Socrates is the saint and martyr of philosophy. No other great philosopher has been so obsessed with righteous living. According to Plato, who was there at the time, Socrates told the judges at his trial that, “you are mistaken..if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action – that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly.”
Socrates was poor, had no conventional achievements to his name and was of humble birth – his father was stonemason and his mother midwife. The fact that he nevertheless had an entrée to Athenian high society attests to his remarkable powers of conversation.
The trial of Socrates took place in 399 BC when he was nearly seventy. The charges were that he refused to recognize the official gods of the state, that he introduced new gods and that he corrupted the young. There was a vivid political background to the trial. In 404 BC, five years before the trial, a twenty seven year war between Athens and Sparta had ended with the defeat of Athens. The Athenian democracy was overthrown and replaced by a group of men, subsequently know as the Thirty Tyrants, who were installed by Sparta. In the course of earning their name, the Tyrants murdered so many people that they lasted for only a year, though it was not until 401 BC that democracy was fully restored. Understandably, the democrats were still feeling rather insecure in 399 BC. There were plenty of reasons to be uneasy about the presence of Socrates in the city. The condition was worsened when a few of Socrates disciples got involved in tyranny.
Socrates never charged any fee for his teachings. The superior wisdom of Socrates lies in the fact that he alone is aware of how little he knows. Of course, there is a little more to Socrates’ wisdom than just that, as he claims, “the arguments never come out of me; they always come from the person I am talking with”, he acknowledge that he is “at a slight advantage in having the skill to get some account of the matter from another’s wisdom and entertain it with fair treatment.” He aptly described himself as an intellectual midwife, whose questioning delivers the thoughts of others into the light today. But his sill in education and debate, which he obviously had in abundance, is not a form of real wisdom so far Socrates is concerned. Real wisdom is perfect knowledge about ethical subjects, about how to live. When Socrates claims ignorance, he means ignorance about the foundations of morality. The pedagogy Socrates always followed was the art of dialectics. He was against preaching, and always advocated argumentative philosophy.
In all his dialogues he talked about his ignorance. He used to insist he merely acted as a midwife for ideas of others. He used to say, philosophy is an intimate and collaborative activity. It is a matter for discussion among small groups of people who argue together in order that each might find the truth for himself.
Plato and Aristotle were two main witnesses of the Socrates. Plato was the direct disciple of Socrates, and he revered his teacher a lot. Aristotle never heard Socrates’ opinions first hand, he studied for some twenty years in Plato’s Academy and had plenty of opportunity to hear Plato’s views from Plato himself. He was therefore in a position to disentangle the thinking of the two men. To a considerable extent, Aristotle’s testimony lets one subtract Plato from his own dialogues and see the Socratic remainder. Aristotle was also much less in awe than Plato was, and therefore managed to take a more dispassionate approach to his teachings.
At first Plato largely limited himself to recreating the conversations of his revered teacher. Gradually, Pythagorean and other mystical glosses were put on Socrates’ ideas as Plato came increasingly under the influence of Italian Pythagoreans. And eventually Plato reached a point where he invoked the name of Socrates to expound on all sorts of subjects.
The important discussions of the real Socrates were exclusively concerned with how one ought to live. They were mostly about the virtues, of which there were conventionally held to be five –
1. Courage
2. Moderation
3. Piety
4. Wisdom
5. Justice
His mission was to urge people to care for their souls by trying to understand and acquire these qualities. This task was enough to keep Socrates busy, but Plato was much more ambitious. He had one eye fixed on to the invisible – the divine – the perfect – a Pythagorean impact.
Socrates pursued the virtues because he felt morally obliged to, here and now. Earthly life imposed its own duties, brought its own blessings and was not simply a preparation of something else. Plato’s motives were less straight forward because he had latest one eye fixed on something beyond. One belief about virtue that the two men held in common is the pursuit of goodness is not only a matter of acting in certain ways but also an intellectual project. Yet they saw this project differently. Socrates believed that coming to understand the virtues was necessary precondition for possessing them. A man could not be truly virtuous unless he knew what virtue was, and the only way he might be able to get this knowledge was by examining accounts of particular virtues. That is why Socrates went around questioning people and arguing with them. Plato believed in this argumentative search too, but he also interpreted it as something almost mystical. While Socrates saw the search for definitions as a means to an end, namely the exercise of virtue, Plato saw the search as an end in itself. While Socrates saw the search for definitions as a means to an end, namely the exercise of virtue, Plato saw the search as an end in itself. To look for a definition was, for Plato, to seek the ideal, eternal, unchanging Form of whatever was under discussion; the contemplation of such Forms was itself f the highest good. That is what he thought Socrates’s questioning really amounted to and what it ought to aim at.
