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Socrates

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Philosophers

                             Western Philosophy
   Ancient philosophy
   Socrates
         Name:       Σωκράτης
        Birth:       ca. 470 BC
        Death:       399 BC
   School/tradition: Classical Greek, Socratic Philosophy
    Main interests:  epistemology, ethics
    Notable ideas:   Socratic method, Socratic irony
      Influences:    Anaxagoras, Parmenides, Prodicus, Diotima
      Influenced:    Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Most of subsequent Western
                     philosophy

   Socrates ( Greek: Σωκράτης, invariably anglicized as [sɔkɹətiːz],
   Sǒcratēs; circa 470– 399 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher who is
   widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy.

   He was born and lived in Athens, where he spent most of his time in
   enthusiastic pursuit of wisdom (philosophy). He "followed the argument"
   in his personal reflection, and in a sustained and rigorous dialogue
   between friends, followers, and contemporary itinerant teachers of
   wisdom. Later in his life he became known as the wisest man in all of
   Greece.

   Opinions about Socrates were widely polarized, drawing very high praise
   or very severe ridicule. He had many devoted followers (such as Plato),
   and many angry detractors.

   As an old man, he fell into grave disrepute with the Athenian state
   powers, and was commanded to stop his public disputes, and his
   associations with young aristocrats. He carried on as usual.

   Finally, he was arrested and accused of corrupting the youth, inventing
   new deities ( heresy), and disbelieving in the divine (atheism).
   According to traditional accounts, he was sentenced to die by drinking
   poison. Presented with an opportunity to leave Athens, he believed it
   would be more honorable to stay in his home country. Therefore, at the
   age of 70, he drank the hemlock and died.

Life

   Most of what is known about Socrates is derived from information that
   recurs across various contemporary sources: the dialogues written by
   Plato, one of Socrates' students; the works of Xenophon, one of his
   contemporaries; and writings by Aristophanes and Aristotle. Nothing
   Socrates wrote himself has survived. Additionally, Aristophanes'
   account of Socrates is in fact a satirical attack on philosophers and
   does not purport to be a factual account of events in the life of
   Socrates. Another complication is the Ancient Greek tradition of
   scholars attributing their own ideas, theories and sometimes even
   personal traits to their mentors, a tradition Plato appears to have
   followed. Gabriele Giannantoni, in his monumental 1991 work Socratis et
   Socraticorum Reliquiae, attempts to compile every scrap of evidence
   regarding Socrates, including material attributed to Aeschines
   Socraticus, Antisthenes and a number of others supposed to have known
   him.

   From Plato and Xenophon, we know the following facts about Socrates'
   family. His father was Sophroniscus and his mother Phaenarete, a
   midwife. Socrates married Xanthippe, who bore him three sons –
   Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus – who were all quite young at
   the time of his death. Traditionally, Xanthippe is thought to have been
   an ill-tempered scold, mainly due to her characterization by Xenophon.

   It is unclear how Socrates earned a living. If we believe Timon of
   Phlius and later sources, Socrates took over the profession of
   stonemasonry from his father. But no earlier sources corroborate this
   story. According to Xenophon's Symposium, Socrates is reported as
   saying he devotes himself only to what he regards as the most important
   art or occupation: discussing philosophy. Xenophon and Aristophanes
   respectively portray Socrates as accepting payment for teaching and
   running a sophist school with Chaerephon, while in Plato's Apology of
   Socrates and Symposium Socrates explicitly denies accepting payment for
   teaching. It is possible Socrates relied on the generosity of wealthy
   and powerful friends such as Crito.

   Plato's Apology of Socrates indicates that Socrates served in the
   Athenian army as a hoplite during the Peloponnesian War. Plato's
   Symposium indicates that he was also decorated for bravery. In one
   instance, Socrates is said to have stayed on the battlefield to protect
   Alcibiades, probably saving his life; he then sought Alcibiades'
   recognition rather than accepting any of his own. Victor Davis Hanson,
   a professor of classics, describes Socrates' fighting at Delium, a
   disastrous loss for the Athenians in 424 B.C. in the book " What If?
   2", indicating that it was influential in the philosopher's later
   thinking about absolutes in ethics. It is also claimed he showed great
   hardiness during these military campaigns, such as walking without
   shoes or coat during winter.

Trial and death

   The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787).
   Enlarge
   The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787).

