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Socrates (469—399 B.C.E.)
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 XenophonSymposium 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. Plato’s 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 aristocrats—one of whom was Plato—who 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.
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 him—as well as his willingness to remain in Athens and endure the rule of the Thirty
rather than flee—further contributed to the growing suspicion that Socrates was opposed to
the democratic ideals of his city.
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. Plato’s 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 Plato’s 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.
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 Plato’s 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).
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 Alcibiades—in which Socrates shames
Alcibiades into admitting he needs Socrates’ help to be virtuous—and the Aspasia—in 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 Plato’s most famous student, Aristotle.
We therefore see the difficult nature of the Socratic problem: because we don’t 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 phrontistêrion, 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 Argument—which represents traditional education and values—attacked by the
Weaker Argument—which advocates a life of pleasure.
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 5 th 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: Apology—in which Socrates gives a defense of
his life before his jurors—Memorabilia—in which Xenophon himself explicates the charges
against Socrates and tries to defend him—Symposium—a conversation between Socrates and
his friends at a drinking party—andOeconomicus—a Socratic discourse on estate
management. Socrates also appears in Xenophon’sHellenica and Anabasis.
Xenophon’s 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 20 th century Xenophon’s 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,
Xenophon’s 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 Xenophon’s Socrates, self-mastery or moderation is the foundation of virtue
(Memorabilia,1.5.4). Whereas in Plato’s Apology the oracle tells Chaerephon that no one is
wiser than Socrates, in Xenophon’s 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 Plato’s Socrates, Xenophon’s 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 (dēmiourgos) 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
Plato’s Timaeus tells the story of a dēmiourgos 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 Plato’s 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 theRepublic. 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 Plato’s texts is itself a notoriously difficult
problem, bound up with questions about the order in which Plato composed his dialogues,
one’s 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 Plato’s Socrates in the
English-speaking world from the middle to the end of the 20 th century was simply that he was
Plato’s 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 20 th 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 views—the most
famous of which is the doctrine of the Forms or Ideas—that 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
Meno’s 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 Plato’s most famous work theRepublic 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.
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 Plato’s 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
Plato’s 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 Plato’s Socratic dialogues.
Third, Aristotle claims that Socrates is the first to have employed epagōgē, 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).
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 Plato’s Apology (26d-e),
Socrates rhetorically asks whether Meletus thinks he is prosecuting Anaxagoras, the 5 th 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.
This awareness of one’s 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 one’s own
ignorance, whereas double ignorance is not being aware of one’s 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 Socrates—or Plato for that matter—
actually thinks it is possible to achieve expertise in virtue is a subject on which scholars
disagree.
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.
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 one’s 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.
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 tyrant’s 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.
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 one’s 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 happiness—in
which case there is no difference between the two and if I am virtuous I am by definition
happy—virtue could be a part of happiness—in which case if I am virtuous I will be happy
although I could be made happier by the addition of other goods—or virtue could be
instrumental for happiness—in which case if I am virtuous I might be happy (and I couldn’t
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).
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.
There are some thinkers for whom Socratic irony is not just restricted to what Socrates says.
The 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard held the view that Socrates himself,
his character, is ironic. The 20th century philosopher Leo Strauss defined irony as the noble
dissimulation of one’s 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, Plato’s Socrates calls
himself a midwife—who has no ideas of his own but helps give birth to the ideas of others—
and proceeds dialectically—defined either as asking questions, embracing the practice of
collection and division, or proceeding from hypotheses to first principles.
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 interlocutor’s 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 Plato’s 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 interlocutor’s 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 interlocutor’s 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.
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 dialegesthaiordinarily 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, andPhilebus, 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.
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 one’s 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 DiscoursesEpictetus repeatedly stresses the importance of recognition of
one’s ignorance (2.17.1) and awareness of one’s 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).
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
Aristotle’s 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 Hegel’s 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 one’s
community.
ii. Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard’s 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 Hegel’s 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 Kierkegaard’s 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
one’s own ignorance finds its parallel in the Kierkegaardian call to recognize one’s own
failing to truly live as a Christian. The Socratic claim to ignorance—while Socrates is closer
to knowledge than his contemporaries—is replaced by the Kierkegaard’s claim that he is not
a Christian—though certainly more so than his own contemporaries.
iii. Nietzsche
Nietzsche’s 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 Apollonian—order,
calmness, self-control, restraint—and the Dionysian—chaos, 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). Tragedy—and Greek culture more
generally—was 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).
v. Gadamer
As Heidegger’s 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 Gadamer’s 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., Plato’s
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 Plato’s 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
King’s College
U. S. A.
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