Socrates

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SOCRATES

SOCRATES (c. 469–399 bce) was a Greek philosopher. Commonly regarded as the father of philosophy, Socrates' influence on Western thought has been huge throughout history. Almost every epoch saw in him a precursor of its own ideas and values, and a model of wisdom and morality.

Sources

Socrates is the only Western philosopher who wrote nothing. Hence all first-hand information on his life, personality, and thought derives from reports by those who knew him personally. Among those, a special role is played by his friends and associates who, in a series of dialogues commonly referred to as the Sokratikoi logoi, portray him in discussion with prominent intellectuals and politicians. These writings spread immediately after Socrates' death, becoming a popular literary genre in the first half of the fourth century bce. Unfortunately, from a corpus of hundreds of conversations only those reported by Plato (428/427–348/347 bce) and Xenophon (430–355 bce) survive complete; the Socratic dialogues of other authors are lost except for some fragments. The most substantial of these fragments are from Aeschines of Sphettus; the fragments of Antisthenes, Aristippos, Euclides of Megara, and Phaedo of Elis are scarce.

Plato, the most important among Socrates' associates, wrote almost solely dialogues in which Socrates is the main speaker. Although in these writings Plato seems to present his own philosophy, this happens often under the strong influence of his master. Especially in Plato's earlier dialogues, written soon after 399 bce, it is possible to make out many traits of Socrates' own philosophical thoughts. These dialogues include Apology, Crito, Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro, Hippias Minor, Ion, Republic I, and Protagoras from Plato's first period; and Lysis, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Menexenus, Meno, and Gorgias from his second period. The middle dialogues (Symposium, Cratylus, Phaedo, Republic II–X, Phaedrus, Parmenides, and Theaetetus ) and the late ones (Timaeus, Critias, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, and Laws ) are much closer to Plato's own than to his master's philosophy. Unlike Plato, Xenophon was not present at Socrates' trial and death and wrote his logoi many years after 399. His Socratic works are Apology, Symposium, Oeconomicus, and Memorabilia.

Other primary sources outside the Socratic circle are supplied by the Attic comedy. Socrates was used as a comic character in Ameipsias' Connus and Aristophanes' Clouds, two of the three comedies performed for the first time in Athens in 423 bce. Of these dramatic works only Clouds survives complete, though in a revised edition. This version, like most of the evidence coming from the comedians after 423 bce, gives a caricature of Socrates as an atheistic natural philosopher who is both an ascetic moral teacher and a sophist (for instance, in Aristophanes' Birds and Frogs ).

Among the writings of authors who were not personally acquainted with Socrates, most important are those of Aristotle (384–322 bce), who probably learned of him from Plato and others while attending the Athenian Academy. Aristotle's interest in Socrates was aimed at assigning to him a precise place in the history of philosophy, distinguishing the elements in Plato's oeuvre actually belonging to Socrates from those constituting Platonic interpretations of Socratic thought. Major evidence of this is to be found in several passages of Metaphysics, Nicomachean and Eudemean Ethics, and Magna Moralia.

Since all of the later Socratic sources of antiquity rely on the writings of the mentioned authors or on works which were lost, they are far less able to convey the real philosophical thoughts of Socrates. But since in some cases these testimonies contain information that is not elsewhere preserved, they should nevertheless be taken into account. The major Socratic texts occur within a variety of literary genres:

the philosophers (Cicero, Plutarch, and others);
Diogenes Laertius;
the apologetic writers (Aelius Aristides, Libanius, and others);
the antiquarian writers (Aulus Gellius, Aelian, Athenaeus, and others);
the anthologists, the lexicographers, and the Suda;
the early Christian writers.

Life

The only certain fact about Socrates' life is the year in which he was condemned and put to death, in 399 bce. All other circumstances reported about him have no historical reliability, although in many cases their symbolic and philosophic meanings are of great interest.

