Socrates

Life and Teachings

. . Defining Piety
. . Methods / Aims
. . Civil Obedience
. . Knowing Virtue
Bibliography
Internet Sources
Socrates: Philosophical Life

Socrates

The most interesting and influential thinker in the fifth century was Socrates, whose dedication
to careful reasoning transformed the entire enterprise. Since he sought genuine knowledge rather
than mere victory over an opponent, Socrates employed the same logical tricks developed by the
Sophists to a new purpose, the pursuit of truth. Thus, his willingness to call everything into
question and his determination to accept nothing less than an adequate account of the nature of
things make him the first clear exponent of critical philosophy.

Although he was well known during his own time for his conversational skills and public
teaching, Socrates wrote nothing, so we are dependent upon his students (especially Xenophon
and Plato) for any detailed knowledge of his methods and results. The trouble is that Plato was
himself a philosopher who often injected his own theories into the dialogues he presented to the
world as discussions between Socrates and other famous figures of the day. Nevertheless, it is
usually assumed that at least the early dialogues of Plato provide a (fairly) accurate
representation of Socrates himself.

Euthyphro: What is Piety?

In the (Euthyphro), for example, Socrates engaged in a sharply critical conversation

with an over-confident young man. Finding Euthyphro perfectly certain of his own ethical
rectitude even in the morally ambiguous situation of prosecuting his own father in court,
Socrates asks him to define what "piety" (moral duty) really is. The demand here is for
something more than merely a list of which actions are, in fact, pious; instead, Euthyphro is
supposed to provide a general definition that captures the very essence of what piety is. But
every answer he offers is subjected to the full force of Socrates's critical thinking, until nothing
certain remains.
Specifically, Socrates systematically refutes Euthyphro's suggestion that what makes right
actions right is that the gods love (or approve of) them. First, there is the obvious problem that,
since questions of right and wrong often generate interminable disputes, the gods are likely to
disagree among themselves about moral matters no less often than we do, making some actions
both right and wrong. Socrates lets Euthypro off the hook on this one by aggreeingonly for
purposes of continuing the discussionthat the gods may be supposed to agree perfectly with
each other. (Notice that this problem arises only in a polytheistic culture.)

More significantly, Socrates generates a formal dilemma from a (deceptively) simple question:
"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"
(Euthyphro 10 a) Neither alternative can do the work for which Euthyphro intends his definition
of piety. If right actions are pious only because the gods love them, then moral rightness is
entirely arbitrary, depending only on the whims of the gods. If, on the other hand, the gods love
right actions only because they are already right, then there must be some non-divine source of
values, which we might come to know independently of their love.

In fact, this dilemma proposes a significant difficulty at the heart of any effort to define morality
by reference to an external authority. (Consider, for example, parallel questions with a similar
structure: "Do my parents approve of this action because it is right, or is it right because my
parents approve of it?" or "Does the College forbid this activity because it is wrong, or is it
wrong because the College forbids it?") On the second alternative in each case, actions become
right (or wrong) solely because of the authority's approval (or disapproval); its choice, then, has
no rational foundation, and it is impossible to attribute laudable moral wisdom to the authority
itself. So this horn is clearly unacceptable. But on the first alternative, the authority approves (or
disapproves) of certain actions because they are already right (or wrong) independently of it, and
whatever rational standard it employs as a criterion for making this decision must be accessible
to us as well as to it. Hence, we are in principle capable of distinguishing right from wrong on
our own.

Thus, an application of careful techniques of reasoning results in genuine (if negative) progress
in the resolution of a philosophical issue. Socrates's method of insistent questioning at least helps
us to eliminate one bad answer to a serious question. At most, it points us toward a significant
degree of intellectual independence. The character of Euthyphro, however, seems unaffected by
the entire process, leaving the scene at the end of the dialogue no less self-confident than he had
been at its outset. The use of Socratic methods, even when they clearly result in a rational
victory, may not produce genuine conviction in those to whom they are applied.

Apology: The Examined Life

Because of his political associations with an earlier regime, the Athenian democracy put
Socrates on trial, charging him with undermining state religion and corrupting young people. The
speech he offered in his own defense, as reported in Plato's (Apology), provides us
with many reminders of the central features of Socrates's approach to philosophy and its relation
to practical life.

Ironic Modesty:
 Explaining his mission as a philosopher, Socrates reports an oracular message telling him
that "No one is wiser than you." (Apology 21a) He then proceeds through a series of
ironic descriptions of his efforts to disprove the oracle by conversing with notable
Athenians who must surely be wiser. In each case, however, Socrates concludes that he
has a kind of wisdom that each of them lacks: namely, an open awareness of his own
ignorance.
Questioning Habit:
The goal of Socratic interrogation, then, is to help individuals to achieve genuine self-
knowledge, even if it often turns out to be negative in character. As his cross-examination
of Meletus shows, Socrates means to turn the methods of the Sophists inside-out, using
logical nit-picking to expose (rather than to create) illusions about reality. If the method
rarely succeeds with interlocutors, it can nevertheless be effectively internalized as a
dialectical mode of reasoning in an effort to understand everything.
Devotion to Truth:
Even after he has been convicted by the jury, Socrates declines to abandon his pursuit of
the truth in all matters. Refusing to accept exile from Athens or a commitment to silence
as his penalty, he maintains that public discussion of the great issues of life and virtue is a
necessary part of any valuable human life. "The unexamined life is not worth living."
(Apology 38a) Socrates would rather die than give up philosophy, and the jury seems
happy to grant him that wish.
Dispassionate Reason:
Even when the jury has sentenced him to death, Socrates calmly delivers his final public
words, a speculation about what the future holds. Disclaiming any certainty about the fate
of a human being after death, he nevertheless expresses a continued confidence in the
power of reason, which he has exhibited (while the jury has not). Who really wins will
remain unclear.

Plato's dramatic picture of a man willing to face death rather than abandoning his commitment to
philosophical inquiry offers up Socrates as a model for all future philosophers. Perhaps few of us
are presented with the same stark choice between philosophy and death, but all of us are daily
faced with opportunities to decide between convenient conventionality and our devotion to truth
and reason. How we choose determines whether we, like Socrates, deserve to call our lives
philosophical.

Crito: The Individual and the State

Plato's description of Socrates's final days continued in the (Crito). Now in prison
awaiting execution, Socrates displays the same spirit of calm reflection about serious matters that
had characterized his life in freedom. Even the patent injustice of his fate at the hands of the
Athenian jury produces in Socrates no bitterness or anger. Friends arrive at the jail with a
foolproof plan for his escape from Athens to a life of voluntary exile, but Socrates calmly
engages them in a rational debate about the moral value of such an action.

Of course Crito and the others know their teacher well, and they come prepared to argue the
merits of their plan. Escaping now would permit Socrates to fulfil his personal obligations in life.
Moreover, if he does not follow the plan, many people will suppose that his friends did not care
enough for him to arrange his escape. Therefore, in order to honor his commitments and preserve
the reputation of his friends, Socrates ought to escape from jail.

But Socrates dismisses these considerations as irrelevant to a decision about what action is truly
right. What other people will say clearly doesn't matter. As he had argued in the Apology, the
only opinion that counts is not that of the majority of people generally, but rather that of the one
individual who truly knows. The truth alone deserves to be the basis for decisions about human
action, so the only proper apporoach is to engage in the sort of careful moral reasoning by means
of which one may hope to reveal it.

Socrates's argument proceeds from the statement of a perfectly general moral principle to its
application in his particular case:

One ought never to do wrong (even in response to the evil committed by another).

But it is always wrong to disobey the state.

Hence, one ought never to disobey the state.

And since avoiding the sentence of death handed down by the Athenian jury would be an action
in disobedience the state, it follows Socrates ought not to escape.

The argument is a valid one, so we are committed to accepting its conclusion if we believe that
its premises are true. The general commitment to act rightly is fundamental to a moral life, and it
does seem clear that Socrates's escape would be a case of disobedience. But what about the
second premise, the claim that it is always wrong for an individual to disobey the state? Surely
that deserves further examination. In fact, Socrates pictures the laws of Athens proposing two
independent lines of argument in favor of this claim:

First, the state is to us as a parent is to a child, and since it is always wrong for a child to disobey
a parent, it follows that it is always wrong to disobey the state. (Crito 50e) Here we might raise
serious doubts about the legitimacy of the analogy between our parents and the state. Obedience
to our parents, after all, is a temporary obligation that we eventually outgrow by learning to make
decisions for ourselves, while Socrates means to argue that obeying the state is a requirement
right up until we die. Here it might be useful to apply the same healthy disrespect for moral
authority that Socrates himself expressed in the Euthyphro.

The second argument is that it is always wrong to break an agreement, and since continuing to
live voluntarily in a state constitutes an agreement to obey it, it is wrong to disobey that state.
(Crito 52e) This may be a better argument; only the second premise seems open to question.
Explicit agreements to obey some authority are common enoughin a matriculation pledge or a
contract of employment, for examplebut most of us have not entered into any such agreement
with our government. Even if we suppose, as the laws suggest, that the agreement is an implicit
one to which we are committed by our decision to remain within their borders, it is not always
obvious that our choice of where to live is entirely subject to our individual voluntary control.
Nevertheless, these considerations are serious ones. Socrates himself was entirely convinced that
the arguments hold, so he concluded that it would be wrong for him to escape from prison. As
always, of course, his actions conformed to the outcome of his reasoning. Socrates chose to
honor his commitment to truth and morality even though it cost him his life.

Synopsis
Socrates was born circa 470 BC, in Athens, Greece. We know of his life through the writings of
his students, including Plato and Xenophon. His "Socratic method," laid the groundwork for
Western systems of logic and philosophy. When the political climate of Greece turned, Socrates
was sentenced to death by hemlock poisoning in 399 BC. He accepted this judgment rather than
fleeing into exile.

Early Years
Born circa 470 BC in Athens, Greece, Socrates's life is chronicled through only a few sources
the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon and the plays of Aristophanes. Because these writings had
other purposes than reporting his life, it is likely none present a completely accurate picture.
However, collectively, they provide a unique and vivid portrayal of Socrates's philosophy and
personality.

Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, an Athenian stone mason and sculptor, and Phaenarete, a
midwife. Because he wasn't from a noble family, he probably received a basic Greek education
and learned his father's craft at a young age. It is believed Socrates worked as mason for many
years before he devoted his life to philosophy. Contemporaries differ in their account of how
Socrates supported himself as a philosopher. Both Xenophon and Aristophanes state Socrates
received payment for teaching, while Plato writes Socrates explicitly denied accepting payment,
citing his poverty as proof.

Socrates married Xanthippe, a younger woman, who bore him three sonsLamprocles,
Sophroniscus and Menexenus. There is little known about her except for Xenophon's
characterization of Xanthippe as "undesirable." He writes she was not happy with Socrates's
second profession and complained that he wasnt supporting family as a philosopher. By his own
words, Socrates had little to do with his sons' upbringing and expressed far more interest in the
intellectual development of Athens' young boys.

Athenian law required all able bodied males serve as citizen soldiers, on call for duty from ages
18 until 60. According to Plato, Socrates served in the armored infantryknown as the hoplite
with shield, long spear and face mask. He participated in three military campaigns during the
Peloponnesian War, at Delium, Amphipolis, and Potidaea, where he saved the life of Alcibiades,
a popular Athenian general. Socrates was known for his courage in battle and fearlessness, a trait
that stayed with him throughout his life. After his trial, he compared his refusal to retreat from
his legal troubles to a soldier's refusal to retreat from battle when threatened with death.
Plato's Symposium provides the best details of Socrates's physical appearance. He was not the
ideal of Athenian masculinity. Short and stocky, with a snub nose and bulging eyes, Socrates
always seemed to appear to be staring. However, Plato pointed out that in the eyes of his
students, Socrates possessed a different kind of attractiveness, not based on a physical ideal but
on his brilliant debates and penetrating thought. Socrates always emphasized the importance of
the mind over the relative unimportance of the human body. This credo inspired Platos
philosophy of dividing reality into two separate realms, the world of the senses and the world of
ideas, declaring that the latter was the only important one.

Philosopher
Socrates believed that philosophy should achieve practical results for the greater well-being of
society. He attempted to establish an ethical system based on human reason rather than
theological doctrine. He pointed out that human choice was motivated by the desire for
happiness. Ultimate wisdom comes from knowing oneself. The more a person knows, the greater
his or her ability to reason and make choices that will bring true happiness. Socrates believed
that this translated into politics with the best form of government being neither a tyranny nor a
democracy. Instead, government worked best when ruled by individuals who had the greatest
ability, knowledge, and virtue and possessed a complete understanding of themselves.

For Socrates, Athens was a classroom and he went about asking questions of the elite and
common man alike, seeking to arrive at political and ethical truths. Socrates didnt lecture about
what he knew. In fact, he claimed to be ignorant because he had no ideas, but wise because he
recognized his own ignorance. He asked questions of his fellow Athenians in a dialectic method
(the Socratic Method) which compelled the audience to think through a problem to a logical
conclusion. Sometimes the answer seemed so obvious, it made Socrates's opponents look foolish.
For this, he was admired by some and vilified by others.

During Socrates's life, Athens was going through a dramatic transition from hegemony in the
classical world to its decline after a humiliating defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War.
Athenians entered a period of instability and doubt about their identity and place in the world. As
a result, they clung to past glories, notions of wealth, and a fixation with physical beauty.
Socrates attacked these values with his insistent emphasis on the greater importance of the mind.
While many Athenians admired Socrates's challenges to Greek conventional wisdom and the
humorous way he went about it, an equal number grew angry and felt he threatened their way of
life and uncertain future.

