Socrates’ teachings and philosophy about reasoning and how we can better understand the world

around us informed much of Western philosophy and society for millennia to come. Socrates

lived his life questioning everything around him and used that to learn about his own life as well

as assisting others, a revolutionary thinker, seemingly ahead of his time, as he would eventually

be put to trial and executed for his questioning and revolutionary thinking that didn’t always go

along with what those in power would’ve liked but held true to his principles of questioning and

reason even in the moments before his demise. Some of the main tenets of Socrates’ philosophy

for life were regarding knowing and better understanding yourself to better yourself, and

therefore live a more fulfilling, proper life. Socrates’ philosophy and core teachings regarding

life and humanity that are very applicable today can be expressed in the quotes: “the unexamined

life is not worth living” and “we go through life sleepwalking.” In order to understand this, we

can analyze what it means to be unexamined or sleepwalking, the ways in which Socrates sought

to fix these things and escape which he saw as problems that plagued much of humanity, as well

as what Socrates thought a meaningful life was and how we can learn from and strive towards

that ideal.

When we consider something that is unexamined, it is something that has maybe been

seen, but not observed closely, with careful analysis. Socrates believed that this is the approach

we should take to our own lives, and to do otherwise would cause you to remain in a state of

living that wouldn’t be in his mind virtuous or worthwhile. “When we live our lives

unreflectively, not actively exploring deeper questions such as ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is the
meaning of my life?’ then our lives have diminished value.”1 Socrates looked for us to examine

ourselves before we could begin to improve ourselves and our lives.

Long before Socrates spoke on living our lives as though we were sleepwalking our way

through it, another Greek thinker named Heraclitus said, “One ought not talk or act as if he were

asleep.”2 Anyone who has seen someone who sleepwalks or sleeptalks knows what

“sleepwalking” through life entails in this analogy, being an absence in surroundings, whether

completely unaware or just aware enough to navigate their surroundings. This manner of being,

as it is applied to life, would be to not completely observe what is around you, lost in a dream as

you wander through your life, and while it may be comfortable, this means that life would go by

us without us even realizing it. This is what Socrates wished for people to fight against, waking

up and taking note of their life in full.

Socrates would spend most of his days in the agora, the gathering place and marketplace

for the people of Athens. This is the place where Socrates would find conversations with its

various attendees, and would ask them questions in a probing manner, asking them to think more

deeply about their problems and their lives. Socrates’ methods of conversation would often start

with general concepts and wear it down with a series of questions to find the true nature of a

concept and clear away any inconsistencies or inadequacies within explanations that would be

1
Chaffee, John. The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas. 5th ed.,

Pearson College Div, 2022.

2
Chaffee, John. The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas. 5th ed., Ch.

2.1 Pearson College Div, 2022.

given.3 This method of repeated questioning would become part of Socrates legacy, as one of the

most effective ways we understand reasoning and teaching by questioning the subject to get to

the heart of a concept.

Socrates would often refer to himself as a midwife of ideas. This was the purpose of

many of Socrates’ conversations and methods in trying to find truth. In his analogy of being a

midwife, it implies that Socrates could not do the work for the person creating the idea, only

helping along the process, wishing to create a better person after the conversation, improving not

only their debate skills, as opposed to the Sophists, but attempting to increase how deeply people

think about the things in their life.4 This analogy worked into another one of Socrates’ beliefs,

which is that truth could only come from within, and these truths and answers about us can only

come from ourselves by examining our own lives.

The other analogous nickname Socrates with his time in the agora was a gadfly. With this

nickname, we could see the kind of pest Socrates was willing to be in order to find truth.

Socrates’ goal as a gadfly, a pest, was to rouse them from their sleep and wake them up from

3
Chaffee, John. The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas. 5th ed., Ch

2.2 Pearson College Div, 2022.

4
Chaffee, John. The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas. 5th ed., Ch.

2.1 Pearson College Div, 2022.

their “sleepwalking” through life. 5 Socrates pulled people from the comfort of the unexamined

life to improve their lives and make them happier and more virtuous people.

The goal of Socrates in what he thought would improve their lives was reason. Reason

was the means by which one could examine something. Although this is not all Socrates thought

about reason, as Socrates believed that reason was something that’s divine, 6 coming straight

from the soul, and this divine nature may have been part of the reason Socrates believed reason

to be the key to achieving happiness and becoming a greater person.

Socrates would ultimately become a martyr for what he believed in, and it's believed that

we may not know of him if it were not for the trial he would be faced with by the people of

Athens in his old age. After years of being the gadfly, questioning many of the established ideas

set forth and enforced by the government of Athens among everything else, which he would

discuss with others. This questioning would eventually find Socrates with charges that he was

“corrupting the youth” and “not believing in the gods the state believes in.” It was likely that if

Socrates were to stop his methods and questions up to this point, he would likely be let off with

no more than a slap on the wrist, but Socrates would remain true to himself until the end of his

life. Socrates did not beg for forgiveness, nor even admit any wrongdoing for his teachings.

5
Chaffee, John. The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas. 5th ed., Ch.

2.1 Pearson College Div, 2022.

6
Chaffee, John. The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas. 5th ed., Ch.

2.3 Pearson College Div, 2022.

Socrates only spoke his truth and spoke for what he believed in, even in the face of his own

death, and accepted his fate following the character assassination leading to his execution.7

Living according to Socrates’ principles requires careful thought and exploration of your

own self. Socrates’ belief in the betterment of the self was guided by the soul, your “true self”

that looked to achieve happiness, which would be through examining your life and bettering

yourself. Socrates made the goal of the soul as he believed, his own goal, as he believed the soul

to be the guide of the body, and was a divine, perfect being which we were to inhabit fully upon

our deaths.8 This central metaphysical philosophy guided Socrates throughout his teachings and

in some part allowed him to hold true to his beliefs until the end.

The teachings and history of Socrates continue to be taught to this day. This is because of

how revolutionary his thinking was for finding truth and influenced many other great thinkers

throughout history. We can apply Socrates’ teachings in our own lives as well, heeding his

warnings of living an unfulfilled, unexamined, “sleepwalking” life. We can do this by asking

ourselves questions about ourselves, and try to improve from this interrogation, being our own

gadfly, midwife, physician of the soul.

7 Chaffee, John. The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas. 5th ed., Ch.

2.4

Pearson College Div, 2022.

8
Chaffee, John. The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically About Profound Ideas. 5th ed., Ch. 2.3 Pearson College

Div, 2022.