Introduction

Socrates (c. 469 - 399 B.C.) was a hugely important Greek philosopher from the Classical period (often
known as the Socratic period in his honour). Unlike most of the Pre-Socratic philosophers who came
before him, who were much more interested in establishing how the world works, Socrates was more
concerned with how people should behave, and so was perhaps the first major philosopher of Ethics.

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

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

Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

Work Back to Top

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socrates' political views, as represented in Plato's dialogue "The Republic", were

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

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

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

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

Socratic Politics and Political Theory

Then, if that is his chief concern, he said, he will not willingly take part in politics. Yes, by the dog said
I, in his own city he certainly will, yet perhaps not in the city of his birth, except in some providential
conjuncture. I understand, he said; you mean the city whose establishment we have described, the city
whose home is in the ideal for I think that it can be found nowhere on earth. Well, said I, perhaps there
is a pattern of it laid up in heaven for him who wishes to contemplate it and so beholding to constitute
himself its citizen. But it makes no difference whether it exists now or ever will come into being. The politics
of this city only will be his and of none other.--Plato Republic, 592ab

At the end of Book 9 of the Republic, in the quoted passage, Socrates distances himself, and thus (I
stipulate) the philosopher, from the possibility of political rule and even participation in active political
reform (or revolution). In fact, at first sight it seems he accepts an a-political role. In a way this is no
surprise, because throughout the Republic, the role of philosophy and expertise in a political community is
(to use an ugly word) problematized. (I tend to call this the Socratic Problem in my own research.)
Instead, if we allow that Socrates is an exemplar, he offers two philosophical tasks: (i) ongoing theoretical
exploration of ideal theories that are humanly possible, but unavailable given the near-impossibility to
solve the transition problem from any present status quo to getting up and running; (ii) the practice of
private self-governance--what we would call the art of living well.

On (i), I use the plural because while undeniably the (the divinely crafted) heavenly pattern is univocal
(597c), the human models inspired by, and their inner relations, can be multiple. I have two arguments for
this claim: first, Socrates discusses two such models in the Republic; the true city (372e) also known as
"the city of pigs" (369b-372d)) and the luxurious city (372e-451b). Second, the human models will --
because they are constituted in and explored by the understanding () -- all rely on (partially)
empirical axioma (and not purely intellectual, univocal eternal truths); that means that there will be room
for variation. (511) The latter point is non-trivial because it follows that one can be
practicing Socratic political theory about ideal theory without adopting the details of either of
the Republic's cities as long as they are, somehow patterned on the heavenly pattern;* it is an open
question if anybody else has practiced Socratic political theory about ideal theory, (but through some of
my blogs I have hinted this may be true for Bacon, More, Thoreau, and Adam Smith).
On (ii) unlike contemporary new age, quietest practices in 'the art of living well,' Socrates's private self-
governance is intrinsically political because the emendation is (as it were) patterned on, and oriented
toward, the heavenly political city. (It also engages in ongoing speculative political theory.) But
the expression of this politics is curtailed.
Even so, Socrates leaves us with the question if his activities in the Athenian market-place fall under this
practice of self-government. If so, then (ii) involves considerable 'public' activity that has non-trivial
'political' consequences (including reformist, revolutionary, and reactionary). If not, then it is possible to
see them as falling under (i); yet, as is well known these activities do impact his hometown. (And then
we're dealing with a form of irony.) But, if his activities in the market-place fall neither under (i) nor under
(ii), it is worth asking how to understand them at all.