Execution
The jury was not swayed by Socrates's defense and convicted him by a vote of 280 to 221.
Possibly the defiant tone of his defense contributed to the verdict and he made things worse
during the deliberation over his punishment. Athenian law allowed a convicted citizen to propose
an alternative punishment to the one called for by the prosecution and the jury would decide.
Instead of proposing he be exiled, Socrates suggested he be honored by the city for his
contribution to their enlightenment and be paid for his services. The jury was not amused and
sentenced him to death by drinking a mixture of poison hemlock.

Before Socrates's execution, friends offered to bribe the guards and rescue him so he could flee
into exile. He declined, stating he wasn't afraid of death, felt he would be no better off if in exile
and said he was still a loyal citizen of Athens, willing to abide by its laws, even the ones that
condemned him to death. Plato described Socrates's execution in his Phaedo dialogue: Socrates
drank the hemlock mixture without hesitation. Numbness slowly crept into his body until it
reached his heart. Shortly before his final breath, Socrates described his death as a release of the
soul from the body.

Socrates
Philosophy
Socrates's contributions to philosophy were a new method of approaching knowledge, a
conception of the soul as the seat both of normal waking consciousness and of moral character,
and a sense of the universe as purposively mind-ordered. His method, called dialectic, consisted
in examining statements by pursuing their implications, on the assumption that if a statement
were true it could not lead to false consequences. The method may have been suggested by Zeno
of Elea, but Socrates refined it and applied it to ethical problems.

His doctrine of the soul led him to the belief that all virtues converge into one, which is the good,
or knowledge of one's true self and purposes through the course of a lifetime. Knowledge in turn
depends on the nature or essence of things as they really are, for the underlying forms of things
are more real than their experienced exemplifications. This conception leads to a teleological
view of the world that all the forms participate in and lead to the highest form, the form of the
good. Plato later elaborated this doctrine as central to his own philosophy. Socrates's view is
often described as holding virtue and knowledge to be identical, so that no man knowingly does
wrong. Since virtue is identical with knowledge, it can be taught, but not as a professional
specialty as the Sophists had pretended to teach it. However, Socrates himself gave no final
answer to how virtue can be learned.

Socrates
Introduction
Socrates (skrtz) [key], 469399 B.C., Greek philosopher of Athens. Famous for
his view of philosophy as a pursuit proper and necessary to all intelligent men, he is
one of the great examples of a man who lived by his principles even though they
ultimately cost him his life. Knowledge of the man and his teachings comes
indirectly from certain dialogues of his disciple Plato and from the Memorabilia of
Xenophon. In spite of conflicting interpretations of his teachings, the accounts of
these two writers are largely supplementary.

Socrates
Life
Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor. It is said that in early life he practiced his
father's art. In middle life he married Xanthippe, who is legendary as a shrew, although the
stories have little basis in ascertainable fact. It is not certain who were Socrates's teachers in
philosophy, but he seems to have been acquainted with the doctrines of Parmenides, Heraclitus,
Anaxagoras, and the atomists. He was widely known for his intellectual powers even before he
was 40, when, according to Plato's report of Socrates's speech in the Apology, the oracle at
Delphi pronounced him the wisest man in Greece. In that speech Socrates maintained that he was
puzzled by this acclaim until he discovered that, while others professed knowledge without
realizing their ignorance, he at least was aware of his own ignorance.

Socrates became convinced that his calling was to search for wisdom about right conduct by
which he might guide the intellectual and moral improvement of the Athenians. Neglecting his
own affairs, he spent his time discussing virtue, justice, and piety wherever his fellow citizens
congregated. Some felt that he also neglected public duty, for he never sought public office,
although he was famous for his courage in the military campaigns in which he served. In his self-
appointed task as gadfly to the Athenians, Socrates made numerous enemies.

Aristophanes burlesqued Socrates in his play The Clouds and attributed to him some of the faults
of the Sophists (professional teachers of rhetoric). Although Socrates in fact baited the Sophists,
his other critics seem to have held a view similar to that of Aristophanes. In 399 B.C. he was
brought to trial for corrupting youth and for religious heresies. Obscure political issues
surrounded the trial, but it seems that Socrates was tried also for being the friend and teacher of
Alcibiades and Critias, both of whom had betrayed Athens. The trial and death of Socrates, who
was given poison hemlock to drink, are described with great dramatic power in the Apology, the
Crito, and the Phaedo of Plato.

Socrates
Bibliography
See N. Gulley, The Philosophy of Socrates (1968); G. X. Santas, Socrates (1982); L. E. Navia,
Socrates: The Man and His Philosophy (1989); T. C. Brickhouse and N. D. Smith, Socrates on
Trial (1989); B. Hughes, The Hemlock Cup (2011); P. Johnson, Socrates (2011).
Introduction
Socrates (c. 469 - 399 B.C.) was a hugely important Greek philosopher from the Classical period (often
known as the Socratic period in his honour). Unlike most of the Pre-Socratic philosophers who came
before him, who were much more interested in establishing how the world works, Socrates was more
concerned with how people should behave, and so was perhaps the first major philosopher of Ethics.

An enigmatic figure known to us only through other people's accounts (principally the dialogues of his
student Plato), he is credited as one of the founders of Western Philosophy. He is considered by some
as the very antithesis of the Sophists of his day, who claimed to have knowledge which they could
transmit to others (often for payment), arguing instead that knowledge should be pursued for its own
sake, even if one could never fully possess it.

He made important and lasting contributions in the fields of Ethics, Epistemology and Logic, and
particularly in the methodology of philosophy (his Socratic Method or "elenchus"). His views were
instrumental in the development of many of the major philosophical movements and schools which came
after him, including Platonism (and the Neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism it gave rise to), Cynicism,
Stoicism and Hedonism.

Life
Socrates was born, as far as we know, in Athens around 469 B.C. Our knowledge of his life is sketchy
and derives mainly from three contemporary sources, the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon (c. 431 -
355 B.C.), and the plays of Aristophanes (c. 456 - 386 B.C.). According to Plato, Socrates' father was
Sophroniscus (a sculptor and stonemason) and his mother was Phaenarete (a midwife). His family was
respectable in descent, but humble in means. He appears to have had no more than an ordinary Greek
education (reading, writing, gymnastics and music, and, later, geometry and astronomy) before devoting
his time almost completely to intellectual interests.

He is usually described as unattractive in appearance and short in stature, and he apparently rarely
washed or changed his clothes. But he did nevertheless marry Xanthippe, a woman much younger than
he and renowned for her shrewishness (Socrates justified his marriage on the grounds that a horse-
trainer needs to hone his skills on the most spirited animals). She bore for him three sons, Lamprocles,
Sophroniscus and Menexenus, who were all were quite young children at the time of their father's trial
and death and, according to Aristotle, they turned out unremarkable, silly and dull.

It is not known for sure who his teachers were, but he seems to have been acquainted with the doctrines
of Parmenides, Heraclitus and Anaxagoras. Plato recorded the fact that Socrates met Zeno of Elea and
Parmenides on their trip to Athens, probably in about 450 B.C. Other influences which have been
mentioned include a rhetorician named Prodicus, a student of Anaxagoras called Archelaus, and two
women (besides his mother): Diotima (a witch and priestess from Mantinea who taught him all about
"eros" or love), and Aspasia (the mistress of the Greek statesman Pericles, who taught him the art of
funeral orations).

It is not clear how Socrates earned a living. Some sources suggest that he continued the profession of
stonemasonry from his father. He apparently served for a time as a member of the senate of Athens,
and he served (and reportedly distinguished himself) in the Athenian army during three campaigns at
Potidaea, Amphipolis and Delium. However, most texts seem to indicate that Socrates did not work,
devoting himself solely to discussing philosophy in the squares of Athens. Using a method now known as
the Socratic Method (or Socratic dialogue or dialectic), he grew famous for drawing forth knowledge
from his students by pursuing a series of questions and examining the implications of their answers.
Often he would question people's unwarranted confidence in the truth of popular opinions, but usually
without offering them any clear alternative teaching. Aristophanes portrayed Socrates as running a
Sophist school and accepting payment for teaching, but other sources explicitly deny this.

The best known part of Socrates' life is his trial and execution. Despite claiming complete loyalty to his
city, Socrates' pursuit of virtue and his strict adherence to truth clashed with the course of Athenian
politics and society (particularly in the aftermath of Athens' embarrassing defeats in the Peloponnesian
War with Sparta). Socrates raised questions about Athenian religion, but also about Athenian
democracy and, in particular, he praised Athens' arch-rival Sparta, causing some scholars to interpret
his trial as an expression of political infighting. However, it more likely resulted from his self-appointed
position as Athens' social and moral critic, and his insistence on trying to improve the Athenians' sense
of justice (rather than upholding the status quo and accepting the development of immorality). His
"crime" was probably merely that his paradoxical wisdom made several prominent Athenians look
foolish in public.

Whatever the motivation, he was found guilty (by a narrow margin of 30 votes out of the 501 jurors) of
impiety and corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, and he was sentenced to death by drinking a
mixture containing poison hemlock in 399 B.C., at the age of 70. Although he apparently had an
opportunity to escape, he chose not to, believing that a true philosopher should have no fear of death,
that it would be against his principles to break his social contract with the state by evading its justice,
and that he would probably fare no better elsewhere even if he were to escape into exile.

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Work
As has been mentioned, Socrates himself did not write any philosophical texts, and our knowledge of the
man and his philosophy is based on writings by his students and contemporaries, particularly Plato's
dialogues, but also the writings of Aristotle, Xenophon and Aristophanes. As these are either the
partisan philosophical texts of his supporters, or works of dramatic rather than historically accurate
intent, it is difficult to find the real Socrates (often referred to as the "Socratic problem"). In Plato's
Socratic Dialogues in particular, it is well nigh impossible to tell which of the views attributed to Socrates
are actually his and which Plato's own.

Perhaps Socrates' most important and enduring single contribution to Western thought is his
dialectical method of inquiry, which he referred to as "elenchus" (roughly, "cross-examination") but
which has become known as the Socratic Method or Socratic Debate (although some commentators
have argued that Protagoras actually invented the Socratic method). It has been called a negative
method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and
eliminating those which lead to contradictions. Even today, the Socratic Method is still used in
classrooms and law schools as a way of discussing complex topics in order to expose the underlying
issues in both the subject and the speaker. Its influence is perhaps most strongly felt today in the use of
the Scientific Method, in which the hypothesis is just the first stage towards a proof.

At its simplest, the Socratic Method is used to solve a problem by breaking the problem down into a
series of questions, the answers to which gradually distill better and better solutions. Both the
questioner and the questioned explore the implications of the other's positions, in order to stimulate
rational thinking and illuminate ideas. Thus, Socrates would counter any assertion with a
counterexample which disproves the assertion (or at least shows it to be inadequate). This would lead to
a modified assertion, which Socrates would then test again with another counterexample. Through
several iterations of this kind, the original assertion is continually adjusted and becomes more and more
difficult to refute, which Socrates held meant that it was closer and closer to the truth.

Socrates believed fervently in the immortality of the soul, and he was convinced that the gods had
singled him out as a kind of divine emissary to persuade the people of Athens that their moral values
were wrong-headed, and that, instead of being so concerned with their families, careers, and political
responsibilities, they ought to be worried about the "welfare of their souls". However, he also
questioned whether "arete" (or "virtue") can actually be taught as the Sophists believed. He observed
that many successful fathers (such as the prominent military general Pericles, for example) did not
produce sons of their own quality, which suggested to him that moral excellence was more a matter of
divine bequest than parental nurture.

He often claimed that his wisdom was limited to an awareness of his own ignorance, (although he did
claim to have knowledge of "the art of love"). Thus, he never actually claimed to be wise, only to
understand the path a lover of wisdom must take in pursuing it. His claim that he knew one and only
one thing, that he knew nothing, may have influenced the later school of Skepticism. He saw his role, not
as a teacher or a theorist, but as analogous to a midwife who could bring the theories of others to life,
although to do so he would of course need to have experience and knowledge of that of which he
talked. He believed that anyone could be a philosopher, not just those who were highly trained and
educated, and indeed that everyone had a duty to ask philosophical questions (he is famously quoted as
claiming that "the unexamined life is not worth living").

Many of the beliefs traditionally attributed to the historical Socrates have been characterized as
"paradoxical" because they seem to conflict with common sense, such as: no-one desires evil, no-
one errs or does wrong willingly or knowingly; all virtue is knowledge; virtue is sufficient for happiness. He
believed that wrongdoing was a consequence of ignorance and those who did wrong knew no better
(sometimes referred to as Ethical Intellectualism). He believed the best way for people to live was to focus
on self-development rather than the pursuit of material wealth, and he always invited others to try to
concentrate more on friendships and a sense of true community. He was convinced that humans
possessed certain virtues (particularly the important philosophical or intellectual virtues), and that virtue
was the most valuable of all possessions, and the ideal life should be spent in search of the Good (an
early statement of Eudaimonism or Virtue Ethics).

Socrates' political views, as represented in Plato's dialogue "The Republic", were strongly against the
democracy that had so recently been restored in the Athens of his day, and indeed against any form of
government that did not conform to his ideal of a perfect republic led by philosophers, who he claimed
were the only type of person suitable to govern others. He believed that the will of the majority was
not necessarily a good method of decision-making, but that it was much more important that decisions be
logical and defensible. However, these may be more Plato's own views than those of Socrates, "The
Republic" being a "middle period" work often considered to be not representative of the views of the
historical Socrates.

In Plato's "early" dialogue, "Apology of Socrates", Socrates refused to pursue conventional politics, on
the grounds that he could not look into the matters of others (or tell people how to live their lives) when
he did not yet understand how to live his own. Some have argued that he considered the rule of the
"Thirty Tyrants" (who came to power briefly during his life, led by Critias, a relative of Plato and a one-
time student of Socrates himself) even less legitimate than the democratic senate that sentenced him to
death.