Some sources report that Socrates, of the Antiochid tribe and the deme of Alopeke, was born on the birthday of the goddess of midwives, Artemis, the sixth Tragelion. He was the son of the midwife Phaenarete and the statuary Sophroniscus, with whom he worked during his youth. His family was likely wealthy, since he served several times in the heavy infantry, where he had to provide himself weapons and armor. During his later life, however, it seems that he became extremely poor, probably due to his absorption in philosophy, which left him no time for attending to his personal affairs. It is reported that he married Xanthippe, famous for her bad temper. His three sons Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus were still young at the time of his death, and were probably sons of another wife named Myrto, whose marriage to Socrates is variously described as preceding, following, or bigamously coinciding with his union to Xanthippe.

Throughout the literary and the iconographic sources of antiquity Socrates is renowned for the ugliness of his physiognomy. He had a snub nose, broad nostrils, protruding eyes, and an overly-dimensioned mouth, with extremely thick lips. Furthermore, he was bald, his neck was short and thick, and his belly was huge. His appearance was thus compared to that of a satyr or silenus. His physical toughness and endurance were known to be exceptional: he was able to practice extreme continence or abstemiousness as well as to outdrink anyone without ever getting drunk himself. He bathed infrequently and wore ostentatiously simple clothing, always went barefoot, and never became ill; he could go without sleep for days and sustain prolonged, trance-like spells of intense mental concentration. During the Peloponnesian War (431–404 bce) he gave proof of his bravery in the campaigns of Potidaea (432–429 bce), where he saved the life of Alcibiades (432 bce); Daelium (424 bce); and Amphipolis (422 bce).

Except for these military campaigns and two other trips to Samos and the Isthmian games, Socrates stayed always in Athens. Due to his extraordinary charisma he gathered around him a circle of friends and associates, who saw in him a "truly divine and marvelous man" (Plato, Symposium 219c). In 423 bce he was a well-known personality in Athens, portrayed in Aristophanes' Clouds as a leading representative of a new kind of education. His fame reached even Archelaus of Macedonia, Scopas of Krannon, and Eurylochus of Larisa, whose invitations to their courts he declined.

In 406 bce Socrates belonged to the Athenian Council of Five Hundred when the so-called trial of the Arginusae took place. In it, the generals of the Athenian fleet faced charges of neglect of duty following the naval battle of the Arginusae Islands during the Peloponnesian War. Athens won, but a storm wrecked several ships afterward, and the officers failed to rescue the survivors. In Socrates' tribe the assembly made the illegal proposal to condemn the generals to death collectively instead of individually, as required by law. Whereas the other members all accepted the proposal, Socrates refused, thus demonstrating loyalty to the laws of his city. Two years later, when the Thirty Tyrants attempted to involve him in criminal political activities by securing his complicity in the arrest of Leon of Salamis, he refused, for which he would have been put to death, if the Thirty had not been overthrown in time (Plato, Apology 32d and Xenophon, Memorabilia IV, 4, 3).

Five years later Anytus, a prominent politician of the restored democracy, together with the obscure Lycus and Meletus, brought the following indictment against Socrates: "Socrates is guilty of not recognizing the gods which the city recognizes, and of introducing other, new divinities. Further, he is guilty of corrupting the young. The penalty is death" (Favorinus, in Diogenes Laertius II, 40). Found guilty on both counts (by votes of 280-220 and 360-140), he was sentenced to death by hemlock. Having declined the alternative penalty of exile, and the opportunity to escape from prison (as his associates urged him to do), he was executed in 399 bce.

Philosophy and Religion

As was common in Athenian wealthy families, Socrates was educated in the traditional disciplines of mousike ("education of the spirit") and gumnastike ("education of the body") and in Ionian natural sciences. The sources report that he became a disciple of the physicist Archelaus, through whom he was introduced to the theories of Anaximenes and Anaxagoras. Though he was apparently fascinated by them, the more he deepened his studies, the more he became aware of the limits of natural philosophy. He noticed that this discipline was not able to obtain any certain knowledge of the natural phenomena because of its mechanistic character—that is, its habit to explain one cause with another—without ever finding a supreme principle of being capable of "holding together any other thing" (Plato, Phaedo 99c). Disappointed, he left his studies in Ionian science and started looking for a "second sailing" in research (Plato, Phaedo 99c).