   Socrates lived during the time of the transition from the height of the
   Athenian Empire to its decline after its defeat by Sparta and its
   allies in the Peloponnesian War. At a time when Athens was seeking to
   stabilize and recover from its humiliating defeat, the Athenian public
   court was induced by three leading public figures to try Socrates for
   impiety and for corrupting the youth of Athens. This was a time in
   culture when the Greeks thought of gods and goddesses as being
   associated with protecting particular cities. Athens, for instance, is
   named after its protecting goddess Athena. The defeat of Athens in the
   Peloponnesian War was interpreted as Athena judging the city for not
   being pious. The last thing Athens needed was more punishment from
   Athena for one man inciting its citizens to question her or the other
   gods. In the Apology, Socrates insists that this is a false charge.

   Socrates was critical of Athenian democracy, and preached to his
   students, who were mostly young aristocrats, that a monarchy was
   preferable. He also praised the laws and government of Sparta. One of
   his students was Alcibiades, who betrayed Athens for Sparta. Another
   student was Critias (uncle of Plato), who was one the Thirty Tyrants
   who overthrew Athens democratic government, setting up a pro-Spartan
   oligarchy until it was overthrown.

   Socrates had been preaching against democracy to young aristocrats for
   decades, without much interference from Athens. This changed with his
   students' betrayal of Athens to Sparta and their replacement of
   Athenian democracy with a pro-Spartan oligarchical junta. This is seen
   as the catalyst for his trial after decades of him saying the same
   thing, the words turned into action.

   According to the version of his defense speech presented in Plato's
   Apology, Socrates' life as the " gadfly" of Athens began when his
   friend Chaerephon asked the oracle at Delphi if anyone was wiser than
   Socrates; the Oracle responded negatively. Socrates, interpreting this
   as a riddle, set out to find men who were wiser than he was. He
   questioned the men of Athens about their knowledge of good, beauty, and
   virtue. Finding that they knew nothing and yet believed themselves to
   know much, Socrates came to the conclusion that he was wise only in so
   far as he knew that he knew nothing. Socrates' superior intellect made
   the prominent Athenians he publicly questioned look foolish, turning
   them against him and leading to accusations of wrongdoing.

   He was nevertheless found guilty as charged, and sentenced to death by
   drinking a silver goblet of hemlock. Socrates turned down the pleas of
   his disciples to attempt an escape from prison, drinking the hemlock
   and dying in the company of his friends. According to the Phaedo,
   Socrates had a calm death, enduring his sentence with fortitude. The
   Roman philosopher Seneca attempted to emulate Socrates' death by
   hemlock when forced to commit suicide by the Emperor Nero.

   According to Xenophon and Plato, Socrates had an opportunity to escape,
   as his followers were able to bribe the prison guards. After escaping,
   Socrates would have had to flee from Athens. In the painting "Death Of
   Socrates", under the death bed, there is an irregularly-shaped tile,
   which many believe is an escape hatch. Socrates refused to escape for
   several reasons. 1. He believed that such a flight would indicate a
   fear of death, which he believed no true philosopher has. 2. Even if he
   did leave, he, and his teaching, would fare no better in another
   country. 3. Having knowingly agreed to live under the city's laws, he
   implicitly subjected himself to the possibility of being accused of
   crimes by its citizens and judged guilty by its jury. To do otherwise
   would have caused him to break his ' contract' with the state, and by
   so doing harming it, an act contrary to Socratic principle.

   After Socrates's death, Plato described it in the dialogue Phaedo.


   Socrates

   "He walked about and, when he said his legs were heavy, lay down on his
       back, for such was the advice of the attendant. The man who had
       administered the poison laid his hands on him and after a while
   examined his feet and legs, then pinched his foot hard and asked if he
   felt it. He said "No"; then after that, his thighs; and passing upwards
   in this way he showed us that he was growing cold and rigid. And again
     he touched him and said that when it reached his heart, he would be
    gone. ... To this question he made no reply, but after a little while
        he moved; the attendant uncovered him; his eyes were fixed."


   Socrates


   — Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo

Philosophy

   Portrait of Socrates, Roman marble, Louvre museum
   Enlarge
   Portrait of Socrates, Roman marble, Louvre museum

   CAPTION: Platonism

   Platonic idealism
   Platonic realism
   Middle Platonism
   Neoplatonism
   Articles on Neoplatonism
   Platonic epistemology
   Socratic method
   Socratic dialogues
   Theory of forms
   Platonic doctrine of recollection
              Individuals
   Plato
   Socrates
     Discussions of Plato's works
   Dialogues of Plato
   Plato's metaphor of the sun
   Analogy of the divided line
   Allegory of the cave

Socratic method

   Perhaps his most important contribution to Western thought is his
   dialectic (answering a question with a question) method of inquiry,
   known as the Socratic Method or method of elenchos, which he largely
   applied to the examination of key moral concepts such as the Good and
   Justice. It was first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. For
   this, Socrates is customarily regarded as the father of political
   philosophy and ethics or moral philosophy, and as a fountainhead of all
   the main themes in Western philosophy in general.