Likewise, in the dialogues of Plato, Socrates often appears to support a mystical side, discussing
reincarnation and the mystery religions (popular religious cults of the time, such as the Eleusinian
Mysteries, restricted to those who had gone through certain secret initiation rites), but how much of this
is attributable to Socrates or to Plato himself is not (and never will be) clear. Socrates often referred to
what the Greeks called a "daemonic sign", a kind of inner voice he heard only when he was about to
make a mistake (such as the sign that he claimed prevented him from entering into politics). Although
we would consider this to be intuition today, Socrates thought of it as 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.

Socrates' views were instrumental in the development of many of the major philosophical movements
and schools which came after him, particularly the Platonism of his principle student Plato, (and the Neo-
Platonism and Aristotelianism it gave rise to). His idea of a life of austerity combined with piety and
morality (largely ignored by Plato and Aristotle) was essential to the core beliefs of later schools like
Cynicism and Stoicism. Socrates' stature in Western Philosophy returned in full force with the
Renaissance and the Age of Reason in Europe when political theory began to resurface under such
philosophers as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435 - 360 B.C.), the founder
of the school of Hedonism was also a pupil of Socrates, although he rather skewed Socrates' teaching.
 Definition

by Joshua J. Mark
published on 02 September 2009
Socrates (469/470-399 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and is considered the father of western
philosophy. Plato was his most famous student and would teach Aristotle who would then tutor
Alexander the Great. By this progression, Greek philosophy, as first developed by Socrates, was
spread throughout the known world during Alexander's conquests.

Socrates was born c. 469/470 BCE to the sculptor Sophronicus and the mid-wife Phaenarete. He
studied music, gymnastics, and grammar in his youth (the common subjects of study for a young
Greek) and followed his father's profession as a sculptor. Tradition holds that he was an
exceptional artist, and his statue of the Graces, on the road to the Acropolis, is said to have been
admired into the 2nd century CE. Socrates served with distinction in the army and, at the Battle
of Potidaea, saved the life of the General Alcibiades.

When he was middle-aged, Socrates' friend Chaerephon asked the famous Oracle at Delphi if
there was anyone wiser than Socrates, to which the Oracle answered, "None." Bewildered by this
answer and hoping to prove the Oracle wrong, Socrates went about questioning people who were
held to be 'wise' in their own estimation and that of others. He found, to his dismay, "that the men
whose reputation for wisdom stood highest were nearly the most lacking in it, while others who
were looked down on as common people were much more intelligent" (Plato, Apology, 22). The
youth of Athens delighted in watching Socrates question their elders in the market and, soon, he
had a following of young men who, because of his example and his teachings, would go on to
abandon their early aspirations and devote themselves to philosophy (from the Greek 'Philo',
love, and 'Sophia', wisdom - literally 'the love of wisdom'). Among these were Antisthenes
(founder of the Cynic school), Aristippus (the Cyrenaic school), Xenophon (whose writings
would influence Zeno of Cithium, founder of the Stoic school) and, most famously, Plato (the
main source of our information of Socrates in his Dialogues) among many others. Every major
philosophical school mentioned by ancient writers following Socrates' death was founded by one
of his followers.
Socrates' Prison, Athens

The diversity of these schools is testimony to Socrates' wide ranging influence and, more
importantly, the diversity of interpretations of his teachings. The philosophical concepts taught
by Antisthenes and Aristippus could not be more different, in that the former taught that the good
life was attained by self-control and self-abnegation, while the latter claimed a life of pleasure
was the only path worth pursuing. It has been said that Socrates' greatest contribution to
philosophy was to move intellectual pursuits away from the focus on `physical science' (as
pursued by the so-called Pre-Socratic Philosophers such as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes,
and others) and into the abstract realm of ethics and morality. No matter the diversity of the
schools which claimed to carry on his teachings, they all emphasized some form of morality as
their foundational tenet. That the `morality' espoused by one school was often condemned by
another, again bears witness to the very different interpretations of Socrates' central message.
While scholars have traditionally relied upon Plato's Dialogues as a source for information on
the historical Socrates, Plato's contemporaries claimed he used a character he called `Socrates' as
a mouth-piece for his own philosophical views. Notable among these critics was, allegedly,
Phaedo, a fellow student of Socrates, whose writings are now lost, and Xenophon, whose
Memorablia presents a different view of Socrates than that presented by Plato.

However his teachings were interpreted, it seems clear that Socrates' main focus
was on how to live a good and virtuous life.
However his teachings were interpreted, it seems clear that Socrates' main focus was on how to
live a good and virtuous life. The claim atrributed to him by Plato that "an unexamined life is not
worth living" (Apology, 38b) seems historically accurate, in that it is clear he inspired his
followers to think for themselves instead of following the dictates of society and the accepted
superstitions concerning the gods and how one should behave. While there are differences
between Plato's and Xenophon's depictions of Socrates, both present a man who cared nothing
for class distinctions or `proper behavior' and who spoke as easily with women, servants, and
slaves as with those of the higher classes. In ancient Athens, individual behavior was maintained
by a concept known as `Eusebia' which is often translated into English as `piety' but more closely
resembles `duty' or `loyalty to a course'. In refusing to conform to the social propieties
proscribed by Eusebia, Socrates angered many of the more important men of the city who could,
rightly, accuse him of breaking the law by violating these customs.

In 399 BCE Socrates was charged with impiety by Meletus the poet, Anytus the tanner, and
Lycon the orator who sought the death penalty in the case. The accusation read: Socrates is
guilty, firstly, of denying the gods recognized by the state and introducing new divinities, and,
secondly, of corrupting the young. It has been suggested that this charge was both personally
and politically motivated as Athens was trying to purge itself of those associated with the scourge
of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens who had only recently been overthrown. Socrates' relationship to
this regime was through his former student, Critias, who was considered to be among the worst
of the tyrants and was thought to have been corrupted by Socrates. It has also been suggested,
based in part on interpretations of Plato's dialogue of the Meno, that Anytus blamed Socrates for
corrupting his son. Anytus, it seems, had been grooming his son for a life in politics until the boy
became interested in Socrates' teachings and abandoned political pursuits. As Socrates' accusers
had Critias as an example of how the philosopher corrupted youth, even if they never used that
evidence in court, the precedent appears to have been known to the jury.
The Death of Socrates

Ignoring the counsel of his friends and refusing the help of the gifted speechwriter
Lysias, Socrates chose to defend himself in court. There were no lawyers in ancient
Athens and, instead of a solicitor, one would hire a speechwriter. Lysias was among
the most highly paid but, as he admired Socrates, he offered his services free of
charge. The speechwriter usually presented the defendant as a good man who had
been wronged by a false accusation, and this is the sort of defense the court would
have expected from Socrates. Instead of the defense filled with self-justification and
pleas for his life, however, Socrates defied the Athenian court, proclaiming his
innocence and casting himself in the role of Athens' 'gadfly' - a benefactor to them
all who, at his own expense, kept them awake and aware. When it came time for
Socrates to suggest a penalty to be imposed rather than death, he suggested he
should be maintained in honor with free meals in the Prytaneum, a place reserved
for heroes of the Olympic games. This would have been considered a serious insult
to the honor of the Prytaneum and that of the city of Athens. Accused criminals on
trial for their life were expected to beg for the mercy of the court, not presume to
heroic accolades.

Socrates was convicted and sentenced to death (Xenophon tells us that he wished
for such an outcome and Plato's account of the trial in his Apology would seem to
confirm this). The last days of Socrates are chronicled in Plato's Euthyphro, Apology,
Crito and Phaedo, the last dialogue depicting the day of his death (by drinking
hemlock) surrounded by his friends in his jail cell in Athens and, as Plato puts it,
"Such was the end of our friend, a man, I think, who was the wisest and justest, and
the best man I have ever known" (Phaedo, 118).

Socrates' influence was felt immediately in the actions of his disciples as they
formed their own interpretations of his life, teachings, and death, and set about
forming their own philosophical schools and writing about their experiences with
their teacher. Of all these writings we have only the works of Plato, Xenophon, a
comic image by Aristophanes, and later works by Aristotle to tell us anything about
Socrates' life. He, himself, wrote nothing, but his words and actions in the search for
and defense of Truth changed the world and his example still inspires people today.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was a classical Greek philosopher who is credited with
laying the fundamentals of modern Western philosophy. He is known for creating
Socratic irony and the Socratic method (elenchus).

Socrates - Ancient Greece

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was a classical Greek philosopher who is credited with
laying the fundamentals of modern Western philosophy. He is known for creating
Socratic irony and the Socratic method (elenchus).

Socrates - Ancient Greece

Socrates (ca. 469-399 BCE) is hailed as one of the founders of Western philosophy, however,
very little is known about him as a historical figure and philosopher. The best account of life and
work of one of the most influential philosophers of all times is given by the later classical
writers, in the first place by his students Plato and Xenophon and the playwright Aristophanes
who was his contemporary. Despite that, the mentioned writers reveal that the ancient Greek
philosopher made important contributions to philosophy as well as epistemology and logic. He is
the inventor of the so-called Socratic method or elenchus which remains one of the most
commonly used approaches not only to answer the fundamental questions of philosophy but it
also serves as a tool for scientific research. Ironically, the most famous Socrates saying is I
only know that I know nothing.

Socratic Problem

As mentioned earlier, Socrates life and work are surrounded by mystery. He did not write any
philosophical works or left any writings. The knowledge we have about him both as a historical
figure and philosopher is based exclusively on later classical writings. Uncertainty regarding
Socrates life and work which is known as the Socratic problem is related to the fact that the
information we have about him (besides the above mentioned authors, Socrates also appears in
the works by Aristotle and the famous historian Thucydides) are philosophical and dramatic
rather than historical texts. This makes it very difficult to create a picture of his life, work and
philosophical thought.
Socrates student Plato is traditionally considered the best source about the philosophers life and
work although many scholars emphasise that it is very difficult to distinguish between Platos
and Socrates philosophical views and even more difficult to create an accurate account of
Socrates life. As a result, some consider Xenophon to be more reliable source of information
about Socrates as a historical figure.

Personal Life

Plato and Xenophon are the main sources for Socrates personal life. From their writing, we find
out that the renowned ancient Greek philosopher was born to Sophroniscus, a stonemason (or
perhaps a sculptor) and his wife Phaenarete who was a midwife. He spent his life in Athens
where he was born but details of his early life are scarce. He is said to participate in the
Peloponnesian War (431-04 BCE) and that he married relatively late with Xanthippe who was
much younger from him. She bore him three sons Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus.

It is not certain what Socrates did for a living. According to Xenophon, he was completely
devoted to philosophy, while Aristophanes says that he earned a living by teaching at a school he
ran with Chaerephon. Plato, however, rejects the accounts of Socrates being paid for teaching.
Then there are also accounts of him working as a stonemason, like his father. In the antiquity, he
was credited with the creation of the Three Graces statues near Acropolis but this has been
rejected by modern scholars.

The Gadfly of Athens

Plato portrays Socrates as the gadfly of Athens. He explains that Socrates loved to test the
wisdom of those he considered to be wiser than him. But since most of the people he tested
were statesmen and other influential people of Athens, he soon came to be known as the gadfly
of Athens because his methods of testing wisdom made many influential people look everything
but wise in the public. He also came into conflict with the elites and the general public in Athens
by praising the citys rival of Sparta although he claimed loyalty to Athens. It is speculated that
his role of gadfly might had been one of the leading causes for his trial and execution. However,
he remained the gadfly of Athens until the very end. At the trial, he apparently proposed that
he should be paid a wage by the government and free dinners for lifetime when he had been
asked to propose a punishment for his wrongdoing.

Trial and Execution

Those who persecuted and tried Socrates did not left any records. Again, Plato and Xenophon are
the main sources for the events leading to the philosophers trial and execution. They tell us that
Meletus, Lycon and Anytus charged Socrates with impiety and corrupting the minds of the youth
of Athens. In his defence speech, he is said to defend his role as the gadfly, making it easy on
his persecutors to sentence him to death. Both Plato and Xenophon tell us that he had an
opportunity to escape and that his friend Crito even bribed the guards in the prison but he
decided to stay. He was given to drink poison hemlock.

Socratic Method

Socrates main contribution to Western philosophy is his method of inquiry that was called after
him Socratic method, sometimes also known as elenchus. According to the latter, a statement can
be considered true only if it cannot be proved wrong. The Socratic method which is dialectic
breaks down a problem into a series of questions which are then sought to be answered. This
method which is also used in scientific research by making a hypothesis and then either proving
it correct or false, is by some suggested to be first used by Zeno of Elea (ca. 490-430 BCE) but it
was Socrates who refined it and used it to solve ethical questions.

The philosophers beliefs are difficult to distinguish from Platos. According to some, they may
have been reinterpreted by Plato but according to the others, the latter perhaps completely
adopted Socrates philosophical thoughts and that his beliefs actually reflect those from Socrates.
Thus the famous philosophers saying I only know that I know nothing can be in a way also
claimed for his life and work.

1. Biography: Who was Socrates?

a. The Historical Socrates

i. Birth and Early Life

Socrates was born in Athens in the year 469 B.C.E. to Sophroniscus, a stonemason, and
Phaenarete, a midwife. His family was not extremely poor, but they were by no means wealthy,
and Socrates could not claim that he was of noble birth like Plato. He grew up in the political
deme or district of Alopece, and when he turned 18, began to perform the typical political duties
required of Athenian males. These included compulsory military service and membership in the
Assembly, the governing body responsible for determining military strategy and legislation.

In a culture that worshipped male beauty, Socrates had the misfortune of being born incredibly
ugly. Many of our ancient sources attest to his rather awkward physical appearance, and Plato
more than once makes reference to it (Theaetetus 143e, Symposium, 215a-c; also Xenophon
Symposium 4.19, 5.5-7 and Aristophanes Clouds 362). Socrates was exophthalmic, meaning that
his eyes bulged out of his head and were not straight but focused sideways. He had a snub nose,
which made him resemble a pig, and many sources depict him with a potbelly. Socrates did little
to help his odd appearance, frequently wearing the same cloak and sandals throughout both the
day and the evening. Platos Symposium (174a) offers us one of the few accounts of his caring
for his appearance.