The direction of this new approach was indicated to Socrates by a religious experience which marked a turning point in his life. According to Plato's account, around 430 bce Socrates' friend Chaerephon went to the oracle of Apollo in Delphi and posed the question whether anyone was wiser than Socrates. The oracle answered that no one was. When Chaerephon went back to Athens and told his friend of this response, Socrates was puzzled, since he thought that he possessed no expertise at all. In order to decipher the oracle's meaning, he set about to find someone wiser than himself among people with reputations for their wisdom. Upon questioning them systematically he realized that they in fact lacked the knowledge they claimed, and were therefore less wise than he, who at least knew that he knew nothing. He thus understood that the wisdom meant by the oracle consisted exactly of this peculiar knowledge, the awareness of ignorance. He came also to understand that the oracle had chosen him to propagate this knowledge by showing every human being that his claims to substantive wisdom were unfounded. From that moment until the last day of his life Socrates felt compelled to fulfill this "divine mission" in honor of Apollo, the god who praises the virtues of humility and restraint (as is evident in the famous Delphic inscription, "Know thyself!").

This enterprise of questioning, examining, and refuting other people in order to make them aware of their ignorance is commonly known as the Socratic elenchus. Its most important achievement consists of understanding and in making others understand the fallible, that is the human nature of wisdom (anthropine sophia ), juxtaposed to the absolute wisdom of the gods (theia sophia ), which is altogether unreachable for humankind. To this philosophical acknowledgment everyone is compelled, since "the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being" (Plato, Apology 38a). Elenchus is the only possible source of intellectual and moral well-being, since it improves the most valuable part of man, the seat of all his virtue and knowledge: the soul (psuche ). Unlike the traditional conceptions of the Orphics, the Pythagoreans and the Ionians, Socrates is the first to identify the psuche both with the entire and real self and the "Igo" of consciousness and personality. The supreme duty of a human being is to "care for it" (Plato, Apology 29e and Xenophon, Memorabilia I, 2, 4–5), a task best accomplished by "purifying" it through intellectual training and elenchtic testing.

Though aimed at improving the soul, the practice of elenchus is not merely destructive. Socrates' disavowal of scientific knowledge implies that from a practical point of view he knows exactly what knowledge is. As Aristotle points out, this knowledge is of a "different kind" if compared to that of the experts or the physiologists (Eudemean Ethics 1246b 36). It has a non-epistemic character, since it is confined to make out what is good (agathon ) for the soul in an immediate, concrete, and practical sense. Both in Plato and Xenophon, Socrates identifies this good with what is beneficial (ophelimon, chresimon ). Virtue, as the real application of this good, is thus founded on knowledge that is the goodness of the soul. Once the soul knows what is good in a given situation, it has the correct focus for its actions, a focus that eventually turns out to be beneficial as well.

Major evidence for Socrates' firm faith in the practical effects of the knowledge of the good is provided by his theodicy. As shown by Xenophon, Socrates believes in unwritten laws that have a divine origin (Memorabilia IV, 4, 19–25). Unlike the human laws, which can be violated without necessarily incurring punishment, the unwritten laws contain the punishment within themselves. They are a cosmic rule, deeply rooted into the profundity of reality. This conception occurs also in Plato's Apology, when Socrates replies to the menaces of his accusers by saying that "the goddess Themis will not allow that a good man will be hurt by a worse one" (30c), or when, immediately after he has been sentenced to death, he declares that "a good man cannot suffer any harm, neither in his life nor after his death, because the gods take care of him" (41d).

