Key Takeaways
One of the giants of Western philosophy , Socrates ( 470 to 399 B.C.E. ) is also one of history ’s most puzzling flesh . He left behind no publish writings , so all we have are used accounts save by his bookman and coeval , most famously the dialogues ofPlato .
While scholar agree that Socrates changed philosophical system forever , they argue furiously over who he was and what he really believed . We talk with Debra Nails , prof emerita of philosophy at Michigan State University , to learn how the Socratic method acting turned education on its header , and why Socrates ' infamous trial run and execution remains the " founding myth " of academic philosophy . Here are some facts to aid you get to know Socrates .
1. Socrates Stuck Out
By all accounts , Socratessocrates/">cut a strange figureinAthens . A bright intellect , he chose not to pursue money , power or celebrity , but to live in miserable poverty as a troublemaking street philosopher . And if you conceive the descriptions of his appearance by his student Plato and the comic playwright Aristophanes , Socrates was one ugly fellow .
First , Socrates was dirty and disheveled , betray the streets in his vulgar bedclothes , his whisker long and greasy . Nails says that Socrates ' untempting appearance was believably as loathsome to his critic as his confrontational inquiring elan .
" The Greeks were devoted to beauty , and beauty meant proportion in their computer architecture and statues , " says Nails . " And then there ’s Socrates with the rima oris of a salientian or maybe a donkey , and these eyes that bulge and do n’t cross . He did n’t fit the Greek ideal and I ’m sure that discommode them . "
Despite his looks , Socrates was matrimonial to a much - younger woman , Xanthippe , whowas often portrayed as nagging and nagging . But since he expend all his time philosophize rather than realise a livelihood , there was perhaps much to kvetch about . The couplet had two Word together .
2. He Wasn’t a ‘Teacher’
Even though Plato is sometimes have-to doe with to as his " ace pupil , " Socrates flatly decline the title of " instructor , " or at least in the way that the Greeks understood the persona of a teacher .
" During Socrates ' metre , teaching meant transmit selective information and the receiver receiving it , " says Nails . " When he pronounce he ’s not a teacher , Socrates is saying that he does n’t have information to transmit and that ’s why he ’s asking questions . The important thing is for each person to be involved in the intellectual labor require to come to conclusions . "
Socrates reserve some of his most cutting remarks for the sophists , paid philosopher who transmit their wisdom and cognition to the rich and potent of Athens .
3. The Socratic Method Was Genius at Work
Instead of indite ironic philosophic treatise or lecturing scholar on the nature of knowledge , Socrates preferred a far more entertaining way of getting to the bottom of barbellate motion . He ’d attend around all twenty-four hour period in the Agora , the bustling outside market of Athens , and enquire the great unwashed questions .
No one was resistant from Socrates ' playful interrogations — young , honest-to-god , virile , female , politician or harlot — and crowds of young Athenians would gather to see Socrates apply his cutting wit and unbreakable logic to force his victims into rational quoin . The more overblown and pretentious the dupe , the better .
It ’s known today as the Socratic method acting , but Nails suppose that Socrates would n’t have recognized what passes for the Socratic method in property like law schools , where professors pepper students with question until they arrive at a predetermined answer .
Socrates never claimed that he had the answer to whatever inquiry was being pose — from the nature of cognition to the meaning of living . For him , the Socratic method was an recitation in break down false assumption and break ignorance so that the somebody being questioned — not Socrates — could go far at something genuine .
" The existent Socratic method requires individuals to dig down to the reason why they ’re articulate what they ’re saying , " says Nails . " And when they uncover those grounds , they often happen there are inconsistencies they need to consider through . "
While some mass who got roped into Socratic shakedown walked away furious , others were transformed . After a young poet name Aristocles witness Socrates ' marketplace spectacle , he went home andburned all his plays and poems . That kid would become the philosopher cognise as Plato .
4. We Don’t Know Much About the ‘Real’ Socrates
The historical Socrates , like the historical Jesus , is impossible to know . Neither humankind write the text edition for which they ’re best known , but figure as principal characters in the writings of others . In the case of Socrates , these 2nd - hand beginning are n’t in agreement over how Socrates hold out and what kind of school of thought he employed to empathize the world around him .
The impossible action of have a go at it the real Socrates is call the " Socratic problem " and it complicates any well-situated reading of the three independent historical sources on Socrates . The playwright Aristophanes , for example , features a character called Socrates in his comedy " Clouds , " but the character is more of a imitation of all intellectuals — rumpled , undutiful and enwrapped on heave the minds of the youth — than an unbiassed portrait of the human race .