As a young man Socrates was given an education appropriate for a person of his station. By the
middle of the 5th century B.C.E., all Athenian males were taught to read and write. Sophroniscus,
however, also took pains to give his son an advanced cultural education in poetry, music, and
athletics. In both Plato and Xenophon, we find a Socrates that is well versed in poetry, talented
at music, and quite at-home in the gymnasium. In accordance with Athenian custom, his father
also taught him a trade, though Socrates did not labor at it on a daily basis. Rather, he spent his
days in the agora (the Athenian marketplace), asking questions of those who would speak with
him. While he was poor, he quickly acquired a following of rich young aristocratsone of
whom was Platowho particularly enjoyed hearing him interrogate those that were purported to
be the wisest and most influential men in the city.

Socrates was married to Xanthippe, and according to some sources, had a second wife. Most
suggest that he first married Xanthippe, and that she gave birth to his first son, Lamprocles. He
is alleged to have married his second wife, Myrto, without dowry, and she gave birth to his other
two sons, Sophroniscus and Menexenus. Various accounts attribute Sophroniscus to Xanthippe,
while others even suggest that Socrates was married to both women simultaneously because of a
shortage of males in Athens at the time. In accordance with Athenian custom, Socrates was open
about his physical attraction to young men, though he always subordinated his physical desire for
them to his desire that they improve the condition of their souls.

Socrates fought valiantly during his time in the Athenian military. Just before the Peloponnesian
War with Sparta began in 431 B.C.E, he helped the Athenians win the battle of Potidaea (432
B.C.E.), after which he saved the life of Alcibiades, the famous Athenian general. He also fought
as one of 7,000 hoplites aside 20,000 troops at the battle of Delium (424 B.C.E.) and once more
at the battle of Amphipolis (422 B.C.E.). Both battles were defeats for Athens.

Despite his continued service to his city, many members of Athenian society perceived Socrates
to be a threat to their democracy, and it is this suspicion that largely contributed to his conviction
in court. It is therefore imperative to understand the historical context in which his trial was set.

ii. Later Life and Trial

1. The Peloponnesian War and the Threat to Democracy

Between 431404 B.C.E. Athens fought one of its bloodiest and most protracted conflicts with
neighboring Sparta, the war that we now know as the Peloponnesian War. Aside from the fact
that Socrates fought in the conflict, it is important for an account of his life and trial because
many of those with whom Socrates spent his time became either sympathetic to the Spartan
cause at the very least or traitors to Athens at worst. This is particularly the case with those from
the more aristocratic Athenian families, who tended to favor the rigid and restricted hierarchy of
power in Sparta instead of the more widespread democratic distribution of power and free speech
to all citizens that obtained in Athens. Plato more than once places in the mouth of his character
Socrates praise for Sparta (Protagoras 342b, Crito 53a; cf. Republic 544c in which most people
think the Spartan constitution is the best). The political regime of the Republic is marked by a
small group of ruling elites that preside over the citizens of the ideal city.

There are a number of important historical moments throughout the war leading up to Socrates
trial that figure in the perception of him as a traitor. Seven years after the battle of Amphipolis,
the Athenian navy was set to invade the island of Sicily, when a number of statues in the city
called herms, dedicated to the god Hermes, protector of travelers, were destroyed. Dubbed the
Mutilation of the Herms (415 B.C.E.), this event engendered not only a fear of those who might
seek to undermine the democracy, but those who did not respect the gods. In conjunction with
these crimes, Athens witnessed the profanation of the Eleusinian mysteries, religious rituals that
were to be conducted only in the presence of priests but that were in this case performed in
private homes without official sanction or recognition of any kind. Amongst those accused and
persecuted on suspicion of involvement in the crimes were a number of Socrates associates,
including Alcibiades, who was recalled from his position leading the expedition in Sicily. Rather
than face prosecution for the crime, Alcibiades escaped and sought asylum in Sparta.

Though Alcibiades was not the only of Socrates associates implicated in the sacrilegious crimes
(Charmides and Critias were suspected as well), he is arguably the most important. Socrates had
by many counts been in love with Alcibiades and Plato depicts him pursuing or speaking of his
love for him in many dialogues (Symposium 213c-d, Protagoras 309a, Gorgias 481d, Alcibiades
I 103a-104c, 131e-132a). Alcibiades is typically portrayed as a wandering soul (Alcibiades I
117c-d), not committed to any one consistent way of life or definition of justice. Instead, he was
a kind of cameleon-like flatterer that could change and mold himself in order to please crowds
and win political favor (Gorgias 482a). In 411 B.C.E., a group of citizens opposed to the
Athenian democracy led a coup against the government in hopes of establishing an oligarchy.
Though the democrats put down the coup later that year and recalled Alcibiades to lead the
Athenian fleet in the Hellespont, he aided the oligarchs by securing for them an alliance with the
Persian satraps. Alcibiades therefore did not just aid the Spartan cause but allied himself with
Persian interests as well. His association with the two principal enemies of Athens reflected
poorly on Socrates, and Xenophon tells us that Socrates repeated association with and love for
Alcibiades was instrumental in the suspicion that he was a Spartan apologist.

Sparta finally defeated Athens in 404 B.C.E., just five years before Socrates trial and execution.
Instead of a democracy, they installed as rulers a small group of Athenians who were loyal to
Spartan interests. Known as The Thirty or sometimes as the Thirty Tyrants, they were led by
Critias, a known associate of Socrates and a member of his circle. Critias nephew Charmides,
about whom we have a Platonic dialogue of the same name, was also a member. Though Critias
put forth a law prohibiting Socrates from conducting discussions with young men under the age
of 30, Socrates earlier association with himas well as his willingness to remain in Athens and
endure the rule of the Thirty rather than fleefurther contributed to the growing suspicion that
Socrates was opposed to the democratic ideals of his city.

The Thirty ruled tyrannicallyexecuting a number of wealthy Athenians as well as confiscating

their property, arbitrarily arresting those with democratic sympathies, and exiling many others
until they were overthrown in 403 B.C.E. by a group of democratic exiles returning to the city.
Both Critias and Charmides were killed and, after a Spartan-sponsored peace accord, the
democracy was restored. The democrats proclaimed a general amnesty in the city and thereby
prevented politically motivated legal prosecutions aimed at redressing the terrible losses incurred
during the reign of the Thirty. Their hope was to maintain unity during the reestablishment of
their democracy.

One of Socrates main accusers, Anytus, was one of the democratic exiles that returned to the
city to assist in the overthrow of the Thirty. Platos Meno, set in the year 402 B.C.E., imagines a
conversation between Socrates and Anytus in which the latter argues that any citizen of Athens
can teach virtue, an especially democratic view insofar as it assumes knowledge of how to live
well is not the restricted domain of the esoteric elite or privileged few. In the discussion,
Socrates argues that if one wants to know about virtue, one should consult an expert on virtue
(Meno 91b-94e). The political turmoil of the city, rebuilding itself as a democracy after nearly
thirty years of destruction and bloodshed, constituted a context in which many citizens were
especially fearful of threats to their democracy that came not from the outside, but from within
their own city.

While many of his fellow citizens found considerable evidence against Socrates, there was also
historical evidence in addition to his military service for the case that he was not just a passive
but an active supporter of the democracy. For one thing, just as he had associates that were
known oligarchs, he also had associates that were supporters of the democracy, including the
metic family of Cephalus and Socrates friend Chaerephon, the man who reported that the oracle
at Delphi had proclaimed that no man was wiser than Socrates. Additionally, when he was
ordered by the Thirty to help retrieve the democratic general Leon from the island of Salamis for
execution, he refused to do so. His refusal could be understood not as the defiance of a
legitimately established government but rather his allegiance to the ideals of due process that
were in effect under the previously instituted democracy. Indeed, in Platos Crito, Socrates
refuses to escape from prison on the grounds that he lived his whole life with an implied
agreement with the laws of the democracy (Crito 50a-54d). Notwithstanding these facts, there
was profound suspicion that Socrates was a threat to the democracy in the years after the end of
the Peloponnesian War. But because of the amnesty, Anytus and his fellow accusers Meletus and
Lycon were prevented from bringing suit against Socrates on political grounds. They opted
instead for religious grounds.
2. Greek Religion and Socrates Impiety
Because of the amnesty the charges made against Socrates were framed in religious terms. As
recounted by Diogenes Laertius (1.5.40), the charges were stated as follows: Socrates does
criminal wrong by not recognizing the gods that the city recognizes, and furthermore by
introducing new divinities; and he also does criminal wrong by corrupting the youth (other
accounts: Xenophon Memorabilia I.I.1 and Apology 11-12, Plato, Apology 24b and Euthyphro
2c-3b). Many people understood the charge about corrupting the youth to signify that Socrates
taught his subversive views to others, a claim that he adamantly denies in his defense speech by
claiming that he has no wisdom to teach (Plato, Apology 20c) and that he cannot be held
responsible for the actions of those that heard him speak (Plato, Apology 33a-c).

It is now customary to refer to the principal written accusation on the deposition submitted to the
Athenian court as an accusation of impiety, or unholiness. Rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices
that were officially sanctioned by the city and its officials marked ancient Greek religion. The
sacred was woven into the everyday experience of citizens who demonstrated their piety by
correctly observing their ancestral traditions. Interpretation of the gods at their temples was the
exclusive domain of priests appointed and recognized by the city. The boundary and separation
between the religious and the secular that we find in many countries today therefore did not
obtain in Athens. A religious crime was consequently an offense not just against the gods, but
also against the city itself.

Socrates and his contemporaries lived in a polytheistic society, a society in which the gods did
not create the world but were themselves created. Socrates would have been brought up with the
stories of the gods recounted in Hesiod and Homer, in which the gods were not omniscient,
omnibenevolent, or eternal, but rather power-hungry super-creatures that regularly intervened in
the affairs of human beings. One thinks for example of Aphrodite saving Paris from death at the
hands of Menelaus (Homer, Iliad 3.369-382) or Zeus sending Apollo to rescue the corpse of
Sarpedon after his death in battle (Homer, Iliad 16.667-684). Human beings were to fear the
gods, sacrifice to them, and honor them with festivals and prayers.

Socrates instead seemed to have a conception of the divine as always benevolent, truthful,
authoritative, and wise. For him, divinity always operated in accordance with the standards of
rationality. This conception of divinity, however, dispenses with the traditional conception of
prayer and sacrifice as motivated by hopes for material payoff. Socrates theory of the divine
seemed to make the most important rituals and sacrifices in the city entirely useless, for if the
gods are all good, they will benefit human beings regardless of whether or not human beings
make offerings to them. Jurors at his trial might have thought that, without the expectation of
material reward or protection from the gods, Socrates was disconnecting religion from its
practical roots and its connection with the civic identity of the city.
While Socrates was critical of blind acceptance of the gods and the myths we find in Hesiod and
Homer, this in itself was not unheard of in Athens at the time. Solon, Xenophanes, Heraclitus,
and Euripides had all spoken against the capriciousness and excesses of the gods without
incurring penalty. It is possible to make the case that Socrates jurors might not have indicted
him solely on questioning the gods or even of interrogating the true meaning of piety. Indeed,
there was no legal definition of piety in Athens at the time, and jurors were therefore in a similar
situation to the one in which we find Socrates in Platos Euthyphro, that is, in need of an inquiry
into what the nature of piety truly is. What seems to have concerned the jurors was not only
Socrates challenge to the traditional interpretation of the gods of the city, but his seeming
allegiance to an entirely novel divine being, unfamiliar to anyone in the city.

This new divine being is what is known as Socrates daimon. Though it has become customary
to think of a daimon as a spirit or quasi-divinity (for example, Symposium 202e-203a), in ancient
Greek religion it was not solely a specific class of divine being but rather a mode of activity, a
force that drives a person when no particular divine agent can be named (Burkett, 180). Socrates
claimed to have heard a sign or voice from his days as a child that accompanied him and forbid
him to pursue certain courses of action (Plato, Apology 31c-d, 40a-b, Euthydemus 272e-273a,
Euthyphro 3b, Phaedrus 242b, Theages 128-131a, Theaetetus 150c-151b, Rep 496c; Xenophon,
Apology 12, Memorabilia 1.1.3-5). Xenophon adds that the sign also issued positive commands
(Memorablia 1.1.4, 4.3.12, 4.8.1, Apology 12). This sign was accessible only to Socrates, private
and internal to his own mind. Whether Socrates received moral knowledge of any sort from the
sign is a matter of scholarly debate, but beyond doubt is the strangeness of Socrates insistence
that he took private instructions from a deity that was unlicensed by the city. For all the jurors
knew, the deity could have been hostile to Athenian interests. Socrates daimon was therefore
extremely influential in his indictment on the charge of worshipping new gods unknown to the
city (Plato, Euthyphro 3b, Xenophon, Memorabilia I.1.2).

Whereas in Platos Apology Socrates makes no attempt to reconcile his divine sign with
traditional views of piety, Xenophons Socrates argues that just as there are those who rely on
birdcalls and receive guidance from voices, so he too is influenced by his daimon. However,
Socrates had no officially sanctioned religious role in the city. As such, his attempt to assimilate
himself to a seer or necromancer appointed by the city to interpret divine signs actually may have
undermined his innocence, rather than help to establish it. His insistence that he had direct,
personal access to the divine made him appear guilty to enough jurors that he was sentenced to
death.

b. The Socratic Problem: the Philosophical Socrates

The Socratic problem is the problem faced by historians of philosophy when attempting to
reconstruct the ideas of the original Socrates as distinct from his literary representations. While
we know many of the historical details of Socrates life and the circumstances surrounding his
trial, Socrates identity as a philosopher is much more difficult to establish. Because he wrote
nothing, what we know of his ideas and methods comes to us mainly from his contemporaries
and disciples.