   In this method, a series of questions are posed to help a person or
   group to determine their underlying beliefs and the extent of their
   knowledge. The Socratic method is a negative method of hypothesis
   elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily
   identifying and eliminating those which lead to contradictions. It was
   designed to force one to examine his own beliefs and the validity of
   such beliefs. In fact, Socrates once said, "I know you won't believe
   me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and
   others."

Philosophical beliefs

   The beliefs of Socrates, as opposed to those of Plato, are difficult to
   discern. Little in the way of concrete evidence demarcates the two.
   There are some who claim that Socrates had no particular set of
   beliefs, and sought only to examine; the lengthy theories he gives in
   the Republic are considered to be the thoughts of Plato. Others argue
   that he did have his own theories and beliefs, but there is much
   controversy over what these might have been, owing to the difficulty of
   separating Socrates from Plato and the difficulty of interpreting even
   the dramatic writings concerning Socrates. Consequently, distinguishing
   the philosophical beliefs of Socrates from those of Plato and Xenophon
   is not easy and it must be remembered that what is attributed to
   Socrates might more closely reflect the specific concerns of these
   writers.

   Evidence from the dialogues suggests Socrates had only two teachers:
   Prodicus, a grammarian, and Diotima, a priestess from Mantinea who
   taught him about eros, or love. His knowledge of other contemporary
   thinkers such as Parmenides and Anaxagoras is evident from a number of
   dialogues, and historical sources often include both of them as
   Socrates' teachers. John Burnet argued that his principal teacher was
   the Anaxagorean Archelaus but that his ideas were as Plato described
   them; Eric A. Havelock, on the other hand, considered Socrates'
   association with the Anaxagoreans to be evidence of Plato's
   philosophical separation from Socrates. Apollo himself may be
   considered one of his teachers, as Socrates claims (in Plato's Apology)
   that his habit of constant conversation was obedience to God. See below
   for more on the divine sign.

Knowledge

   Socrates seems to have often said that his wisdom was limited to an
   awareness of his own ignorance. Socrates may have believed that
   wrongdoing was a consequence of ignorance, that those who did wrong
   knew no better. The one thing Socrates consistently claimed to have
   knowledge of was "the art of love" which he connected with the concept
   of "the love of wisdom", i.e., philosophy. He never actually claimed to
   be wise, only to understand the path that a lover of wisdom must take
   in pursuing it. It is debatable whether Socrates believed that humans
   (as opposed to gods like Apollo) could actually become wise. On the one
   hand, he drew a clear line between human ignorance and ideal knowledge;
   on the other, Plato's Symposium (Diotima's Speech) and Republic
   (Allegory of the Cave) describe a method for ascending to wisdom.

   In Plato's Theaetetus (150a) Socrates compares himself to a true
   matchmaker (προμνηστικός), as distinguished from a panderer
   (προᾰγωγός). This distinction is echoed in Xenophon's Symposium (3.20),
   when Socrates jokes about his certainty of being able to make a
   fortune, if he chose to practise the art of pandering. For his part as
   a philosophical interlocutor, he leads his respondent to a clearer
   conception of wisdom, although he claims that he is not himself a
   teacher (Apology). His role, he claims, is more properly to be
   understood as analogous to a midwife (μαῖα). Socrates explains that he
   is himself barren of theories, but knows how to bring the theories of
   others to birth and determine whether they are worthy or mere "wind
   eggs" (ἀνεμιαῖον). Perhaps significantly, he points out that midwives
   are barren due to age, and women who have never given birth are unable
   to become midwives; a truly barren woman would have no experience or
   knowledge of birth and would be unable to separate the worthy infants
   from those that should be left on the hillside to be exposed. To judge
   this, the midwife must have experience and knowledge of what she is
   judging.

Virtue

   Socrates believed that the best way for people to live was to focus on
   self-development rather than the pursuit of material wealth. (Gross 2).
   He always invited others to try to concentrate more on friendships and
   a sense of true community, for Socrates felt that this was the best way
   for people to grow together as a populace. His actions lived up to
   this: in the end, Socrates accepted his death sentence when most
   thought he would simply leave Athens, as he felt he could not run away
   from or go against the will of his community; as above, his reputation
   for valor on the battlefield was without reproach.

   The idea that humans possessed certain virtues formed a common thread
   in Socrates' teachings. These virtues represented the most important
   qualities for a person to have, foremost of which were the
   philosophical or intellectual virtues. Socrates stressed that "virtue
   was the most valuable of all possessions; the ideal life was spent in
   search of the Good. Truth lies beneath the shadows of existence, and
   that it is the job of the philosopher to show the rest how little they
   really know." (Solomon 44)

   Ultimately, virtue relates to the form of the Good; to truly be good
   and not just act with "right opinion"; one must come to know the
   unchanging Good in itself. In the Republic, he describes the "divided
   line", a continuum of ignorance to knowledge with the Good on top of it
   all; only at the top of this line do we find true good and the
   knowledge of such.