Socrates' conception of the divine is closely linked to his search for the goodness of the soul. This becomes clear in the teleological proof of God's existence reported by Xenophon (Memorabilia I, 4, 1–19 and IV, 3, 1–18; cf. Plato, Gorgias 507e–508a): since everything that is good is beneficial, it has to be necessarily the product of intelligent design; this entails the existence of one or more intelligent designer-creators possessing the wisdom and the power necessary for producing the orderly and beautiful universe; therefore, these beings must have an entirely benevolent and caring attitude toward the world they created, ruling it in a fashion analogous to the way the human soul rules the body. And because of its intrinsic theoretical capacities this very soul "partakes of the divine" more than any other thing in the universe (Memorabilia, IV, 3, 14), and the man who practices its capacities through philosophy is at the same time "virtuous" and "pious" (Memorabilia IV, 3, 16–18). Piety itself is strongly connected to morality, since it is a service to the gods that helps them to promulgate goodness in the universe (Plato, Euthyphro 14b). For Socrates there is no split between philosophy, ethics, and religion; they all call for acts directed to improve both the human soul and the universe.

The interdependence between the human and the divine sphere in Socrates' teleology was thus eminently practical and non-epistemic. With it Socrates tried to reform religion from an ethical point of view. This meant rejecting the moral imperfections of the Homeric gods, foremost their enmities and lies. The chasm between human and divine ethics had to be eliminated, in order to restore the lost faith in the nobility of the gods and to make them thus more believable. Socrates' anthropocentric teleology was perhaps the last attempt in Greek history to achieve this. In an epoch characterized by an increasing number of particular cults often in open conflict with each other, he gave a new impulse to Greek religion, establishing homogeneous criteria for mortals and gods. He did this while remaining on the solid ground of tradition: his "moralized" gods were still the gods of the city, whom he called to witness his oaths and worshipped with prayers and sacrifices, communicating with them through dreams, divination, and even poetic inspiration. Despite the orthodoxy of Socrates' religious behavior, however, in 399 he was tried, convicted, and condemned to death for impiety.

Socrates was first accused of not recognizing the gods of the city. According to Socrates' own account of the reason he was charged, this indictment was not for having moralized the gods, but mainly because the accusers assimilated these gods to the natural elements which were studied by the Ionian physiologists during those years (Plato, Apology 18b–c, 19a–d, 23c–d, 26d, and Aristophanes' Clouds ). Since few years earlier Anaxagoras had already been declared guilty of the same charge due to his affiliation with the Periclean circle, it is likely that the accusers against Socrates also had a political rather than a religious background.

The second charge was that of introducing "new divinities" (hetera daimonia kaina : Plato, Apology 24c, and others). It is probable that the target was the daimonion of Socrates, although the use of the generic plural form daimonia may indicate that the accusers wanted to include in the charge also other divinities, or that they themselves did not have a clear idea of which gods exactly were worshipped by Socrates. The daimonion ti (literally: the "daemonic something") was one of the most peculiar traits of Socratic religion. According to the sources, Socrates regarded it as a divine "sign" or an "interior voice" which had been his companion since childhood. It gave him advice which was merely dissuasive, particular, personal, and practical (according to Xenophon the daimonion also prescribed advice to Socrates' friends). Since Socrates considered the counsel of the daimonion unfailingly correct, he always followed it, even if it urged him against something of which he was fully convinced. This particular circumstance showed that in Socrates' view the daimonion could be stronger than discursive thinking, but was perfectly compatible with it: Although its advice sometimes seemed to contradict the elenchus, eventually it turned out to be perfectly rational. The privilege of Socrates' exclusive relationship with the daimonion was likely considered suspect by his accusers; still, in the religious context of ancient Athens, which was extremely tolerant towards the introduction of new or even foreign divinities, this alone could hardly have led to a prosecution.

It seems therefore probable that the reason for Socrates' conviction was merely political, since the religious accusations were unfounded. In fact, the most serious charge brought against Socrates was that of corruption of the youth. The practice of elenchus entailed a new education, which could subvert social morality. This was evident in the Socratic circle, where men like Critias and Alcibiades were famous for their antidemocratic political attitude. To the newly restored democracy Socrates and his circle were a danger to be eliminated as soon as possible. This may have been the reason why the pious Socrates, who believed in the goodness of the gods, was eventually condemned for impiety.

Bibliography

A complete bibliography of the Socratic literature from antiquity until 1988 is to be found in Andreas Patzer, Bibliographia Socratica (Freiburg, Germany, 1985), and Luis E. Navia and Ellen L. Katz, Socrates: An Annotated Bibliography (New York, 1988).