There were a number of Socrates followers who wrote conversations in which he appears.
These works are what are known as the logoi sokratikoi, or Socratic accounts. Aside from Plato
and Xenophon, most of these dialogues have not survived. What we know of them comes to us
from other sources. For example, very little survives from the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom
Xenophon reports as one of Socrates leading disciples. Indeed, from polemics written by the
rhetor Isocrates, some scholars have concluded that he was the most prominent Socratic in
Athens for the first decade following Socrates death. Diogenes Laertius (6.10-13) attributes to
Antisthenes a number of views that we recognize as Socratic, including that virtue is sufficient
for happiness, the wise man is self-sufficient, only the virtuous are noble, the virtuous are
friends, and good things are morally fine and bad things are base.

Aeschines of Sphettus wrote seven dialogues, all of which have been lost. It is possible for us to
reconstruct the plots of two of them: the Alcibiadesin which Socrates shames Alcibiades into
admitting he needs Socrates help to be virtuousand the Aspasiain which Socrates
recommends the famous wife of Pericles as a teacher for the son of Callias. Aeschines dialogues
focus on Socrates ability to help his interlocutor acquire self-knowledge and better himself.

Phaedo of Elis wrote two dialogues. His central use of Socrates is to show that philosophy can
improve anyone regardless of his social class or natural talents. Euclides of Megara wrote six
dialogues, about which we know only their titles. Diogenes Laertius reports that he held that the
good is one, that insight and prudence are different names for the good, and that what is opposed
to the good does not exist. All three are Socratic themes. Lastly, Aristippus of Cyrene wrote no
Socratic dialogues but is alleged to have written a work entitled To Socrates.

The two Socratics on whom most of our philosophical understanding of Socrates depends are
Plato and Xenophon. Scholars also rely on the works of the comic playwright Aristophanes and
Platos most famous student, Aristotle.

i. Origin of the Socratic Problem

The Socratic problem first became pronounced in the early 19th century with the influential work
of Friedrich Schleiermacher. Until this point, scholars had largely turned to Xenophon to
identify what the historical Socrates thought. Schleiermacher argued that Xenophon was not a
philosopher but rather a simple citizen-soldier, and that his Socrates was so dull and
philosophically uninteresting that, reading Xenophon alone, it would be difficult to understand
the reputation accorded Socrates by so many of his contemporaries and nearly all the schools of
philosophy that followed him. The better portrait of Socrates, Schleiermacher claimed, comes to
us from Plato.
Though many scholars have since jettisoned Xenophon as a legitimate source for representing
the philosophical views of the historical Socrates, they remain divided over the reliability of the
other three sources. For one thing, Aristophanes was a comic playwright, and therefore took
considerable poetic license when scripting his characters. Aristotle, born 15 years after Socrates
death, hears about Socrates primarily from Plato. Plato himself wrote dialogues or philosophical
dramas, and thus cannot be understood to be presenting his readers with exact replicas or
transcriptions of conversations that Socrates actually had. Furthermore, many scholars think that
Platos so-called middle and late dialogues do not present the views of the historical Socrates.

We therefore see the difficult nature of the Socratic problem: because we dont seem to have any
consistently reliable sources, finding the true Socrates or the original Socrates proves to be an
impossible task. What we are left with, instead, is a composite picture assembled from various
literary and philosophical components that give us what we might think of as Socratic themes or
motifs.

ii. Aristophanes

Born in 450 B.C.E., Aristophanes wrote a number of comic plays intended to satirize and
caricature many of his fellow Athenians. His Clouds (423 B.C.E.) was so instrumental in
parodying Socrates and painting him as a dangerous intellectual capable of corrupting the entire
city that Socrates felt compelled in his trial defense to allude to the bad reputation he acquired as
a result of the play (Plato, Apology 18a-b, 19c). Aristophanes was much closer in age to Socrates
than Plato and Xenophon, and as such is the only one of our sources exposed to Socrates in his
younger years.

In the play, Socrates is the head of a phrontistrion, a school of learning where students are
taught the nature of the heavens and how to win court cases. Socrates appears in a swing high
above the stage, purportedly to better study the heavens. His patron deities, the clouds, represent
his interest in meteorology and may also symbolize the lofty nature of reasoning that may take
either side of an argument. The main plot of the play centers on an indebted man called
Strepsiades, whose son Phidippides ends up in the school to learn how to help his father avoid
paying off his debts. By the end of the play, Phidippides has beaten his father, arguing that it is
perfectly reasonable to do so on the grounds that, just as it is acceptable for a father to spank his
son for his own good, so it is acceptable for a son to hit a father for his own good. In addition to
the theme that Socrates corrupts the youth, we therefore also find in the Clouds the origin of the
rumor that Socrates makes the stronger argument the weaker and the weaker argument the
stronger. Indeed, the play features a personification of the Stronger Argumentwhich represents
traditional education and valuesattacked by the Weaker Argumentwhich advocates a life of
pleasure.
While the Clouds is Aristophanes most famous and comprehensive attack on Socrates, Socrates
appears in other of his comedies as well. In the Birds (414 B.C.E.), Aristophanes coins a Greek
verb based on Socrates name to insinuate that Socrates was truly a Spartan sympathizer (1280-
83). Young men who were found Socratizing were expressing their admiration of Sparta and
its customs. And in the Frogs (405), the Chorus claims that it is not refined to keep company
with Socrates, who ignores the poets and wastes time with frivolous words and pompous
word-scraping (1491-1499).

Aristophanes Socrates is a kind of variegated caricature of trends and new ideas emerging in
Athens that he believed were threatening to the city. We find a number of such themes prevalent
in Presocratic philosophy and the teachings of the Sophists, including those about natural
science, mathematics, social science, ethics, political philosophy, and the art of words. Amongst
other things, Aristophanes was troubled by the displacement of the divine through scientific
explanations of the world and the undermining of traditional morality and custom by
explanations of cultural life that appealed to nature instead of the gods. Additionally, he was
reticent about teaching skill in disputation, for fear that a clever speaker could just as easily argue
for the truth as argue against it. These issues constitute what is sometimes called the new
learning developing in 5th century B.C.E. Athens, for which the Aristophanic Socrates is the
iconic symbol.

iii. Xenophon

Born in the same decade as Plato (425 B.C.E.), Xenophon lived in the political deme of Erchia.
Though he knew Socrates he would not have had as much contact with him as Plato did. He was
not present in the courtroom on the day of Socrates trial, but rather heard an account of it later
on from Hermogenes, a member of Socrates circle. His depiction of Socrates is found
principally in four works: Apologyin which Socrates gives a defense of his life before his
jurorsMemorabiliain which Xenophon himself explicates the charges against Socrates and
tries to defend himSymposiuma conversation between Socrates and his friends at a drinking
partyand Oeconomicusa Socratic discourse on estate management. Socrates also appears in
Xenophons Hellenica and Anabasis.

Xenophons reputation as a source on the life and ideas of Socrates is one on which scholars do
not always agree. Largely thought to be a significant source of information about Socrates
before the 19th century, for most of the 20th century Xenophons ability to depict Socrates as a
philosopher was largely called into question. Following Schleiermacher, many argued that
Xenophon himself was either a bad philosopher who did not understand Socrates, or not a
philosopher at all, more concerned with practical, everyday matters like economics. However,
recent scholarship has sought to challenge this interpretation, arguing that it assumes an
understanding of philosophy as an exclusively speculative and critical endeavor that does not
attend to the ancient conception of philosophy as a comprehensive way of life.
While Plato will likely always remain the principal source on Socrates and Socratic themes,
Xenophons Socrates is distinct in philosophically interesting ways. He emphasizes the values of
self-mastery (enkrateia), endurance of physical pain (karteria), and self-sufficiency (autarkeia).
For Xenophons Socrates, self-mastery or moderation is the foundation of virtue (Memorabilia,
1.5.4). Whereas in Platos Apology the oracle tells Chaerephon that no one is wiser than
Socrates, in Xenophons Apology Socrates claims that the oracle told Chaerephon that no man
was more free than I, more just, and more moderate (Xenophon, Apology, 14).

Part of Socrates freedom consists in his freedom from want, precisely because he has mastered
himself. As opposed to Platos Socrates, Xenophons Socrates is not poor, not because he has
much, but because he needs little. Oeconomicus 11.3 for instance shows Socrates displeased
with those who think him poor. One can be rich even with very little on the condition that one
has limited his needs, for wealth is just the excess of what one has over what one requires.
Socrates is rich because what he has is sufficient for what he needs (Memorabilia 1.2.1, 1.3.5,
4.2.38-9).

We also find Xenophon attributing to Socrates a proof of the existence of God. The argument
holds that human beings are the product of an intelligent design, and we therefore should
conclude that there is a God who is the maker (dmiourgos) or designer of all things
(Memorabilia 1.4.2-7). God creates a systematically ordered universe and governs it in the way
our minds govern our bodies (Memorabilia 1.4.1-19, 4.3.1-18). While Platos Timaeus tells the
story of a dmiourgos creating the world, it is Timaeus, not Socrates, who tells the story. Indeed,
Socrates speaks only sparingly at the beginning of the dialogue, and most scholars do not count
as Socratic the cosmological arguments therein.

iv. Plato

Plato was Socrates most famous disciple, and the majority of what most people know about
Socrates is known about Platos Socrates. Plato was born to one of the wealthiest and politically
influential families in Athens in 427 B.C.E., the son of Ariston and Perictione. His brothers were
Glaucon and Adeimantus, who are Socrates principal interlocutors for the majority of the
Republic. Though Socrates is not present in every Platonic dialogue, he is in the majority of
them, often acting as the main interlocutor who drives the conversation.

The attempt to extract Socratic views from Platos texts is itself a notoriously difficult problem,
bound up with questions about the order in which Plato composed his dialogues, ones
methodological approach to reading them, and whether or not Socrates, or anyone else for that
matter, speaks for Plato. Readers interested in the details of this debate should consult Plato.
Generally speaking, the predominant view of Platos Socrates in the English-speaking world
from the middle to the end of the 20th century was simply that he was Platos mouthpiece. In
other words, anything Socrates says in the dialogues is what Plato thought at the time he wrote
the dialogue. This view, put forth by the famous Plato scholar Gregory Vlastos, has been
challenged in recent years, with some scholars arguing that Plato has no mouthpiece in the
dialogues (see Cooper xxi-xxiii). While we can attribute to Plato certain doctrines that are
consistent throughout his corpus, there is no reason to think that Socrates, or any other speaker,
always and consistently espouses these doctrines.

The main interpretive obstacle for those seeking the views of Socrates from Plato is the question
of the order of the dialogues. Thrasyllus, the 1st century (C.E.) Platonist who was the first to
arrange the dialogues according to a specific paradigm, organized the dialogues into nine
tetralogies, or groups of four, on the basis of the order in which he believed they should be read.
Another approach, customary for most scholars by the late 20th century, groups the dialogues into
three categories on the basis of the order in which Plato composed them. Plato begins his career,
so the narrative goes, representing his teacher Socrates in typically short conversations about
ethics, virtue, and the best human life. These are early dialogues. Only subsequently does
Plato develop his own philosophical viewsthe most famous of which is the doctrine of the
Forms or Ideasthat Socrates defends. These middle dialogues put forth positive doctrines
that are generally thought to be Platonic and not Socratic. Finally, towards the end of his life,
Plato composes dialogues in which Socrates typically either hardly features at all or is altogether
absent. These are the late dialogues.

There are a number of complications with this interpretive thesis, and many of them focus on the
portrayal of Socrates. Though the Gorgias is an early dialogue, Socrates concludes the dialogue
with a myth that some scholars attribute to a Pythagorean influence on Plato that he would not
have had during Socrates lifetime. Though the Parmenides is a middle dialogue, the younger
Socrates speaks only at the beginning before Parmenides alone speaks for the remainder of the
dialogue. While the Philebus is a late dialogue, Socrates is the main speaker. Some scholars
identify the Meno as an early dialogue because Socrates refutes Menos attempts to articulate the
nature of virtue. Others, focusing on Socrates use of the theory of recollection and the method
of hypothesis, argue that it is a middle dialogue. Finally, while Platos most famous work the
Republic is a middle dialogue, some scholars make a distinction within the Republic itself. The
first book, they argue, is Socratic, because in it we find Socrates refuting Thrasymachus
definition of justice while maintaining that he knows nothing about justice. The rest of the
dialogue they claim, with its emphasis on the division of the soul and the metaphysics of the
Forms, is Platonic.

To discern a consistent Socrates in Plato is therefore a difficult task. Instead of speaking about
chronology of composition, contemporary scholars searching for views that are likely to have
been associated with the historical Socrates generally focus on a group of dialogues that are
united by topical similarity. These Socratic dialogues feature Socrates as the principal speaker,
challenging his interlocutor to elaborate on and critically examine his own views while typically
not putting forth substantive claims of his own. These dialoguesincluding those that some
scholars think are not written by Plato and those that most scholars agree are not written by Plato
but that Thrasyllus included in his collectionare as follows: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito,
Alcibiades I, Alcibiades II, Hipparchus, Rival Lovers, Theages, Charmides, Laches, Lysis,
Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno, Greater Hippias, Lesser Hippias, Ion, Menexenus,
Clitophon, Minos. Some of the more famous positions Socrates defends in these dialogues are
covered in the content section.

v. Aristotle

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C.E., 15 years after the death of Socrates. At the age of eighteen, he
went to study at Platos Academy, and remained there for twenty years. Afterwards, he traveled
throughout Asia and was invited by Phillip II of Macedon to tutor his son Alexander, known to
history as Alexander the Great. While Aristotle would never have had the chance to meet
Socrates, we have in his writings an account of both Socrates method and the topics about which
he had conversations. Given the likelihood that Aristotle heard about Socrates from Plato and
those at his Academy, it is not surprising that most of what he says about Socrates follows the
depiction of him in the Platonic dialogues.