Aristophanes and Socrates were coeval , but the man did n’t see heart to middle . Aristophanes blamed the casuist and innate philosopher for poisoning the minds of Athenian young person , and his imitation of Socrates in " Clouds " became so well - known that it hound the philosopher his full spirit . By the time of his test , Socrates blamed Aristophanes ' playsfor poisoning the jurors ' minds against him .
A 2d root is Xenophon , a soldier - historian who , like Plato , was 45 eld young than Socrates . Xenophon has a solid repute as a honest historiographer of Athens , but he was a practical man with practical concerns . So , his quotations of Socrates have to do with mundane topics like the three estates direction and moneymaking and may mull over Xenophon ’s scene more than those of Socrates himself .
Plato ’s dialogues are the rich and best - eff source on Socrates , because Socrates is the primary theatrical role in near all of the texts . Plato wrote the dialogues like plays , dramatization of encounters that Socrates may or may not have had with real Athenians , some know to chronicle . In the dialogues , the character of Socrates is an clever and often humourous inquisitor , quick to confess his own ignorance while inveigle and teasing his fellow conversants toward philosophic Apocalypse about ethical motive and nature .
But are the dialogues historically accurate ? Plato was 25 when Socrates was tried and executed . While Plato was undoubtedly inspired by Socrates , it ’s unsufferable to untangle which philosophies make out from Socrates and which were Plato ’s alone . Further rarify the Socratic Problem is that ancient writer like Plato did n’t spot between biography , drama , history and fiction .
5. Socrates is Best-Known as a Moral Philosopher
It ’s not easygoing to boil down Socrates ' philosophies to a single statement , but if there ’s a key tenet that demonstrate up again and again in the dialogues , it ’s this : it ’s never right to do wrong .
" Do no wrong , not even in recurrence for an injury done to you , " excuse Nails . " Not even under scourge of death , or to hold open your family . It is never right to do wrong . That’shugeas a moral principle . "
The best - known quotation mark from Socrates comes during his trial , when he addresses supporters who expect him why he does n’t just go into expatriation and keep quiet in ordering to spare his life-time . " The unexamined life history , " Socrates replies , " is not deserving living . "
The Socratic method was part of a organization of self - examination that Socrates believed wind to virtue . And the only manner to meliorate was to question everything until you arrived at greater wisdom and therefore bully virtue .
6. Socrates Heeded an Internal ‘Voice’
Socrates was a fierce defender of reason and rationality , but he did n’t fully throw out the supernatural . For one thing , Socrates believed he was telephone by the oracle of Apollo at Delphi to safeguard the souls of all Athenians , making his confrontational conversations in the Agora part of his divine study .
But Socrates also believe he heard adaimonionor interior representative that stopped him from doing certain thing . It was similar to a conscience , but it was n’t limited to chiming in on moral choices .
" You have often hear me speak of an oracle or polarity which amount to me , " says Socrates in Plato ’s " apologia . " " This sign I have had ever since I was a shaver . The sign is a part which comes to me and always nix me to do something which I am function to do , but never commands me to do anything … "
Was Socrates schizophrenic ? Nails does n’t intend so . She points to scholars who say that there was nothing psychological or supernatural going on , but that Socrates would sometimes become intensely focussed on a especial topic and slip into his own intellect .
" That ’s when he would digest for hours and not move , " says Nails . " That ’s when he would block off on the spur of the moment on the street and not continue along with his friends . "
Whether supernatural or not , one of the ground Socrates cites for going along with the tryout in Athens is thathis internal vox did n’t enjoin him not to go . So he knew that the outcome , good or bad , would be for his ultimate benefit .
7. Socrates Died as He Lived, Uncompromising
The mood is Athens was bleak after suffering frustration bySpartain the Peloponnesian Wars , and Athenians were looking for something or someone to blame . Some cogitate that the Supreme Being were raging at Athens for the impiety of its philosophers and sophists . And so , 70 - twelvemonth - previous Socrates , a well - have a go at it philosopher with a passionate young following , was charged with two counts : irreverence toward the Athenian gods , and putrescence of Athenian youth . ( It did n’t help thattwo of his studentshad concisely overthrown the city ’s authorities . )
As mentioned in the first place , Socrates could have debar the tribulation altogether by leave Athens and going into expatriation . But that was n’t his elan , says Nails . Instead , Socrates practice " civic disobedience " in its original meaning .
" This is not electrical resistance . This is not rotation . This is civil noncompliance , " says Nails . " I do what I believe I must do and if there are consequences , I must go for them . "
Socrates say as much in the " apologia , " write as a phonograph recording of his final defense during the trial and sentencing :
Socrates was found guilty and sentenced to die by drinking a poisonous concoction contain poison hemlock , the Athenian method acting of execution . Before go away , hegave net counselto his supporters with a touch of his trademark irony .
" The hour of departure has arrived , and we go our ways — I to die , and you to live . Which is better , God only knows . "