For Plato, philosophy was the ladder to this elevated world of Forms, but not everyone could climb it. Its higher rungs were reserved for those who were especially talented in dialectical argument, an elite, like the initiates of cult religions, of the followers of Pythagoras who had been privy to the master’s secrets. Socrates had a more egalitarian approach to knowledge and virtue. The unexamined life, as he famously said in his defense-speech, is not worth living, and this is not a fate to which he meant to condemn all but a chosen few. Socrates would happily question, and argue with anybody, cobbler of king, and for him this was all that philosophy was. He would have had little use for Plato’s Forms or the rare skills needed to find them.
One thing that led Plato to the mysterious Forms was his fascination with mathematics, again a Pythagorean matter and again a point of difference between him and Socrates. Above its gates, Plato’s Academy was said to have had the words “No one ignorant of geometry admitted here”. What stuck Plato about the objects dealt with in mathematics, such as number and triangles, is that they are ideal, eternal, unchanging and pleasingly independent of earthly, visible things. Plainly one cannot see or touch the number four: it therefore exists in a different sort of realm, according to Plato. And the lines, triangles and others sorts of objects that figure in mathematical proofs cannot be identified with anything physical either. Particular physical lines and triangles are nothing more than approximations to ideal mathematical ones. A perfect line, for example would have no thickness; but any visible line, or rim of a physical object, always will. Given the impressiveness of mathematics, Plato reasoned, others sorts of knowledge ought to copy it and be about ideal and incorporeal objects too. These objects of knowledge were the Forms.
One striking aspect of Socrates’ teaching was that he firmly believed people fail to be virtuous simply because they had not yet learned enough about virtue. According to him, a complete reflection, contemplation and knowledge about any virtue automatically leads the person to be virtuous, on its own accord. Socrates saw human action and emotion in largely rational or intellectual terms; he ignores impulses and willful irrationality. He used to say, “No one acts against what he believes best – people act so only by reason of ignorance.” This explains the exaggerated importance that Socrates attached t inquiries about virtue. If the only reason why people fail to do whatever is best is that they are ignorant, then the cure for immortality would indeed be more knowledge.
On this subject, Plato seems for once to have been more down to earth and realistic than Socrates. He recognized an irrational part of the soul and saw it as often in conflict with the rational part. He taught virtuous living has to be developed by careful training and discipline of the young and close attention to their early environment – event of the sort of music they listened to and the sort of stories they were allowed to hear.
Socrates’ theory starts and ends with the soul; in the Apology, he says that the most important thing in life is to look to its welfare. The soul, he says elsewhere, is that which is mutilated by wrong actions and benefited by right ones. To do good is to benefit one’s own soul and to do wrong is to harm it. Since the soul’s welfare is paramount, no other sort of harm is so important. Nothing that other people can do to you can harm you enough to cancel out the benefit you bestow on yourself by acting rightly. It follows that bad people ultimately harm only themselves.
This conflicts with old Greeks moral conventions, according to which it is acceptable to harm one’s enemies. Though not one’s friends and especially not one’s family. The rigorous ethics of Socrates removes such distinctions between people and enjoins a universal morality instead. One striking thing about it is that it does so by appealing to self-interest, not to the sort of altruistic feelings that are usually thought of as the main motive for moral behavior. Doing good is a matter of looking after the part of yourself which matters most, namely your soul. Neither does this unusual ethics rest on any hope of heavenly reward or fear of its opposite. The benefits of virtue are reaped more or less immediately, for “to live well means the same thing as to live honorably and man is happy and the unjust miserable”. In Socrates’ view, happiness and virtue are linked, which is why it is in peoples’ own interests to be moral.
It turns out that among the aspects of the good life which is subtly and surprising linked are virtues themselves. Socrates argues that they come as a package-deal or not at all. His arguments typically proceed by trying to show that some particular virtue cannot work properly unless another is present as well. Courage for instance, requires wisdom. It is not good being darling if we are foolish for such would be courage will degenerate into mere rashness. And all the other virtues are intertwined in similar ways.
One of the virtues – wisdom, plays a special part in the teachings of Socrates. For without any degree of wisdom, people will be too bad to seeing the consequences of actions to be able to tell what is right and what is wrong, which is fundamental prerequisite for virtuous living. Without wisdom they will be unable to be rarely happy either, because every benefit that has the potential to make one happy also has the potential to be misused and thus to do the opposite. One therefore needs wisdom both to reap the benefits of good things and to be virtuous.