Aristotle related four concrete points about Socrates. The first is that Socrates asked questions
without supplying an answer of his own, because he claimed to know nothing (De Elenchis
Sophisticus 1836b6-8). The picture of Socrates here is consistent with that of Platos Apology.
Second, Aristotle claims that Socrates never asked questions about nature, but concerned himself
only with ethical questions. Aristotle thus attributes to the historical Socrates both the method
and topics we find in Platos Socratic dialogues.

Third, Aristotle claims that Socrates is the first to have employed epagg, a word typically
rendered in English as induction. This translation, however, is misleading, lest we impute to
Socrates a preference for inductive reasoning as opposed to deductive reasoning. The term better
indicates that Socrates was fond or arguing via the use of analogy. For instance, just as a doctor
does not practice medicine for himself but for the best interest of his patient, so the ruler in the
city takes no account of his own personal profit, but is rather interested in caring for his citizens
(Republic 342d-e).

The fourth and final claim Aristotle makes about Socrates itself has two parts. First, Socrates
was the first to ask the question, ti esti: what is it? For example, if someone were to suggest to
Socrates that our children should grow up to be courageous, he would ask, what is courage?
That is, what is the universal definition or nature that holds for all examples of courage? Second,
as distinguished from Plato, Socrates did not separate universals from their particular
instantiations. For Plato, the noetic object, the knowable thing, is the separate universal, not the
particular. Socrates simply asked the what is it question (on this and the previous two points,
see Metaphysics I.6.987a29-b14; cf. b22-24, b27-33, and see XIII.4.1078b12-34).
2. Content: What does Socrates Think?
Given the nature of these sources, the task of recounting what Socrates thought is not an easy
one. Nonetheless, reading Platos Apology, it is possible to articulate a number of what scholars
today typically associate with Socrates. Plato the author has his Socrates claim that Plato was
present in the courtroom for Socrates defense (Apology 34a), and while this cannot mean that
Plato records the defense as a word for word transcription, it is the closest thing we have to an
account of what Socrates actually said at a concrete point in his life.

a. Presocratic Philosophy and the Sophists

Socrates opens his defense speech by defending himself against his older accusers (Apology
18a), claiming they have poisoned the minds of his jurors since they were all young men.
Amongst these accusers was Aristophanes. In addition to the claim that Socrates makes the
worse argument into the stronger, there is a rumor that Socrates idles the day away talking about
things in the sky and below the earth. His reply is that he never discusses such topics (Apology
18a-c). Socrates is distinguishing himself here not just from the sophists and their alleged ability
to invert the strength of arguments, but from those we have now come to call the Presocratic
philosophers.

The Presocratics were not just those who came before Socrates, for there are some Presocratic
philosophers who were his contemporaries. The term is sometimes used to suggest that, while
Socrates cared about ethics, the Presocratic philosophers did not. This is misleading, for we have
evidence that a number of Presocratics explored ethical issues. The term is best used to refer to
the group of thinkers whom Socrates did not influence and whose fundamental uniting
characteristic was that they sought to explain the world in terms of its own inherent principles.
The 6th cn. Milesian Thales, for instance, believed that the fundamental principle of all things
was water. Anaximander believed the principle was the indefinite (apeiron), and for Anaxamines
it was air. Later in Platos Apology (26d-e), Socrates rhetorically asks whether Meletus thinks he
is prosecuting Anaxagoras, the 5th cn. thinker who argued that the universe was originally a
mixture of elements that have since been set in motion by Nous, or Mind. Socrates suggests that
he does not engage in the same sort of cosmological inquiries that were the main focus of many
Presocratics.

The other group against which Socrates compares himself is the Sophists, learned men who
travelled from city to city offering to teach the youth for a fee. While he claims he thinks it an
admirable thing to teach as Gorgias, Prodicus, or Hippias claim they can (Apology 20a), he
argues that he himself does not have knowledge of human excellence or virtue (Apology 20b-c).
Though Socrates inquires after the nature of virtue, he does not claim to know it, and certainly
does not ask to be paid for his conversations.

b. Socratic Themes in Platos Apology

i. Socratic Ignorance

Platos Socrates moves next to explain the reason he has acquired the reputation he has and why
so many citizens dislike him. The oracle at Delphi told Socrates friend Chaerephon, no one is
wiser than Socrates (Apology 21a). Socrates explains that he was not aware of any wisdom he
had, and so set out to find someone who had wisdom in order to demonstrate that the oracle was
mistaken. He first went to the politicians but found them lacking wisdom. He next visited the
poets and found that, though they spoke in beautiful verses, they did so through divine
inspiration, not because they had wisdom of any kind. Finally, Socrates found that the craftsmen
had knowledge of their own craft, but that they subsequently believed themselves to know much
more than they actually did. Socrates concluded that he was better off than his fellow citizens
because, while they thought they knew something and did not, he was aware of his own
ignorance. The god who speaks through the oracle, he says, is truly wise, whereas human
wisdom is worth little or nothing (Apology 23a).

This awareness of ones own absence of knowledge is what is known as Socratic ignorance, and
it is arguably the thing for which Socrates is most famous. Socratic ignorance is sometimes
called simple ignorance, to be distinguished from the double ignorance of the citizens with
whom Socrates spoke. Simple ignorance is being aware of ones own ignorance, whereas double
ignorance is not being aware of ones ignorance while thinking that one knows. In showing
many influential figures in Athens that they did not know what they thought they did, Socrates
came to be despised in many circles.

It is worth nothing that Socrates does not claim here that he knows nothing. He claims that he is
aware of his ignorance and that whatever it is that he does know is worthless. Socrates has a
number of strong convictions about what makes for an ethical life, though he cannot articulate
precisely why these convictions are true. He believes for instance that it is never just to harm
anyone, whether friend or enemy, but he does not, at least in Book I of the Republic, offer a
systematic account of the nature of justice that could demonstrate why this is true. Because of
his insistence on repeated inquiry, Socrates has refined his convictions such that he can both hold
particular views about justice while maintaining that he does not know the complete nature of
justice.

We can see this contrast quite clearly in Socrates cross-examination of his accuser Meletus.
Because he is charged with corrupting the youth, Socrates inquires after who it is that helps the
youth (Apology, 24d-25a). In the same way that we take a horse to a horse trainer to improve it,
Socrates wants to know the person to whom we take a young person to educate him and improve
him. Meletus silence condemns him: he has never bothered to reflect on such matters, and
therefore is unaware of his ignorance about matters that are the foundation of his own accusation
(Apology 25b-c). Whether or not Socratesor Plato for that matteractually thinks it is
possible to achieve expertise in virtue is a subject on which scholars disagree.
ii. Priority of the Care of the Soul

Throughout his defense speech (Apology 20a-b, 24c-25c, 31b, 32d, 36c, 39d) Socrates repeatedly
stresses that a human being must care for his soul more than anything else (see also Crito 46c-
47d, Euthyphro 13b-c, Gorgias 520a4ff). Socrates found that his fellow citizens cared more for
wealth, reputation, and their bodies while neglecting their souls (Apology 29d-30b). He believed
that his mission from the god was to examine his fellow citizens and persuade them that the most
important good for a human being was the health of the soul. Wealth, he insisted, does not bring
about human excellence or virtue, but virtue makes wealth and everything else good for human
beings (Apology 30b).

Socrates believes that his mission of caring for souls extends to the entirety of the city of
Athens. He argues that the god gave him to the city as a gift and that his mission is to help
improve the city. He thus attempts to show that he is not guilty of impiety precisely because
everything he does is in response to the oracle and at the service of the god. Socrates
characterizes himself as a gadfly and the city as a sluggish horse in need of stirring up (Apology
30e). Without philosophical inquiry, the democracy becomes stagnant and complacent, in danger
of harming itself and others. Just as the gadfly is an irritant to the horse but rouses it to action, so
Socrates supposes that his purpose is to agitate those around him so that they begin to examine
themselves. One might compare this claim with Socrates assertion in the Gorgias that, while his
contemporaries aim at gratification, he practices the true political craft because he aims at what is
best (521d-e). Such comments, in addition to the historical evidence that we have, are Socrates
strongest defense that he is not only not a burden to the democracy but a great asset to it.

iii. The Unexamined Life

After the jury has convicted Socrates and sentenced him to death, he makes one of the most
famous proclamations in the history of philosophy. He tells the jury that he could never keep
silent, because the unexamined life is not worth living for human beings (Apology 38a). We
find here Socrates insistence that we are all called to reflect upon what we believe, account for
what we know and do not known, and generally speaking to seek out, live in accordance with,
and defend those views that make for a well lived and meaningful life.

Some scholars call attention to Socrates emphasis on human nature here, and argue that the call
to live examined lives follows from our nature as human beings. We are naturally directed by
pleasure and pain. We are drawn to power, wealth and reputation, the sorts of values to which
Athenians were drawn as well. Socrates call to live examined lives is not necessarily an
insistence to reject all such motivations and inclinations but rather an injunction to appraise their
true worth for the human soul. The purpose of the examined life is to reflect upon our everyday
motivations and values and to subsequently inquire into what real worth, if any, they have. If
they have no value or indeed are even harmful, it is upon us to pursue those things that are truly
valuable.
One can see in reading the Apology that Socrates examines the lives of his jurors during his own
trial. By asserting the primacy of the examined life after he has been convicted and sentenced to
death, Socrates, the prosecuted, becomes the prosecutor, surreptitiously accusing those who
convicted him of not living a life that respects their own humanity. He tells them that by killing
him they will not escape examining their lives. To escape giving an account of ones life is
neither possible nor good, Socrates claims, but it is best to prepare oneself to be as good as
possible (Apology 39d-e).

We find here a conception of a well-lived life that differs from one that would likely be
supported by many contemporary philosophers. Today, most philosophers would argue that we
must live ethical lives (though what this means is of course a matter of debate) but that it is not
necessary for everyone to engage in the sort of discussions Socrates had everyday, nor must one
do so in order to be considered a good person. A good person, we might say, lives a good life
insofar as he does what is just, but he does not necessarily need to be consistently engaged in
debates about the nature of justice or the purpose of the state. No doubt Socrates would disagree,
not just because the law might be unjust or the state might do too much or too little, but because,
insofar as we are human beings, self-examination is always beneficial to us.

c. Other Socratic Positions and Arguments

In addition to the themes one finds in the Apology, the following are a number of other positions
in the Platonic corpus that are typically considered Socratic.

i. Unity of Virtue; All Virtue is Knowledge

In the Protagoras (329b-333b) Socrates argues for the view that all of the virtuesjustice,
wisdom, courage, piety, and so forthare one. He provides a number of arguments for this
thesis. For example, while it is typical to think that one can be wise without being temperate,
Socrates rejects this possibility on the grounds that wisdom and temperance both have the same
opposite: folly. Were they truly distinct, they would each have their own opposites. As it stands,
the identity of their opposites indicates that one cannot possess wisdom without temperance and
vice versa.

This thesis is sometimes paired with another Socratic, view, that is, that virtue is a form of
knowledge (Meno 87e-89a; cf. Euthydemus 278d-282a). Things like beauty, strength, and health
benefit human beings, but can also harm them if they are not accompanied by knowledge or
wisdom. If virtue is to be beneficial it must be knowledge, since all the qualities of the soul are
in themselves neither beneficial not harmful, but are only beneficial when accompanied by
wisdom and harmful when accompanied by folly.

ii. No One Errs Knowingly/No One Errs Willingly

Socrates famously declares that no one errs or makes mistakes knowingly (Protagoras 352c,
358b-b). Here we find an example of Socrates intellectualism. When a person does what is
wrong, their failure to do what is right is an intellectual error, or due to their own ignorance
about what is right. If the person knew what was right, he would have done it. Hence, it is not
possible for someone simultaneously know what is right and do what is wrong. If someone does
what is wrong, they do so because they do not know what is right, and if they claim the have
known what was right at the time when they committed the wrong, they are mistaken, for had
they truly known what was right, they would have done it.

Socrates therefore denies the possibility of akrasia, or weakness of the will. No one errs
willingly (Protagoras 345c4-e6). While it might seem that Socrates is equivocating between
knowingly and willingly, a look at Gorgias 466a-468e helps clarify his thesis. Tyrants and
orators, Socrates tells Polus, have the least power of any member of the city because they do not
do what they want. What they do is not good or beneficial even though human beings only want
what is good or beneficial. The tyrants will, corrupted by ignorance, is in such a state that what
follows from it will necessarily harm him. Conversely, the will that is purified by knowledge is
in such a state that what follows from it will necessarily be beneficial.

iii. All Desire is for the Good

One of the premises of the argument just mentioned is that human beings only desire the good.
When a person does something for the sake of something else, it is always the thing for the sake
of which he is acting that he wants. All bad things or intermediate things are done not for
themselves but for the sake of something else that is good. When a tyrant puts someone to death,
for instance, he does this because he thinks it is beneficial in some way. Hence his action is
directed towards the good because this is what he truly wants (Gorgias 467c-468b).

