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This page is about the Classical Greek philosopher. For other uses of Socrates, see Socrates (disambiguation).

Socrates (

Principally renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, Socrates also made important and lasting contributions to the fields of epistemology and logic.

Biography

The 'Socratic Problem'

The Primary sources for information concerning Socrates present hurdles to forming an accurate picture of his life and work, not least because they are often more philosophical texts than simple histories. These issues are known as the Socratic problem.

Writings which directly describe Socrates amount to the work of four men: Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and Aristophanes.^[2] The information coming from these sources was written in artistic and philosophical styles that imply a level of creativity or imagination upon the part of the writer. A corollary of this is that these sources don't claim to be historically accurate. Given there are no known writings by Socrates, historians are therefore faced with the challenge of reconciling the various texts that come from these men to create an accurate and consistent account of Socrates' life and work.

In general, Plato is viewed as the most reliable and capacious source of information about Socrates' life and philosophy.^[3] Thus, most classicists claim that any description of Socrates must cohere with what Plato wrote in his dialogues. However, information about Socrates cannot rely upon that source alone. If Plato were the only extant source of information about Socrates, there would be no reason to think that Socrates was an actual, historical figure; without further evidence, Socrates could merely be chalked up as a spokesperson for Plato's philosophy. Instead, the historians and classicists who study Socrates use the testimony of Xenophon and Aristotle (and some times alongside a careful reading of Aristophanes' The Clouds) to buttress the portrayal of Socrates within the dialogues of Plato.

The primary challenge in this endeavor has been to ascertain whether or not Plato provides readers with historically accurate information on his former teacher. Gregory Vlastos has argued (controversially)^[4] that there is a clear demarcation between Plato's depictions of the character. In his book, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Vlastos makes the following claim:

In different segments of Plato's corpus two philosophers bear that name [Socrates]. The individual remains the same. But in different sets of dialogues he pursues philosophies so different that they could not have been depicted as cohabitating the same brain throughout unless it had been the brain of a schizophrenic. They are so diverse in content and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy you care to mention...^[5]

In Plato's earlier dialogues, Vlastos claims, Socrates is depicted as his actual historical self, right down to the philosophical ideas he propounds.

Life

Details about Socrates are derived from three contemporary sources: the

Aristophanes' play The Clouds portrays Socrates as a clown who teaches his students how to bamboozle their way out of debt. Most of Aristophanes' works, however, function as parodies. Thus, one should not take his portrayal of Socrates at face value.

According to Plato, Socrates' father was Sophroniscus and his mother Phaenarete, a midwife. Though characterized as unattractive in appearance and short of stature, Socrates married Xanthippe, who was much younger than him. She bore him three sons, Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus. His friend Crito criticized him for abandoning his sons when he refused to try to escape before his execution.

It is unclear how Socrates earned a living. According to

and in Xenophon's accounts, Socrates explicitly denies accepting payment for teaching. More specifically, in the Apology Socrates cites his poverty as proof that he is not a teacher.

Several of Plato's dialogues refer to Socrates' military service. Socrates says he served in the Athenian army during three campaigns: at Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium. In the Symposium Alcibiades describes Socrates' valor in the battles of Potidaea and Delium, recounting how Socrates saved his life in the former battle (219e-221b). Socrates' exceptional service at Delium is also mentioned in the Laches, by the general the dialogue is named after (181b). In the Apology Socrates compares his military service to his courtroom troubles, and says that anyone on the jury who thinks he ought to retreat from philosophy must also think that soldiers should retreat when it looks like they will be killed in battle.

Trial and Death

Main article: Trial of Socrates

There is some controversy as to whether or not Socrates' actions at the time of his death were justified. The trial and execution of Socrates was the climax of his career and a central event in the dialogues of Plato.

Socrates lived during the time of the transition from the height of the Athenian Hegemony to its decline with the 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 may have been entertaining doubts about democracy as an efficient form of government. Socrates appears to have been a critic of democracy, and his trial is interpreted by some scholars to be an expression of political infighting.

Despite claiming death-defying loyalty to his city, Socrates' pursuit of virtue and his strict adherence to truth clashed with the current course of Athenian politics and society.^[8] He praises Sparta, arch rival to Athens, directly and indirectly in various dialogues. But perhaps the most historically accurate of Socrates' offences to the city was his position as a social and moral critic. Rather than upholding a status quo and accepting the development of immorality within his region, Socrates worked to undermine the collective notion of "might makes right" so common to Greece during this period. Plato refers to Socrates as the "gadfly" of the state (as the gadfly stings the horse into action, so Socrates stung Athens), insofar as he irritated the establishment with considerations of justice and the pursuit of goodness. His attempts to improve the Athenian's sense of justice may have been the source of his execution.

