Socrates (469-399 BC)


Bio

Socrates lived during the time of transition from the height of Athenian
Empire to her defeat by Sparta and its coalition in the Peloponnesian War.
We know little of his personal life. His mother was a midwife, and his wife
as a vegetable seller. He went to war under Pericles, and claimed to love
Athens so much that he never had any desire to live anywhere else.

At a time when Athens was seeking to recover from humiliating defeat,
and at the instigation of three leading figures at the time, the Athenian
public court tried Socrates for impiety and for corrupting the young, found
him guilty as charged, and executed him by ordering him to drink hemlock.

As for his philosophy, Socrates wrote nothing down himself, and most of
what we know of his thinking comes to us from the writings of Plato,
which poses special problems for interpreting exactly where Socrates'
philosophy ended and that of his pupil, probably quite different, began.
(For a more in depth discussion of the "Socratic problem," as this is often
called, see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Socrates.)

Regardless, Socrates is especially notable for two contributions to
Western thought. In the first place, unlike many of the natural
philosophers before him (those primarily concerned with the study of
nature, or the cosmos), Socrates is primarily concerned with ethics,
specifically with the pursuit of virtue:


In so focusing his discussions, Socrates helped spark a thorough
investigation of how philosophy is applicable to our daily lives, and might
be seen as the grandfather of ethical philosophy itself. His concern with
virtue goes hand in hand with his second major contribution, his "Socratic
method," referred to as the elenchus (a Greek word for "refutation"), his
method of enquiry which he largely applied to the examination of key
moral concepts.  The elenchus consists of three primary steps or phases:

  1. Socrates has his interlocutor give a precise definition of major
    moral principle, like courage (Laches), temperance (Charmides),
    or piety (Euthyphro). It is crucial that this definition not be some
    artifical construct presented for argument's sake, but something
    the interlocutor really believes in. After all, Socrates is that the
    person examine themselves as much as any logical proposition.
  2. Socrates elicits other beliefs from the interlocutor, which are held
    equally sincerely, and then shows that the two sets of beliefs
    actually contradict one another: both cannot be true.
  3. This leads to a state of perplexity or aporia, supposedly on both
    Socrates' and the interlocutor's behalf. Socrates most often
    seems sincere in his profession of ignorance about matters of
    virtue. Nonetheless, this perplexity is progress: they have replaced
    false belief with a true realization of ignorance, which is the first
    step to building a more sincere ethic. This fits nicely with Socrates'
    classic protestation of ignorance: "I am wiser than others only by
    this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know"
    (Ap. 21d).

Because of this method of elenchus, or refutation, Socrates' philosophy is
sometimes seen as a "negative" philosophy: meaning that we was easily
able to refute some of the popular philosophies of his time (and pose
lasting ethical conundrums at the same time), but that he did not really
propose of positive philosophy as to what virtue really consists of. But this
is probably not entirely true. Certainly both the Apology and the Crito, two
of Plato's dialogues which are almost universally accepted as being more
"Socractic" than "Platonic," expound definite moral convictions: convictions
so firm that Socrates believes it is better for him to die than to betray them.

The Apology represents Socrates' self-defence before the Athenian court,
and simultaneously serves as a "defence" of his methods and
philosophy. Socrates referred to himself as a "gadfly," and used
philosophy and argument in order to sting society into reconsidering its
ethics and resulting courses of action, insisting that the "unexamined life
is not worth living." He equated knowledge with virtue. Virtue is, after all,
the good. And man will always desire his own good. Therefore, if a man
behaves badly, it is probably because he does not know where the good
truly lies. He claimed that the chief goodness consists in the caring of the
soul concerned with truth and understanding, and that "wealth does not
bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing,
both to the individual and to the state" (Ap. 30b) Socrates also argued that
it was impossible for a better man to be hurt by a worse, and  that to be
wronged is better than to do wrong, because the latter implies a
corruption of one's own soul.