A similar version of this argument is in the Meno, 77b-78b. Those that desire bad things do not
know that they are truly bad; otherwise, they would not desire them. They do not naturally
desire what is bad but rather desire those things that they believe to be good but that are in fact
bad. They desire good things even though they lack knowledge of what is actually good.

iv. It is Better to Suffer an Injustice Than to Commit One

Socrates infuriates Polus with the argument that it is better to suffer an injustice than commit one
(Gorgias 475a-d). Polus agrees that it is more shameful to commit an injustice, but maintains it
is not worse. The worst thing, in his view, is to suffer injustice. Socrates argues that, if
something is more shameful, it surpasses in either badness or pain or both. Since committing an
injustice is not more painful than suffering one, committing an injustice cannot surpass in pain or
both pain and badness. Committing an injustice surpasses suffering an injustice in badness;
differently stated, committing an injustice is worse than suffering one. Therefore, given the
choice between the two, we should choose to suffer rather than commit an injustice.
This argument must be understood in terms of the Socratic emphasis on the care of the soul.
Committing an injustice corrupts ones soul, and therefore committing injustice is the worst thing
a person can do to himself (cf. Crito 47d-48a, Republic I 353d-354a). If one commits injustice,
Socrates goes so far as to claim that it is better to seek punishment than avoid it on the grounds
that the punishment will purge or purify the soul of its corruption (Gorgias 476d-478e).

v. Eudaimonism

The Greek word for happiness is eudaimonia, which signifies not merely feeling a certain way
but being a certain way. A different way of translating eudaimonia is well-being. Many scholars
believe that Socrates holds two related but not equivalent principles regarding eudaimonia: first,
that it is rationally required that a person make his own happiness the foundational consideration
for his actions, and second, that each person does in fact pursue happiness as the foundational
consideration for his actions. In relation to Socrates emphasis on virtue, it is not entirely clear
what that means. Virtue could be identical to happinessin which case there is no difference
between the two and if I am virtuous I am by definition happyvirtue could be a part of
happinessin which case if I am virtuous I will be happy although I could be made happier by
the addition of other goodsor virtue could be instrumental for happinessin which case if I
am virtuous I might be happy (and I couldnt be happy without virtue), but there is no guarantee
that I will be happy.

There are a number of passages in the Apology that seem to indicate that the greatest good for a
human being is having philosophical conversation (36b-d, 37e-38a, 40e-41c). Meno 87c-89a
suggests that knowledge of the good guides the soul toward happiness (cf. Euthydemus 278e-
282a). And at Gorgias 507a-c Socrates suggests that the virtuous person, acting in accordance
with wisdom, attains happiness (cf. Gorgias 478c-e: the happiest person has no badness in his
soul).

vi. Ruling is An Expertise

Socrates is committed to the theme that ruling is a kind of craft or art (techn). As such, it
requires knowledge. Just as a doctor brings about a desired result for his patienthealth, for
instanceso the ruler should bring about some desired result in his subject (Republic 341c-d,
342c). Medicine, insofar as it has the best interest of its patient in mind, never seeks to benefit
the practitioner. Similarly, the rulers job is to act not for his own benefit but for the benefit of
the citizens of the political community. This is not to say that there might not be some
contingent benefit that accrues to the practitioner; the doctor, for instance, might earn a fine
salary. But this benefit is not intrinsic to the expertise of medicine as such. One could easily
conceive of a doctor that makes very little money. One cannot, however, conceive of a doctor
that does not act on behalf of his patient. Analogously, ruling is always for the sake of the ruled
citizen, and justice, contra the famous claim from Thrasymachus, is not whatever is in the
interest of the ruling power (Republic 338c-339a).
d. Socrates the Ironist

The suspicion that Socrates is an ironist can mean a number of things: on the one hand, it can
indicate that Socrates is saying something with the intent to convey the opposite meaning. Some
readers for instance, including a number in the ancient world, understood Socrates avowal of
ignorance in precisely this way. Many have interpreted Socrates praise of Euthyphro, in which
he claims that he can learn from him and will become his pupil, as an example of this sort of
irony (Euthyphro 5a-b). On the other hand, the Greek word eirneia was understood to carry
with it a sense of subterfuge, rendering the sense of the word something like masking with the
intent to deceive.

Additionally, there are a number of related questions about Socrates irony. Is the interlocutor
supposed to be aware of the irony, or is he ignorant of it? Is it the job of the reader to discern the
irony? Is the purpose of irony rhetorical, intended to maintain Socrates position as the director
of the conversation, or pedagogical, meant to encourage the interlocutor to learn something?
Could it be both?

Scholars disagree on the sense in which we ought to call Socrates ironic. When Socrates asks
Callicles to tell him what he means by the stronger and to go easy on him so that he might learn
better, Callicles claims he is being ironic (Gorgias 489e). Thrasymachus accuses Socrates of
being ironic insofar as he pretends he does not have an account of justice, when he is actually
hiding what he truly thinks (Republic 337a). And though the Symposium is generally not thought
to be a Socratic dialogue, we there find Alcibiades accusing Socrates of being ironic insofar as
he acts like he is interested in him but then deny his advances (Symposium 216e, 218d). It is not
clear which kind of irony is at work with these examples.

Aristotle defines irony as an attempt at self-deprecation (Nicomachean Ethics 4.7, 1127b23-26).

He argues that self-deprecation is the opposite of boastfulness, and people that engage in this sort
of irony do so to avoid pompousness and make their characters more attractive. Above all, such
people disclaim things that bring reputation. On this reading, Socrates was prone to
understatement.

There are some thinkers for whom Socratic irony is not just restricted to what Socrates says. The
19th century Danish philosopher Sren Kierkegaard held the view that Socrates himself, his
character, is ironic. The 20th century philosopher Leo Strauss defined irony as the noble
dissimulation of ones worth. On this reading, Socrates irony consisted in his refusal to display
his superiority in front of his inferiors so that his message would be understood only by the
privileged few. As such, Socratic irony is intended to conceal Socrates true message.
3. Method: How Did Socrates Do Philosophy?
As famous as the Socratic themes are, the Socratic method is equally famous. Socrates
conducted his philosophical activity by means of question an answer, and we typically associate
with him a method called the elenchus. At the same time, Platos Socrates calls himself a
midwifewho has no ideas of his own but helps give birth to the ideas of othersand proceeds
dialecticallydefined either as asking questions, embracing the practice of collection and
division, or proceeding from hypotheses to first principles.

a. The Elenchus: Socrates the Refuter

A typical Socratic elenchus is a cross-examination of a particular position, proposition, or

definition, in which Socrates tests what his interlocutor says and refutes it. There is, however,
great debate amongst scholars regarding not only what is being refuted but also whether or not
the elenchus can prove anything. There are questions, in other words, about the topic of the
elenchus and its purpose or goal.

i. Topic

Socrates typically begins his elenchus with the question, what is it? What is piety, he asks
Euthyphro. Euthyphro appears to give five separate definitions of piety: piety is proceeding
against whomever does injustice (5d-6e), piety is what is loved by the gods (6e-7a), piety is what
is loved by all the gods (9e), the godly and the pious is the part of the just that is concerned with
the care of the gods (12e), and piety is the knowledge of sacrificing and praying (13d-14a). For
some commentators, what Socrates is searching for here is a definition. Other commentators
argue that Socrates is searching for more than just the definition of piety but seeks a
comprehensive account of the nature of piety. Whatever the case, Socrates refutes the answer
given to him in response to the what is it question.

Another reading of the Socratic elenchus is that Socrates is not just concerned with the reply of
the interlocutor but is concerned with the interlocutor himself. According to this view, Socrates
is as much concerned with the truth or falsity of propositions as he is with the refinement of the
interlocutors way of life. Socrates is concerned with both epistemological and moral advances
for the interlocutor and himself. It is not propositions or replies alone that are refuted, for
Socrates does not conceive of them dwelling in isolation from those that hold them. Thus
conceived, the elenchus refutes the person holding a particular view, not just the view. For
instance, Socrates shames Thrasymachus when he shows him that he cannot maintain his view
that justice is ignorance and injustice is wisdom (Republic I 350d). The elenchus demonstrates
that Thrasymachus cannot consistently maintain all his claims about the nature of justice. This
view is consistent with a view we find in Platos late dialogue called the Sophist, in which the
Visitor from Elea, not Socrates, claims that the soul will not get any advantage from learning that
it is offered to it until someone shames it by refuting it (230b-d).
ii. Purpose

In terms of goal, there are two common interpretations of the elenchus. Both have been
developed by scholars in response to what Gregory Vlastos called the problem of the Socratic
elenchus. The problem is how Socrates can claim that position W is false, when the only thing
he has established is its inconsistency with other premises whose truth he has not tried to
establish in the elenchus.

The first response is what is called the constructivist position. A constructivist argues that the
elenchus establishes the truth or falsity of individual answers. The elenchus on this interpretation
can and does have positive results. Vlastos himself argued that Socrates not only established the
inconsistency of the interlocutors beliefs by showing their inconsistency, but that Socrates own
moral beliefs were always consistent, able to withstand the test of the elenchus. Socrates could
therefore pick out a faulty premise in his elenctic exchange with an interlocutor, and sought to
replace the interlocutors false beliefs with his own.

The second response is called the non-constructivist position. This position claims that Socrates
does not think the elenchus can establish the truth or falsity of individual answers. The non-
constructivist argues that all the elenchus can show is the inconsistency of W with the premises
X, Y, and Z. It cannot establish that ~W is the case, or for that matter replace any of the premises
with another, for this would require a separate argument. The elenchus establishes the falsity of
the conjunction of W, X, Y, and Z, but not the truth or falsity of any of those premises
individually. The purpose of the elenchus on this interpretation is to show the interlocutor that he
is confused, and, according to some scholars, to use that confusion as a stepping stone on the
way to establishing a more consistent, well-formed set of beliefs.

b. Maieutic: Socrates the Midwife

In Platos Theaetetus Socrates identifies himself as a midwife (150b-151b). While the dialogue
is not generally considered Socratic, it is elenctic insofar as it tests and refutes Theaetetus
definitions of knowledge. It also ends without a conclusive answer to its question, a
characteristic it shares with a number of Socratic dialogues.

Socrates tells Theaetetus that his mother Phaenarete was a midwife (149a) and that he himself is
an intellectual midwife. Whereas the craft of midwifery (150b-151d) brings on labor pains or
relieves them in order to help a woman deliver a child, Socrates does not watch over the body
but over the soul, and helps his interlocutor give birth to an idea. He then applies the elenchus to
test whether or not the intellectual offspring is a phantom or a fertile truth. Socrates stresses that
both he and actual midwives are barren, and cannot give birth to their own offspring. In spite of
his own emptiness of ideas, Socrates claims to be skilled at bringing forth the ideas of others and
examining them.
c. Dialectic: Socrates the Constructer

The method of dialectic is thought to be more Platonic than Socratic, though one can understand
why many have associated it with Socrates himself. For one thing, the Greek dialegesthai
ordinarily means simply to converse or to discuss. Hence when Socrates is distinguishing
this sort of discussion from rhetorical exposition in the Gorgias, the contrast seems to indicate
his preference for short questions and answers as opposed to longer speeches (447b-c, 448d-
449c).

There are two other definitions of dialectic in the Platonic corpus. First, in the Republic,
Socrates distinguishes between dianoetic thinking, which makes use of the senses and assumes
hypotheses, and dialectical thinking, which does not use the senses and goes beyond hypotheses
to first principles (Republic VII 510c-511c, 531d-535a). Second, in the Phaedrus, Sophist,
Statesman, and Philebus, dialectic is defined as a method of collection and division. One
collects things that are scattered into one kind and also divides each kind according to its species
(Phaedrus 265d-266c).

Some scholars view the elenchus and dialectic as fundamentally different methods with different
goals, while others view them as consistent and reconcilable. Some even view them as two parts
of one argument procedure, in which the elenchus refutes and dialectic constructs.

4. Legacy: How Have Other Philosophers Understood Socrates?

Nearly every school of philosophy in antiquity had something positive to say about Socrates, and
most of them drew their inspiration from him. Socrates also appears in the works of many
famous modern philosophers. Immanuel Kant, the 18th century German philosopher best known
for the categorical imperative, hailed Socrates, amongst other ancient philosophers, as someone
who didnt just speculate but who lived philosophically. One of the more famous quotes about
Socrates is from John Stuart Mill, the 19th century utilitarian philosopher who claimed that it is
better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than
a fool satisfied. The following is but a brief survey of Socrates as he is treated in philosophical
thinking that emerges after the death of Aristotle in 322 B.C.E.

a. Hellenistic Philosophy

i. The Cynics

The Cynics greatly admired Socrates, and traced their philosophical lineage back to him. One of
the first representatives of the Socratic legacy was the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope. No genuine
writings of Diogenes have survived and most of our evidence about him is anecdotal.
Nevertheless, scholars attribute a number of doctrines to him. He sought to undermine
convention as a foundation for ethical values and replace it with nature. He understood the
essence of human being to be rational, and defined happiness as freedom and self-mastery, an
objective readily accessible to those who trained the body and mind.

ii. The Stoics

There is a biographical story according to which Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school and not
the Zeno of Zeno's Paradoxes, became interested in philosophy by reading and inquiring about
Socrates. The Stoics took themselves to be authentically Socratic, especially in defending the
unqualified restriction of ethical goodness to ethical excellence, the conception of ethical
excellence as a kind of knowledge, a life not requiring any bodily or external advantage nor
ruined by any bodily disadvantage, and the necessity and sufficiency of ethical excellence for
complete happiness.

Zeno is known for his characterization of the human good as a smooth flow of life. Stoics were
therefore attracted to the Socratic elenchus because it could expose inconsistenciesboth social
and psychologicalthat disrupted ones life. In the absence of justification for a specific action
or belief, one would not be in harmony with oneself, and therefore would not live well. On the
other hand, if one held a position that survived cross-examination, such a position would be
consistent and coherent. The Socratic elenchus was thus not just an important social and
psychological test, but also an epistemological one. The Stoics held that knowledge was a
coherent set of psychological attitudes, and therefore a person holding attitudes that could
withstand the elenchus could be said to have knowledge. Those with inconsistent or incoherent
psychological commitments were thought to be ignorant.

