sign that prevented Socrates
from entering into politics. In the Phaedrus, we are told Socrates considered
this to be a form of "divine madness", the sort of insanity that is a gift from
the gods and gives us poetry, mysticism, love, and even philosophy itself.
Alternately, the sign is often taken to be what we would call "intuition";
however, Socrates' characterization of the phenomenon as "daemonic" suggests
that its origin is divine, mysterious, and independent of his own thoughts.
Satirical playwrights
He was prominently lampooned in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds, produced when
Socrates was in his mid-forties; he said at his trial (in Plato's version) that
the laughter of the theater was a harder task to answer than the arguments of
his accusers. Socrates is also ridiculed in Aristophanes' play The Birds for his
dirtiness, which is associated with the Laconizing fad; also in plays by
Callias, Eupolis, and Telecleides. In all of these, Socrates and the Sophists
were criticised for "the moral dangers inherent in contemporary thought and
literature".
Prose sources
Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle are the main sources for the historical Socrates; however, Xenophon and Plato were direct disciples of Socrates, and presumably, they idealize him; however, they wrote the only continuous descriptions of Socrates that have come down to us. Aristotle refers frequently, but in passing, to Socrates in his writings.
The Socratic dialogues are a series of dialogues written by Plato and
Xenophon in the form of discussions between Socrates and other persons of his
time, or as discussions between Socrates' followers over his concepts. Plato's
Phaedo is an example of this latter category. Although his Apology is a
monologue delivered by Socrates, it is usually grouped with the dialogues.
The Apology professes to be a record of the actual speech that Socrates
delivered in his own defense at the trial. In the Athenian jury system, an
Apology is composed of three parts: a speech, followed by a counter-assessment,
then some final words. "Apology" is a transliteration, not a translation, of the
Greek apologia, meaning "defense"; in this sense it is not apologetic according
to our contemporary use of the term.
Plato generally does not place his own ideas in the mouth of a specific speaker;
he lets ideas emerge via the Socratic method, under the guidance of Socrates.
Most of the dialogues present Socrates applying this method to some extent, but
nowhere as completely as in the Euthyphro. In this dialogue, Socrates and
Euthyphro go through several iterations of refining the answer to Socrates'
question, "...What is the pious, and what the impious?"
In Plato's dialogues, learning appears as a process of remembering. The soul,
before its incarnation in the body, was in the realm of Ideas. There, it saw
things the way they truly are, rather than the pale shadows or copies we
experience on earth. By a process of questioning, the soul can be brought to
remember the ideas in their pure form, thus bringing wisdom.
Especially for Plato's writings referring to Socrates, it is not always clear
which ideas brought forward by Socrates (or his friends) actually belonged to
Socrates and which of these may have been new additions or elaborations by Plato
— this is known as the Socratic problem. Generally, the early works of Plato are
considered to be close to the spirit of Socrates, whereas the later works —
including Phaedo — are considered to be possibly products of Plato's
elaborations.