As to the charge against him of corrupting youth, Socrates declares it's
ridiculous. No man, he contends, would choose to live in a worse world,
or consciously hurt himself. Now corrupting the youth, with  whom
Socrates as a teacher frequently associated, would be to make them
worse. But why would a man willfully make his companions and fellow
citizens worse? That would be to consciously do harm to himself.
Socrates contended that if he was harming the youth, that it was
unintentional. He therefore insists that it is not the duty of the court to
punish him, but to instruct him, if indeed it has the true wisdom to do so.

Nonetheless, Socrates is found guilty. Most likely, because he quite
simply made a shaky democratic government feel uncomfortable. As
Samuel Stumpf writes, "While Athens was a secure and powerful
democracy under Pericles, Socrates could pursue his calling as a 'gadfly'
without serious opposition" (Socrates to Sartre, 1988). But the new
government had just ousted the council of Thirty Tyrants, who had ruled
Athens for about a year after its capitulation to Sparta, before democracy
was restored. A couple of the members of this council were friends of
Socrates. One of Socrates' pupils, Alcibiades, had outright betrayed
Athens to Sparta during the war. But there is no evidence that Socrates in
any way preferred this oligarchic council to democracy: he played gadfly to
all, and in at least one case, opposed the tyrants with equal conviction,
declaring that "it mattered all the world to me that I should do nothing
wrong or wicked. Powerful as it was, that government did not terrify me
into doing a wrong action" (Ap. 33d).

Before receiving his death sentence, Socrates is invited, per custom, to
suggest an alternative sentence. He might well have chosen exile and
been granted it; and it is possible the tribunal would have even accepted
an oath to stop teaching and criticizing the government. But this Socrates
was not willing to do: it would have represented a betrayal to his own
values, and to the Athens he loved. He concludes his Apology, after being
sentenced to death, with the famous line: "And now it is time to go, I to die,
and you to live; but which of us goes to a better thing is unknown to all but
God."

In the Crito, which takes place in Socrates' cell day before his death,
Socrates is encouraged by his friend Criton to escape (Criton having
made all the arrangements). But Socrates refuses to go. He equates real
justice with both virtue and truth, and argues that it is not living which is
important, but living well. He insists that if a man believes something to
be right, and goes against that principle, even in the face of his enemies,
then he is being dishonest with himself, and thereby lessening himself.
Those judged to be guilty, including himself, have every bit as much duty
to follow the law as the innocent. After all, he argues, if we live in a city and
enjoy its peace and prosperity, which result from its laws, then how can
we complain when those same laws find us at fault?

To do violence to the laws of one's country, by disobeying them, was
worse to Socrates than doing violence to one's own parents. If the laws
are not proper, they should be changed to begin with, but if found to be
proper, then we must abide by them whether they favor us or not. This
hardly meant for Socrates that we needed to go along quietly with
whatever our governors decide. But either "you must do whatever city and
country commands, or else convince her where the right lies."

But, importantly, Socrates implies several conditions which are necessary
for justice and obedience to laws, which could roughly translate into civil
rights today: including the right to free speech (in order to live as a "gadfly"
and try to "persuade" the government), the right to a fair trial, and the right
to leave any society which we find intolerable or unjust. The principle of
free speech, and an underlying conception of justice as a sort of fairness,
seem in stark contrast to the later philosophy of Socrates' student, Plato.

Whether Socrates held any firmer views on virtue itself, or what
constituted the highest good for man, has been a source of much debate.
A great deal depends on the interpretation of individual dialogues, and
whether or not some dialogues, such as the Gorgias or Protagoras, are
viewed as more properly expressing Socratic or Platonic philosophy.


(Portions of this article were adapted, and the portrait taken, from the Wikipedia
article on Socrates.)


Works
(written by Plato, Socrates left behind no written works)

Apology

Crito


For good examples of the Socratic elenchus:

Laches

Charmides

Euthyphro