Socrates Biography
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This article is about the ancient Greek
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Socrates (June 4, ca. 470 BC – May 7, 399
BC) (Greek Σωκράτης Sōkrátēs; Anglicised to IPA: /'sɒkɹətiːz/) was a
Greek (Athenian) philosopher.
****
His character
The character of Socrates provides an
illustration of a historical conundrum. If Socrates ever wrote a single
word, it has not survived. As such, the entirety of modern knowledge
concerning Socrates must be drawn from a limited number of secondary
sources, such as the works of Plato, Aristophanes and Xenophon.
Aristophanes was known as a satirist, and so his accounts of Socrates
may well be skewed, exaggerated, or totally falsified. Fragmentary
evidence also exists from Socrates' contemporaries. Giannantoni, in his
monumental work Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae collects every scrap
of evidence pertaining to Socrates. It includes writers such as
Aeschines Socraticus (not the orator), Antisthenes, and a number of
others who knew Socrates. Plato, following Greek tradition, appears to
have attributed his own ideas, theories, and possibly personal traits,
to his mentor. Due to the problems inherent in such sources, all
information regarding Socrates should be taken as possibly, but not
definitely, true.
According to accounts from antiquity,
Socrates' father was Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and his mother Phaenarete,
a midwife. He was married to Xanthippe, who bore him three sons. By the
cultural standards of the time, she was considered a shrew. Socrates
himself attested that he, having learned to live with Xanthippe, would
be able to cope with any other human being (supposedly), just as a horse
trainer accustomed to wilder horses might be more competent than one
not. He also saw military action, fighting at the Battle of Potidaea,
the Battle of Delium and the Battle of Amphipolis. It is believed, based
on Plato's Symposium, that Socrates was decorated for bravery. In one
instance he stayed with his wounded friend Alcibiades, and probably
saved his life; despite the objections of Alcibiades, Socrates refused
any sort of official recognition and instead encouraged the decoration
of Alcibiades. During such campaigns, he also showed his extraordinary
hardiness, walking without shoes and a coat in winter.
It is unclear what exactly Socrates did for
a living. He did not work; in Xenophon's Symposium he explicitly states
that he devotes himself only to discussing philosophy, and that he
thinks this is the most important art or occupation. It is unlikely that
he was able to live off of family inheritance, given his father's
occupation as an artisan. In the accounts of Plato, Socrates explicitly
denies accepting money for teaching; however, Xenophon's Symposium
clearly has Socrates state that he is paid by his students, and
Aristophanes depicts Socrates as running a school of sophistry with his
friend Chaerephon. It is also possible that Socrates survived off of the
generosity of his wealthy and powerful friends, such as Alcibiades.
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 recover from 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. According to Dr.
Will Beldam, he was the first person to question everything and
everyone, and apparently it offended the leaders of his time. He was
found guilty as charged, and sentenced to death by drinking hemlock.
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 him. 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 he knew nothing. The others only
falsely thought they had knowledge.
Philosophy
Socratic method
Perhaps his most important contribution to
Western thought is his dialogical 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, concepts
used constantly without any real definition. It was first described by
Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. For this, Socrates is customarily
regarded as the father and fountainhead for ethics or moral philosophy,
and of 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.
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 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 both the
difficulty of separating Socrates from Plato and the difficulty of even
interpreting the dramatic writings of Plato. Therefore, it is very
important to keep this in mind when reading the following presentations
of Socrates' thought; none of it is agreed upon, and all must be taken
with a grain of salt.
Evidence from the dialogues suggests
Socrates had only two teachers: Prodicus, a grammarian, and Diotima, a
woman 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. 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 believed that his wisdom sprung
from an awareness of his own ignorance. Socrates believed that
wrongdoing came from ignorance, that those who did wrong knew no better.
The one thing Socrates consistently claimed to have knowledge of was
"the art of love" or "the love of wisdom", i.e., philosophy. He never
claimed to be actually wise, only to understand the path one must take
to become wise. 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 and Republic describe a method for
ascending to wisdom.