According to 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 that none was wiser. Socrates believed that what the Oracle had said was a riddle, because he believed that he possessed no wisdom whatsoever. He proceeded to test the riddle through approaching men who were considered to be wise by the people of Athens such as statesmen, poets, and artisans in order to refute the pronouncement of the Oracle. Questioning them, Socrates came to the conclusion that while each man thought he knew a great deal and was very wise, they in fact knew very little and were not really wise at all. Socrates realized that the Oracle was correct in that while so-called wise men thought themselves wise and yet were not, he himself knew he was not wise at all which, paradoxically, made him the wiser one since he was the only person aware of his own ignorance. Socrates' paradoxical wisdom made the prominent Athenians he publicly questioned look foolish, turning them against him and leading to accusations of wrongdoing. Socrates defended his role as a gadfly until the end: at his trial, when Socrates is asked to propose his own punishment, he suggests a wage paid by the government instead, to finance the time he spends as Athens' benefactor.^[9] He was nevertheless found guilty of corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and sentenced to death by drinking a mixture containing poison hemlock

.

According to Xenophon's story of Socrates' defense to the jury, Socrates purposefully gives a defiant defense to the jury because "he believed he would be better off dead." Xenophon's explanation goes on to describe a defense by Socrates that explains the rigors of old age, and how Socrates will be glad to circumvent these by being sentenced to death. It is also understood that Socrates not only wished to avoid the pains of old age, but also to die because he "actually believed the right time had come for him to die."

Both Xenophon and Plato agree that Socrates had an opportunity to escape as his followers were able to bribe the prison guards. However, Socrates chose to stay and refused to escape for several reasons:

1. He believed that such a flight would indicate a fear of death, which he believed no true philosopher has.
2. Even if he did flee Athens he and his teaching would fare no better in another country, as he would continue questioning all he met and undoubtedly incur their displeasure as well.
3. 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 "social contract" with the state, and by so doing harming it, an act contrary to Socratic principle.

The full reasoning behind his refusal to flee is the main subject of the Crito.

Socrates' death is described at the end of Plato's Phaedo. Socrates turned down the pleas of Crito to attempt an escape from prison. After drinking the poison, he was instructed to walk around until his limbs felt heavy. After he laid down, the man who administered the poison pinched his foot. Socrates could no longer feel his legs. The numbness slowly crept up his body until it reached his heart. Shortly before his death, Socrates speaks his last words to Crito: "Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt." Asclepius was the Greek god for curing illness, and it is likely that Socrates' last words were implied to mean that death is the cure, and freedom, of the soul from the body. The Roman philosopher Seneca attempted to emulate Socrates' death by hemlock when forced to commit suicide by the Emperor Nero.

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Socratic method

Main article: Socratic method

Perhaps his most important contribution to

Scientific Method, in which hypothesis is the first stage. The development and practice of this method is one of Socrates' most enduring contributions, and is a key factor in earning his mantle as the father of political philosophy, ethics or moral philosophy, and as a figurehead of all the central themes in Western philosophy

.

To illustrate the use of the Socratic 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 one's 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."^[10]

Philosophical beliefs

The beliefs of Socrates, as opposed to those of Plato, are difficult to discern. Little in the way of concrete evidence demarcates the two. The lengthy theories given in most of the dialogues are those of Plato, and it is thought that Plato so adapted the Socratic style as to make the literary character and the philosopher himself impossible to distinguish. 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 thinkers.

If anything in general can be said about the philosophical beliefs of Socrates, it is that he was morally, intellectually, and politically at odds with his fellow Athenians. When he is on trial for heresy and corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, he uses his method of elenchos to demonstrate to the jurors that their moral values are wrong-headed. He tells them that they are concerned with their families, careers, and political responsibilities when they ought to be worried about the "welfare of their souls." Socrates' belief in the immortality of the soul, and his conviction that the gods had singled him out as a divine emissary seemed to provoke if not annoyance, at least ridicule. Socrates also questioned the Sophistic doctrine that arete (that is, virtue) can be taught. He liked to observe that successful fathers (such as the prominent military general Pericles) did not produce sons of their own quality. Socrates argued that moral excellence was more a matter of divine bequest than parental nurture. This belief may have contributed to his lack of anxiety about the future of his own sons.