A comprehensive survey on the most important Socratic testimonies in English translation is delivered by John Ferguson, Socrates: A Source Book (London, 1970); see also the complete editions of Xenophon, Aristophanes, and Aristotle in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.). The ancient sources can be divided into primary (A), that is the texts of authors who knew Socrates personally or could hear from him indirectly, and secondary (B), which consist of later writings, mostly founded upon the primary sources.

(A) The major primary source are Plato's dialogues, edited in Greek by John Burnet (Platonis Opera, Oxford, 1900–1917; reprinted 1976). The English translations are numerous, one of the most recent being the Complete Works edited by John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis, Ind., 1997). The most accessible English translation of Xenophon's Socratic writings is that of Hugh Treddenick and Robin Waterfield, Conversations of Socrates (London, 1990). For a scholarly edition of Aristophanes' Clouds see Kenneth J. Dover, Oxford, 1968. Aristotle's references to Socrates have been collected by Thomas Déman, Le témoignage d'Aristote sur Socrate (Paris, 1942).

(B) The Greek and Latin texts of all the Socratic sources except Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes are to be found in the Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, edited by Gabriele Giannantoni (Naples, 1990).

Modern scholarship on Socrates starts with Friedrich Schleiermacher's "The Worth of Socrates as a Philosopher" (1815), translated by Connop Thirlwall, The Philological Museum 2 (1833): 538–555. In this essay arises for the first time the question of which sources, if any, can be reliable for a reconstruction of Socrates' thought. This question, commonly referred to as the "Socratic problem," has been answered in many different ways, spawning a vast amount of literature. Useful guides to it are: Der historische Sokrates, edited by Andreas Patzer (Darmstadt, Germany, 1987), and Mario Montuori, The Socratic Problem (Amsterdam, 1992). For a survey on the reception of Socrates throughout history see Herbert Spiegelberg, The Socratic Enigma (New York, 1964).

Classical works on Socrates are: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1833), translated by Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane (London, 1963), vol. 1: pp. 384–448; Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, with Constant Reference to Socrates (1841), translated by Lee M. Capel (New York, 1965); George Grote, Life, Teachings, and Death of Socrates (1850, reprinted, New York, 1859); Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872), translated by Clifton P. Fadiman (New York, 1954); Eduard Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schools (1889), translated by Oswald J. Reichel (New York, 1962); Karl Joël, Der echte und der xenophontische Sokrates (Berlin, 1893–1901); Heinrich Maier, Sokrates. Sein Werk und seine geschichtliche Stellung (Tübingen, Germany, 1913); Guy C. Field, Socrates and Plato (London, 1913); John Burnet, Greek Philosophy. From Thales to Plato (London, 1913), pp. 102–156; Frances M. Cornford, Before and after Socrates (Cambridge, 1932); Alfred E. Taylor, Varia Socratica (Oxford, 1911), and Socrates (Edinburgh, 1933); Werner Jaeger, Paideia (1933), translated by Gilbert Highet (New York, 1939), vol. 2: pp. 13–75; Olof Gigon, Sokrates. Sein Bild in Dichtung und Geschichte (Bern, Switzerland, 1947); Vasco de Magalhães-Vilhena, Le problème de Socrate. Le Socrate historique et le Socrate de Platon, and Socrate et la légende Platonicienne (Paris, 1952); Norman Gulley, The Philosophy of Socrates (London, 1968); William Keith Chambers Guthrie, Socrates (London, 1971); Mario Montuori, Socrates. Physiology of a Myth (1974), translated by J. M. P. Langdale and M. Langdale (Amsterdam, 1981); Gerasimos Santas, Socrates' Philosophy in Plato's Early Dialogues (Boston, 1979); Luis E. Navia, Socrates, the Man and His Philosophy (New York, 1985); Richard B. Rutherford, The Art of Plato (London, 1995), and Christopher Charles Whiston Taylor, Socrates (New York, 1998).