In Xenophon's Symposium Socrates describes
what he knows and does as the art of pandering; as a teacher, he is paid
to show people how and where to acquire wisdom, although he is not
himself what they are looking for. In the Theaetetus and elsewhere
Socrates calls himself a midwife, explaining 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 nearly 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 largest 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, 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. Judging by his actions, he considered their rule less
legitimate than that of the democratic senate who sentenced him to
death.
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 "daemon", a voice
who spoke to Socrates only and always when Socrates is about to make a
mistake. It was this daemon 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 daemon is often taken to be what we would call
"intuition"; however, the Greek word was clearly used to signify a
spirit or entity akin to what we would call a guardian angel, and
Socrates certainly seemed to attribute personality and voice to his
daemon.
Satirical playwrights
He was prominently lampooned in
Aristophanes's 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
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. While Plato's Apology is a speech (with
Socrates as speaker), it is nonetheless generally counted as one of the
Socratic dialogues.
Plato's dialogues only contain the direct
words of each of the speakers, while Xenophon's dialogues are written
down as a continuous story, containing, along with the narration of the
circumstances of the dialogue, the "quotes" of the speakers.
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 piety?"
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.
Other views
Some hold that Socrates was a fictional
character, invented by Plato and plagiarised by Xenophon and
Aristophanes to articulate points of view which were considered too
revolutionary for the author to admit to holding. However, this theory
has little merit, especially when it is considered that Aristophanes
wrote about Socrates (in a negative light) long before Socrates died and
Plato began to write his dialogues.
Quotations
SocratesThe following quotations are
attributed to Socrates in Plato's and Xenophon's writings:
-
The unexamined life is not worth
living. (Apology, 38. In Greek, ho de anexetastos bios ou biôtos
anthorôpôi).
-
For I do nothing but go about
persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for
your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about
the greatest improvement of the soul. - Apology, by Plato.
Translated by Benjamin Jowett.
-
You, Antiphon, would seem to suggest
that happiness consists of luxury and extravagance; I hold a
different creed. To have no wants at all is, to my mind, an
attribute of Godhead - Memorabilia, by Xenophon. Translated by H.G.
Dakyns.
-
False words are not only evil in
themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. (Phaedo, 91)
-
So now, Athenian men, more than on my
own behalf must I defend myself, as some may think, but on your
behalf, so that you may not make a mistake concerning the gift of
god by condemning me. For if you kill me, you will not easily find
another such person at all, even if to say in a ludicrous way,
attached on the city by the god, like on a large and well-bred
horse, by its size and laziness both needing arousing by some
gadfly; in this way the god seems to have fastened me on the city,
some such one who arousing and persuading and reproaching each one
of you I do not stop the whole day settling down all over. Thus such
another will not easily come to you, men, but if you believe me, you
will spare me; but perhaps you might possibly be offended, like the
sleeping who are awakened, striking me, believing Anytus, you might
easily kill, then the rest of your lives you might continue
sleeping, unless the god caring for you should send you another.
(Apology)
-
Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will
you remember to pay the debt? (Last words, according to the Phaedo —
Asclepius was the god of medicine and healing, to whom such a
sacrifice might be made upon the curing of a disease).
-
Really, Ischomachus, I am disposed to
ask: "Does teaching consist in putting questions?" Indeed, the
secret of your system has just this instant dawned upon me. I seem
to see the principle in which you put your questions. You lead me
through the field of my own knowledge, and then by pointing out
analogies to what I know, persuade me that I really know some things
which hitherto, as I believed, I had no knowledge of. (Oeconomicus
by Xenophon, translated: The Economist by H.G. Dakyns)
-
Is the pious holy because it is loved
by the gods, or is it loved by the gods because it is holy? (Eurythpro)
-
And I say that there will only be a
perfect city when philosophers have become kings. (Republic)
-
And I went down to Pireus, to see the
festival of the goddess... Opening words of the Republic. The phrase
'I went down' is important because it describes, in the parable of
the cave, the duty of the philosopher.
****
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