Politics

   It is often argued that Socrates believed "ideals belong in a world
   that only the wise man can understand" making the philosopher the only
   type of person suitable to govern others. According to Plato's account,
   Socrates was in no way subtle about his particular beliefs on
   government. He openly objected to the democracy that ran Athens during
   his adult life. It was not only Athenian democracy: Socrates objected
   to any form of government that did not conform to his ideal of a
   perfect republic led by philosophers (Solomon 49), and Athenian
   government was far from that. During the last years of Socrates' life,
   Athens was in continual flux due to political upheaval. Democracy was
   at last overthrown by a junta known as the Thirty Tyrants, led by
   Plato's relative, Critias, who had been a student of Socrates. The
   Tyrants ruled for about a year before the Athenian democracy was
   reinstated, at which point it declared an amnesty for all recent
   events. Four years later, it acted to silence the voice of Socrates.

   This argument is often denied, and the question is one of the biggest
   philosophical debates when trying to determine what, exactly, it was
   that Socrates believed. The strongest argument of those who claim that
   Socrates did not actually believe in the idea of philosopher kings is
   Socrates' constant refusal to enter into politics or participate in
   government of any sort; he often stated that he could not look into
   other matters or tell people how to live when he did not yet understand
   himself. He believed he was a philosopher engaged in the pursuit of
   Truth, and did not claim to know it fully. Socrates' acceptance of his
   death sentence, after his conviction by the Boule ( Senate), can also
   be seen to support this view. It is often claimed that much of the
   anti-democratic leanings are from Plato, who was never able to overcome
   his disgust at what was done to his teacher. In any case, it is clear
   that Socrates thought that the rule of the Thirty Tyrants was at least
   as objectionable as democracy; when called before them to assist in the
   arrest of a fellow Athenian, Socrates refused and narrowly escaped
   death before the Tyrants were overthrown. He did however fulfill his
   duty to serve as prytanie when a trial of a group of generals who
   presided over a disastrous naval campaign were judged; even then he
   maintained an uncompromising attitude, being one of those who refused
   to proceed in a manner not supported by the laws, despite intense
   pressure. Judging by his actions, he considered the rule of the Thirty
   Tyrants less legitimate than that of the democratic senate who
   sentenced him to death.

Mysticism

   As depicted in the dialogues of Plato, Socrates often seems to manifest
   a mystical side, discussing reincarnation and the mystery religions;
   however, this is generally attributed to Plato. Regardless, this cannot
   be dismissed out of hand, as we cannot be sure of the differences
   between the views of Plato and Socrates; in addition, there seem to be
   some corollaries in the works of Xenophon. In the culmination of the
   philosophic path as discussed in Plato's Symposium and Republic, one
   comes to the Sea of Beauty or to the sight of the form of the Good in
   an experience akin to mystical revelation; only then can one become
   wise. (In the Symposium, Socrates credits his speech on the philosophic
   path to his teacher, the priestess Diotima, who is not even sure if
   Socrates is capable of reaching the highest mysteries). In the Meno, he
   refers to the Eleusinian Mysteries, telling Meno he would understand
   Socrates' answers better if only he could stay for the initiations next
   week.

   Perhaps the most interesting facet of this is Socrates' reliance on
   what the Greeks called his " daemonic sign", an averting (ἀποτρεπτικός)
   inner voice that Socrates heard only when Socrates was about to make a
   mistake. It was this sign that prevented Socrates from entering into
   politics. In the Phaedrus, we are told Socrates considered this to be a
   form of "divine madness", the sort of insanity that is a gift from the
   gods and gives us poetry, mysticism, love, and even philosophy itself.
   Alternately, the sign is often taken to be what we would call
   "intuition"; however, Socrates' characterization of the phenomenon as "
   daemonic" suggests that its origin is divine, mysterious, and
   independent of his own thoughts.

Satirical playwrights

   He was prominently lampooned in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds,
   produced when Socrates was in his mid-forties; he said at his trial (in
   Plato's version) that the laughter of the theatre was a harder task to
   answer than the arguments of his accusers. In the play he is ridiculed
   for his dirtiness, which is associated with the Laconizing fad; also in
   plays by Callias, Eupolis, and Telecleides. In all of these, Socrates
   and the Sophists were criticised for "the moral dangers inherent in
   contemporary thought and literature".

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