Socrates also figures in Roman Stoicism, particularly in the works of Seneca and Epictetus.
Both men admired Socrates strength of character. Seneca praises Socrates for his ability to
remain consistent unto himself in the face of the threat posed by the Thirty Tyrants, and also
highlights the Socratic focus on caring for oneself instead of fleeing oneself and seeking
fulfillment by external means. Epictetus, when offering advice about holding to ones own moral
laws as inviolable maxims, claims, though you are not yet a Socrates, you ought, however, to
live as one desirous of becoming a Socrates (Enchiridion 50).

One aspect of Socrates to which Epictetus was particularly attracted was the elenchus. Though
his understanding of the process is in some ways different from Socrates, throughout his
Discourses Epictetus repeatedly stresses the importance of recognition of ones ignorance
(2.17.1) and awareness of ones own impotence regarding essentials (2.11.1). He characterizes
Socrates as divinely appointed to hold the elenctic position (3.21.19) and associates this role with
Socrates protreptic expertise (2.26.4-7). Epictetus encouraged his followers to practice the
elenchus on themselves, and claims that Socrates did precisely this on account of his concern
with self-examination (2.1.32-3).

iii. The Skeptics

Broadly speaking, skepticism is the view that we ought to be either suspicious of claims to
epistemological truth or at least withhold judgment from affirming absolute claims to
knowledge. Amongst Pyrrhonian skeptics, Socrates appears at times like a dogmatist and at
other times like a skeptic or inquirer. On the one hand, Sextus Empiricus lists Socrates as a
thinker who accepts the existence of god (Against the Physicists, I.9.64) and then recounts the
cosmological argument that Xenophon attributes to Socrates (Against the Physicists, I.9.92-4).
On the other hand, in arguing that human being is impossible to conceive, Sextus Empiricus cites
Socrates as unsure whether or not he is a human being or something else (Outlines of
Pyrrhonism 2.22). Socrates is also said to have remained in doubt about this question (Against
the Professors 7.264).

Academic skeptics grounded their position that nothing can be known in Socrates admission of
ignorance in the Apology (Cicero, On the Orator 3.67, Academics 1.44). Arcesilaus, the first
head of the Academy to take it toward a skeptical turn, picked up from Socrates the procedure of
arguing, first asking others to give their positions and then refuting them (Cicero, On Ends 2.2,
On the Orator 3.67, On the Nature of the Gods 1.11). While the Academy would eventually
move away from skepticism, Cicero, speaking on behalf of the Academy of Philo, makes the
claim that Socrates should be understood as endorsing the claim that nothing, other than ones
own ignorance, could be known (Academics 2.74).

iv. The Epicurean

The Epicureans were one of the few schools that criticized Socrates, though many scholars think
that this was in part because of their animus toward their Stoic counterparts, who admired him.
In general, Socrates is depicted in Epicurean writings as a sophist, rhetorician, and skeptic who
ignored natural science for the sake of ethical inquiries that concluded without answers. Colotes
criticizes Socrates statement in the Phaedrus (230a) that he does not know himself (Plutarch,
Against Colotes 21 1119b), and Philodemus attacks Socrates argument in the Protagoras (319d)
that virtue cannot be taught (Rhetoric I 261, 8ff).

The Epicureans wrote a number of books against several of Platos Socratic dialogues, including
the Lysis, Euthydemus, and Gorgias. In the Gorgias we find Socrates suspicious of the view that
pleasure is intrinsically worthy and his insistence that pleasure is not the equivalent of the good
(Gorgias 495b-499b). In defining pleasure as freedom from disturbance (ataraxia) and defining
this sort of pleasure as the sole good for human beings, the Epicureans shared little with the
unbridled hedonism Socrates criticizes Callicles for embracing. Indeed, in the Letter to
Menoeceus, Epicurus explicitly argues against pursuing this sort of pleasure (131-132).
Nonetheless, the Epicureans did equate pleasure with the good, and the view that pleasure is not
the equivalent of the good could not have endeared Socrates to their sentiment.
Another reason for the Epicurean refusal to praise Socrates or make him a cornerstone of their
tradition was his perceived irony. According to Cicero, Epicurus was opposed to Socrates
representing himself as ignorant while simultaneously praising others like Protagoras, Hippias,
Prodicus, and Gorgias (Rhetoric, Vol. II, Brutus 292). This irony for the Epicureans was
pedagogically pointless: if Socrates had something to say, he should have said it instead of hiding
it.

v. The Peripatetics

Aristotles followers, the Peripatetics, either said little about Socrates or were pointedly vicious
in their attacks. Amongst other things, the Peripatetics accused Socrates of being a bigamist, a
charge that appears to have gained so much traction that the Stoic Panaetius wrote a refutation of
it (Plutarch, Aristides 335c-d). The general peripatetic criticism of Socrates, similar in one way
to the Epicureans, was that he concentrated solely on ethics, and that this was an unacceptable
ideal for the philosophical life.

b. Modern Philosophy

i. Hegel

In Socrates, Hegel found what he called the great historic turning point (Philosophy of History,
448). With Socrates, Hegel claims, two opposed rights came into collision: the individual
consciousness and the universal law of the state. Prior to Socrates, morality for the ancients was
present but it was not present Socratically. That is, the good was present as a universal, without
its having had the form of the conviction of the individual in his consciousness (407). Morality
was present as an immediate absolute, directing the lives of citizens without their having
reflected upon it and deliberated about it for themselves. The law of the state, Hegel claims, had
authority as the law of the gods, and thus had a universal validity that was recognized by all
(408).

In Hegels view the coming of Socrates signals a shift in the relationship between the individual
and morality. The immediate now had to justify itself to the individual consciousness. Hegel
thus not only ascribes to Socrates the habit of asking questions about what one should do but also
about the actions that the state has prescribed. With Socrates, consciousness is turned back
within itself and demands that the law should establish itself before consciousness, internal to it,
not merely outside it (408-410). Hegel attributes to Socrates a reflective questioning that is
skeptical, which moves the individual away from unreflective obedience and into reflective
inquiry about the ethical standards of ones community.

Generally, Hegel finds in Socrates a skepticism that renders ordinary or immediate knowledge
confused and insecure, in need of reflective certainty which only consciousness can bring (370).
Though he attributes to the sophists the same general skeptical comportment, in Socrates Hegel
locates human subjectivity at a higher level. With Socrates and onward we have the world
raising itself to the level of conscious thought and becoming object for thought. The question as
to what Nature is gives way to the question about what Truth is, and the question about the
relationship of self-conscious thought to real essence becomes the predominant philosophical
issue (450-1).

ii. Kierkegaard

Kierkegaards most well recognized views on Socrates are from his dissertation, The Concept of
Irony With Continual Reference to Socrates. There, he argues that Socrates is not the ethical
figure that the history of philosophy has thought him to be, but rather an ironist in all that he
does. Socrates does not just speak ironically but is ironic. Indeed, while most people have found
Aristophanes portrayal of Socrates an obvious exaggeration and caricature, Kierkegaard goes so
far as to claim that he came very close to the truth in his depiction of Socrates. He rejects
Hegels picture of Socrates ushering in a new era of philosophical reflection and instead argues
that the limits of Socratic irony testified to the need for religious faith. As opposed to the
Hegelian view that Socratic irony was an instrument in the service of the development of self-
consciousness, Kierkegaard claims that irony was Socrates position or comportment, and that he
did not have any more than this to give.

Later in his writing career Kierkegaard comes to think that he has neglected Socrates
significance as an ethical and religious figure. In his final essay entitled My Task, Kierkegaard
claims that his mission is a Socratic one; that is, in his task to reinvigorate a Christianity that
remained the cultural norm but had, in Kierkegaards eyes, nearly ceased altogether to be
practiced authentically, Kierkegaard conceives of himself as a kind of Christian Socrates, rousing
Christians from their complacency to a conception of Christian faith as the highest, most
passionate expression of individual subjectivity. Kierkegaard therefore sees himself as a sort of
Christian gadfly. The Socratic call to become aware of ones own ignorance finds its parallel in
the Kierkegaardian call to recognize ones own failing to truly live as a Christian. The Socratic
claim to ignorancewhile Socrates is closer to knowledge than his contemporariesis replaced
by the Kierkegaards claim that he is not a Christianthough certainly more so than his own
contemporaries.

iii. Nietzsche

Nietzsches most famous account of Socrates is his scathing portrayal in The Birth of Tragedy, in
which Socrates and rational thinking lead to the emergence of an age of decadence in Athens.
The delicate balance in Greek culture between the Apollonianorder, calmness, self-control,
restraintand the Dionysianchaos, revelry, self-forgetfulness, indulgence initially
represented on stage in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, gave way to the rationalism of
Euripides. Euripides, Nietzsche argues, was only a mask for the newborn demon called Socrates
(section 12). Tragedyand Greek culture more generallywas corrupted by aesthetic
Socratism, whose supreme law, Nietzsche argues, was that to be beautiful everything must be
intelligible. Whereas the former sort of tragedy absorbed the spectator in the activities and
sufferings of its chief characters, the emergence of Socrates heralded the onset of a new kind of
tragedy in which this identification is obstructed by the spectators having to figure out the
meaning and presuppositions of the characters suffering.

Nietzsche continues his attack on Socrates later in his career in Twilight of the Idols. Socrates
here represents the lowest class of people (section 3), and his irony consists in his being an
exaggeration at the same time as he conceals himself (4). He is the inventor of dialectic (5)
which he wields mercilessly because, being an ugly plebeian, he had no other means of
expressing himself (6) and therefore employed question and answer to render his opponent
powerless (7). Socrates turned dialectic into a new kind of contest (8), and because his instincts
had turned against each other and were in anarchy (9), he established the rule of reason as a
counter-tyrant in order not to perish (10). Socrates decadence here consists in his having to fight
his instincts (11). He was thus profoundly anti-life, so much so that he wanted to die (12).

Nonetheless, while Nietzsche accuses Socrates of decadence, he nevertheless recognizes him as a

powerful individual, which perhaps accounts for why we at times find in Nietzsche a hesitant
admiration of Socrates. He calls Socrates one of the very greatest instinctive forces (The Birth of
Tragedy, section 13), labels him as a free spirit (Human, All Too Human I, 433) praises him as
the first philosopher of life in his 17th lecture on the Preplatonics, and anoints him a virtuoso
of life in his notebooks from 1875. Additionally, contra Twilight of the Idols, in Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, Nietzsche speaks of a death in which ones virtue still shines, and some
commentators have seen in this a celebration of the way in which Socrates died.

iv. Heidegger

Heidegger finds in Socrates a kinship with his own view that the truth of philosophy lies in a
certain way of seeing things, and thus is identical with a particular kind of method. He attributes
to Socrates the view that the truth of some subject matter shows itself not in some definition that
is the object or end of a process of inquiry, but in the very process of inquiry itself. Heidegger
characterizes the Socratic method as a kind of productive negation: by refuting that which stands
in front of itin Socrates case, an interlocutors definitionit discloses the positive in the very
process of questioning. Socrates is not interested in articulating propositions about piety but
rather concerned with persisting in a questioning relation to it that preserves its irreducible
sameness. Behind multiple examples of pious action is Piety, and yet Piety is not something that
can be spoken of. It is that which discloses itself through the process of silent interrogation.

It is precisely in his emphasis on silence that Heidegger diverges from Socrates. Where Socrates
insisted on the give and take of question and answer, Heideggerian questioning is not necessarily
an inquiry into the views of others but rather an openness to the truth that one maintains without
the need to speak. To remain in dialogue with a given phenomenon is not the same thing as
conversing about it, and true dialogue is always silent.

v. Gadamer

As Heideggers student, Gadamer shares his fundamental view that truth and method cannot be
divorced in philosophy. At the same time, his hermeneutics leads him to argue for the
importance of dialectic as conversation. Gadamer claims that whereas philosophical dialectic
presents the whole truth by superceding all its partial propositions, hermeneutics too has the task
of revealing a totality of meaning in all its relations. The distinguishing characteristic of
Gadamers hermeneutical dialectic is that it recognizes radical finitude: we are always already in
an open-ended dialogical situation. Conversation with the interlocutor is thus not a distraction
that leads us away from seeing the truth but rather is the site of truth. It is for this reason that
Gadamer claims Plato communicated his philosophy only in dialogues: it was more than just an
homage to Socrates, but was a reflection of his view that the word find its confirmation in
another and in the agreement of another.

Gadamer also sees in the Socratic method an ethical way of being. That is, he does not just think
that Socrates converses about ethics but that repeated Socratic conversation is itself indicative of
an ethical comportment. On this account, Socrates knows the good not because he can give
some final definition of it but rather because of his readiness to give an account of it. The
problem of not living an examined life is not that we might live without knowing what is ethical,
but because without asking questions as Socrates does, we will not be ethical.

5. References and Further Reading

Ahbel-Rappe, Sara, and Rachana Kamtekar (eds.), A Companion to Socrates

(Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).

Arrowsmith, William, Lattimore, Richmond, and Parker, Douglass (trans.), Four

Plays by Aristophanes: The Clouds, The Birds, Lysistrata, The Frogs (New York:
Meridian, 1994).

Barnes, Jonathan, Complete Works of Aristotle vols. 1 & 2 (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1984).

Benson, Hugh H. (ed.), Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1992).

Brickhouse, Thomas C. & Smith, Nicholas D., Platos Socrates (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994).

Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985).

 Cooper, John M., Plato: Collected Works (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1997).

Guthrie, W.K.C., Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971).

Kahn, Charles H., Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996).

Kraut, Richard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Morrison, Donald R., The Cambridge Companion to Socrates (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Rudebusch, George, Socrates (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).

Santas, Gerasimos, Socrates: Philosophy in Platos Early Dialogues (London:

Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979).

Taylor, C.C.W, 1998, Socrates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Vlastos, Gregory, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1991).

Xenophon: Memorabilia. Oeconomicus. Symposium. Apologia. (Loeb Classical

Library, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1923).

Author Information

James M. Ambury
Email: jamesambury@kings.edu
Kings College
U. S. A.

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