Important essays have been collected in the following volumes: The Philosophy of Socrates: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Gregory Vlastos (Garden City, N.Y., 1971); The Socratic Movement, edited by Paul A. Van der Waerdt (Ithaca, N.Y., 1994); Socrates: Critical Assessments, edited by William J. Prior (New York, 1996), 4 vols. More essays are to be found in Der fragende Sokrates, edited by Karl Pestalozzi (Stuttgart, Germany, 1999), and Sokrates, edited by Herbert Kessler (Kusterdingen, Germany, 1993–2001), 5 vols.

A turning point in Socratic studies was settled by Gregory Vlastos (Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher [Ithaca, N.Y., 1991], and Socratic Studies, edited by Myles Burnyeat [New York, 1994]). The Socrates renaissance that began in North America in 1990 owes much both to his scholarship and teaching: Charles H. Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (New York, 1996); George Rudebusch, Socrates, Pleasure and Value (New York, 1999); Alexander Nehamas, Virtues of Authenticity: Essays on Plato and Socrates (Princeton, N.J., 1999); Hugh H. Benson, Socratic Wisdom: The Model of Knowledge in Plato's Early Dialogues (New York, 2000); Gary A. Scott, Plato's Socrates as Educator (Albany, N.Y., 2000); Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Socrates on Trial (Oxford, 1989), Plato's Socrates (New York, 1994), The Philosophy of Socrates (Boulder, Colo., 2000), and The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies (New York, 2002).

See also the collections of articles: Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates, edited by Hugh H. Benson (New York, 1992); Socratic Questions: New Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates and Its Significance, edited by Barry S. Gower and Michael C. Stokes (New York, 1992), and Does Socrates Have a Method? Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato's Dialogues and Beyond, edited by Gary Alan Scott (University Park, Pa., 2002).

Studies especially dedicated to the topic of Socrates and religion are: Robert M. Wenley, Socrates and Christ (1889, reprinted, London, 2002); John Burnet, "The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul," Proceedings of the British Academy 7 (1915–1916): 235–259; Greek Religious Thought, edited by Frances M. Cornford (New York, 1923): pp. 158–187; James Beckman, The Religious Dimension of Socrates' Thought (1943, reprinted Waterloo, Ont., 1979); Ehrland Ehnmark, "Socrates and the Immortality of the Soul," Eranos 14 (1946): 105–122; Antonio Tovar, Vida de Sócrate (Madrid, 1947); Wilhelm Nestle, "Sokrates und Delphi," in Wilhelm Nestle, Griechische Studien (Stuttgart, Germany, 1948): pp. 173–185; Francesco Sarri, Socrate e la genesi storica dell'idea occidentale di anima (Rome, 1975); Socratic Piety and the Power of Reason. New Essays on Socrates, edited by Eugene Kelly (Lanham, Md., 1984); Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Sokrates' Frömmigkeit des Nichtwissens" (1990) in Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 7 (Tübingen, Germany, 1991): pp. 83–117; Michelle Gellrich, "Socratic Magic: Enchantment, Irony, and Persuasion in Plato's Dialogues," Classical World 87 (1994): 275–307; Mark. L. McPherran, The Religion of Socrates (University Park, Pa., 1996); Robert Parker, Athenian Religion (Oxford, 1997): pp. 152–217; Paul W. Gooch, Reflections on Jesus and Socrates (New Haven, Conn., 1997); Jean-Joël Duhot, Socrate ou l'éveil de la conscience (Paris, 1999): pp. 73–163; Silvia Lanzi, Theos Anaitios. Storia della teodicea da Omero ad Agostino (Rome, 2000): pp. 97–101; Reason and Religion in Socratic Philosophy, edited by Nicholas D. Smith and Paul B. Woodruff (New York, 2000); Ernst R. Sandvoss, Sokrates und Jesus (Munich, 2001); and Minoura Eryō, "Ein Aspekt der griechischen Religion. Űberlegungen zur Methode der religionsgeschichtlichen Forschung nach Sokrates," in Unterwegs. Neue Pfade in der Religionswissenschaft, edited by Christoph Kleine, Monika Schrimpf, and Katja Triplett (Munich, 2004): pp. 197–205.