Socrates was poor, had no conventional achievements to his name and was of humble birth – his father was stonemason and his mother midwife. The fact that he nevertheless had an entrée to Athenian high society attests to his remarkable powers of conversation.
The trial of Socrates took place in 399 BC when he was nearly seventy. The charges were that he refused to recognize the official gods of the state, that he introduced new gods and that he corrupted the young. There was a vivid political background to the trial. In 404 BC, five years before the trial, a twenty seven year war between Athens and Sparta had ended with the defeat of Athens. The Athenian democracy was overthrown and replaced by a group of men, subsequently know as the Thirty Tyrants, who were installed by Sparta. In the course of earning their name, the Tyrants murdered so many people that they lasted for only a year, though it was not until 401 BC that democracy was fully restored. Understandably, the democrats were still feeling rather insecure in 399 BC. There were plenty of reasons to be uneasy about the presence of Socrates in the city. The condition was worsened when a few of Socrates disciples got involved in tyranny.
Socrates never charged any fee for his teachings. The superior wisdom of Socrates lies in the fact that he alone is aware of how little he knows. Of course, there is a little more to Socrates’ wisdom than just that, as he claims, “the arguments never come out of me; they always come from the person I am talking with”, he acknowledge that he is “at a slight advantage in having the skill to get some account of the matter from another’s wisdom and entertain it with fair treatment.” He aptly described himself as an intellectual midwife, whose questioning delivers the thoughts of others into the light today. But his sill in education and debate, which he obviously had in abundance, is not a form of real wisdom so far Socrates is concerned. Real wisdom is perfect knowledge about ethical subjects, about how to live. When Socrates claims ignorance, he means ignorance about the foundations of morality. The pedagogy Socrates always followed was the art of dialectics. He was against preaching, and always advocated argumentative philosophy.
In all his dialogues he talked about his ignorance. He used to insist he merely acted as a midwife for ideas of others. He used to say, philosophy is an intimate and collaborative activity. It is a matter for discussion among small groups of people who argue together in order that each might find the truth for himself.
Plato and Aristotle were two main witnesses of the Socrates. Plato was the direct disciple of Socrates, and he revered his teacher a lot. Aristotle never heard Socrates’ opinions first hand, he studied for some twenty years in Plato’s Academy and had plenty of opportunity to hear Plato’s views from Plato himself. He was therefore in a position to disentangle the thinking of the two men. To a considerable extent, Aristotle’s testimony lets one subtract Plato from his own dialogues and see the Socratic remainder. Aristotle was also much less in awe than Plato was, and therefore managed to take a more dispassionate approach to his teachings.
At first Plato largely limited himself to recreating the conversations of his revered teacher. Gradually, Pythagorean and other mystical glosses were put on Socrates’ ideas as Plato came increasingly under the influence of Italian Pythagoreans. And eventually Plato reached a point where he invoked the name of Socrates to expound on all sorts of subjects.
The important discussions of the real Socrates were exclusively concerned with how one ought to live. They were mostly about the virtues, of which there were conventionally held to be five –
1. Courage
2. Moderation
3. Piety
4. Wisdom
5. Justice
His mission was to urge people to care for their souls by trying to understand and acquire these qualities. This task was enough to keep Socrates busy, but Plato was much more ambitious. He had one eye fixed on to the invisible – the divine – the perfect – a Pythagorean impact.
Socrates pursued the virtues because he felt morally obliged to, here and now. Earthly life imposed its own duties, brought its own blessings and was not simply a preparation of something else. Plato’s motives were less straight forward because he had latest one eye fixed on something beyond. One belief about virtue that the two men held in common is the pursuit of goodness is not only a matter of acting in certain ways but also an intellectual project. Yet they saw this project differently. Socrates believed that coming to understand the virtues was necessary precondition for possessing them. A man could not be truly virtuous unless he knew what virtue was, and the only way he might be able to get this knowledge was by examining accounts of particular virtues. That is why Socrates went around questioning people and arguing with them. Plato believed in this argumentative search too, but he also interpreted it as something almost mystical. While Socrates saw the search for definitions as a means to an end, namely the exercise of virtue, Plato saw the search as an end in itself. While Socrates saw the search for definitions as a means to an end, namely the exercise of virtue, Plato saw the search as an end in itself. To look for a definition was, for Plato, to seek the ideal, eternal, unchanging Form of whatever was under discussion; the contemplation of such Forms was itself f the highest good. That is what he thought Socrates’s questioning really amounted to and what it ought to aim at.