Socrates frequently says that his ideas are not his own, but his teachers'. He mentions several influences:

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) Andre compares himself to a monkey (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 practice 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" (ἀνεμιαῖον). 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. 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 mentioned 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."^{[citation needed]} Ultimately, virtue relates to the form of the Good; to be truly good and not just act with "right opinion"; one must come to know the unchanging Good in itself. In the Republic,written by Plato, Socrates described 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, and Athenian government was far from that. It is, however, possible that Plato's account is colored here by his own views. 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.

Socrates' opposition to democracy 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's matters or tell people how to live their lives when he did not yet understand how to live his own. He believed he was a philosopher engaged in the pursuit of Truth, and did not claim to know it fully. Socrates' acceptance of his death sentence, after his conviction by the

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. Almost all of Plato's works center around Socrates. However, Plato's latter works appear to be more his own philosophy put into the mouth of his mentor.

The Socratic dialogues

The

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 (very similar to the Platonic "Forms"). 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

While Socrates was shown to demote the importance of institutional knowledge like mathematics or science in relation to the human condition in his dialogues, Plato would emphasize it with metaphysical overtones mirroring that of Pythagoras - the former who would dominate Western thought well into the Renaissance. Aristotle himself was as much of a philosopher as he was a scientist with rudimentary work in the fields of biology and physics.

Socratic thought along the lines of challenging conventions, especially in stressing a simplistic way of living, became divorced from Plato's more detached and philosophical pursuits but was inherited heavily by one of Socrates' older and diehard students, Antisthenes who became another originator of a philosophy in the years after Socrates' death - Cynicism. Antisthenes attacked Plato and Alcibiades over what he deemed as their betrayal of Socrates' tenets in his writings.

The idea of austerity being hand in hand with an ethical life or one with piety, ignored by Plato and Aristotle and somewhat dealt with by the Cynics, formed the core of another philosophy in 281 BCE - Stoicism when Zeno of Citium would discover Socrates' works and then learn from Crates, a Cynic philosopher. None of the schools however, would inherit his tendency to openly associate with and respect women or the regular citizen.

Later historical effects

While some of the later contributions of Socrates to

Evaluation and reaction to Socrates has been undertaken with both historical and philosophical inquiry from the time of his death to the present day with a multitude of conclusions and perspectives. One of the initial criticisms levied against the philosopher was presented at his trial - that he was not the proponent of a philosophy but an individual with a method of undermining the fabric of Athenian society, a charge carried by the 500-man jury of Athenians which sentenced him to death. Although he was not directly prosecuted for his connection to Critias, leader of the Spartan-backed Thirty Tyrants, he was seen as a controversial figure that mentored oligarchs who became abusive tyrants and undermined Athenian democracy. The Sophist establishment which he railed at in life survived him but was rapidly overtaken by the many philosophical schools of thought that Socrates influenced by the 3rd Century BCE.

Socrates' death is considered iconic and his status as a martyr of philosophy overshadowed most contemporary and posthumous criticism at the time. However, Xenophon attempts to explain that Socrates purposely welcomed the hemlock due to his old age using the arguably self-destructive testimony to the jury as evidence. Direct criticism of Socrates disappears at this point but there is a noticeable preference for Plato or Aristotle over Socratic philosophy even into the Middle Ages.

Modern scholarship has held that with so much of the philosopher obscured and possibly even altered by Plato, it is impossible to gain a clear picture of Socrates amidst all the seeming contradictions. That both

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Socrates.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Privatemusings/Socrates Sandbox.

• Original Fresque of Socrates in Archaeological Museum of Ephesus
• Socrates Narrates Plato's The Republic
• Apology of Socrates, by Plato.
• Greek Philosophy: Socrates
• Project Gutenberg e-texts on Socrates, amongst others:
  • The Dialogues of Plato (see also Wikipedia articles on Dialogues by Plato)
  • The writings of Xenophon, such as the Memorablia and Hellenica.
  • The satirical plays by Aristophanes
  • Aristotle's writings
  • Voltaire's Socrates
• A free audiobook of the Socratic dialogue Euthyphro at LibriVox
• Socratic Method Research Portal
• Socrates, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005)

[[Category:Ancient Greek philosophers]] [[Category:Ancient Athenians]] [[Category:Classical humanists]] [[Category:Irony theorists]] [[Category:People executed by poison]] [[Category:470 BC births]] [[Category:399 BC deaths]]