For Plato, philosophy was the ladder to this elevated world of Forms, but not everyone could climb it. Its higher rungs were reserved for those who were especially talented in dialectical argument, an elite, like the initiates of cult religions, of the followers of Pythagoras who had been privy to the master’s secrets. Socrates had a more egalitarian approach to knowledge and virtue. The unexamined life, as he famously said in his defense-speech, is not worth living, and this is not a fate to which he meant to condemn all but a chosen few. Socrates would happily question, and argue with anybody, cobbler of king, and for him this was all that philosophy was. He would have had little use for Plato’s Forms or the rare skills needed to find them.
One thing that led Plato to the mysterious Forms was his fascination with mathematics, again a Pythagorean matter and again a point of difference between him and Socrates. Above its gates, Plato’s Academy was said to have had the words “No one ignorant of geometry admitted here”. What stuck Plato about the objects dealt with in mathematics, such as number and triangles, is that they are ideal, eternal, unchanging and pleasingly independent of earthly, visible things. Plainly one cannot see or touch the number four: it therefore exists in a different sort of realm, according to Plato. And the lines, triangles and others sorts of objects that figure in mathematical proofs cannot be identified with anything physical either. Particular physical lines and triangles are nothing more than approximations to ideal mathematical ones. A perfect line, for example would have no thickness; but any visible line, or rim of a physical object, always will. Given the impressiveness of mathematics, Plato reasoned, others sorts of knowledge ought to copy it and be about ideal and incorporeal objects too. These objects of knowledge were the Forms.
One striking aspect of Socrates’ teaching was that he firmly believed people fail to be virtuous simply because they had not yet learned enough about virtue. According to him, a complete reflection, contemplation and knowledge about any virtue automatically leads the person to be virtuous, on its own accord. Socrates saw human action and emotion in largely rational or intellectual terms; he ignores impulses and willful irrationality. He used to say, “No one acts against what he believes best – people act so only by reason of ignorance.” This explains the exaggerated importance that Socrates attached t inquiries about virtue. If the only reason why people fail to do whatever is best is that they are ignorant, then the cure for immortality would indeed be more knowledge.
On this subject, Plato seems for once to have been more down to earth and realistic than Socrates. He recognized an irrational part of the soul and saw it as often in conflict with the rational part. He taught virtuous living has to be developed by careful training and discipline of the young and close attention to their early environment – event of the sort of music they listened to and the sort of stories they were allowed to hear.
Socrates’ theory starts and ends with the soul; in the Apology, he says that the most important thing in life is to look to its welfare. The soul, he says elsewhere, is that which is mutilated by wrong actions and benefited by right ones. To do good is to benefit one’s own soul and to do wrong is to harm it. Since the soul’s welfare is paramount, no other sort of harm is so important. Nothing that other people can do to you can harm you enough to cancel out the benefit you bestow on yourself by acting rightly. It follows that bad people ultimately harm only themselves.
This conflicts with old Greeks moral conventions, according to which it is acceptable to harm one’s enemies. Though not one’s friends and especially not one’s family. The rigorous ethics of Socrates removes such distinctions between people and enjoins a universal morality instead. One striking thing about it is that it does so by appealing to self-interest, not to the sort of altruistic feelings that are usually thought of as the main motive for moral behavior. Doing good is a matter of looking after the part of yourself which matters most, namely your soul. Neither does this unusual ethics rest on any hope of heavenly reward or fear of its opposite. The benefits of virtue are reaped more or less immediately, for “to live well means the same thing as to live honorably and man is happy and the unjust miserable”. In Socrates’ view, happiness and virtue are linked, which is why it is in peoples’ own interests to be moral.
It turns out that among the aspects of the good life which is subtly and surprising linked are virtues themselves. Socrates argues that they come as a package-deal or not at all. His arguments typically proceed by trying to show that some particular virtue cannot work properly unless another is present as well. Courage for instance, requires wisdom. It is not good being darling if we are foolish for such would be courage will degenerate into mere rashness. And all the other virtues are intertwined in similar ways.
One of the virtues – wisdom, plays a special part in the teachings of Socrates. For without any degree of wisdom, people will be too bad to seeing the consequences of actions to be able to tell what is right and what is wrong, which is fundamental prerequisite for virtuous living. Without wisdom they will be unable to be rarely happy either, because every benefit that has the potential to make one happy also has the potential to be misused and thus to do the opposite. One therefore needs wisdom both to reap the benefits of good things and to be virtuous.
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PS - Most part of the above article is taken from the book - The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance - by Anthony Gottlieb
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