Socrates (469/68 - 400/399 B.C.)

Life and Personality

Socrates was born in Athens as a son of Sophronicus who was supposed to be a stone mason, while his mother Phénarété was a midwife according to Plato's Theaetetus. In stead of succeeding his father's trade, Socrates became a philosopher. Socrates, being extremely philosophically inclined, i.e., he was deeply in search of wisdom (love of wisdom = philo-sophia) throughout his entire life. According to Plato, Socrates thought that he inherited his mother's profession of midwifery and he thought that the philosopher could be only a midwife for wisdom. For, as according to Socrates, philosophy, Love of Wisdom, cannot equip the philosopher with knowledge or wisdom, nor the philosopher can teach his students by providing them with wisdom and knowledge, as philosophy is the pursuit of knowledge which is only possible by being aware of one's lack of knowledge and wisdom. Thus, Socrates characterized the role of a philosopher as the midwife of wisdom and knowledge, namely the philosopher can only help the youth and others assisting them to have their own philosophy born and develop, and not impart any knowledge or skills to others like in the other scientific disciplines or arts.

Socrates must have come from a rather well-to-do family because he served as a fully armed hoplite, and he must have been left sufficient inheritance to enable him to serve in the military. Socrates indulged himself in philosophical inquiry.

Socrates, unlike other philosophers, did not leave even a single book.

The sources of Socrates' image and accomplishments are 1) Plato, a great philosopher and Socrates' student, 2) Xenophon, a famous Athenian historian, and 3) Aristophanes, a famous Athenian comedy playwright.

The overwhelming majority of information about Socrates, particularly in regard to his accomplishments as a philosopher, came from Plato's early Dialogues. It is generally believed that the Socrates portrayed in Plato's early dialogues was a very accurate reproduction of the real Socrates himself, for at that time, people who read those Dialogues by Plato knew Socrates very well and they could even point out that some of Plato's descriptions of Socrates were incorrect. So we can assume that the picture we have through Plato's early Dialogues are of accuracy (concerning the groupings of Plato's Dialogues will de discussed more in detail in Plato's Section).

Why didn't Socrates write? It is probably because he had to be very busy with doing philosophy rather than writing it. In stead of claiming to be a teacher, Socrates exercised a decided influence on the further development of the Western philosophy by means of his way of life and his personality.

What kind of person was Socrates? What kind of character had he?.

Socrates' physical features were not very attractive with his snob-nose, the bald-head and chubbiness as a big belly was sticking out. Aristophanes in his "Clouds" described that Socrates strutted like a waterfowl and ridiculed his habit of rolling his eyes. He always wore old, washed out clothes, although they were clean. Socrates had a habit of going bare foot whether it was the military campaign or in the winter. Socrates never travelled outside Athens except leaving it for military duties and loved this city state.

According to Plato's Symposium, for example, being drunk, Alcibiades, a former Socrates follower and the leader of the anti-democratic army coup d'etat, described Socrates was extremely attractive not because of his physical appearance, but for his spirit.

When Alcibiades was a beautiful young boy, he was, thus, passionately in love with Socrates and attempted very hard to seduce Socrates with all his charms in vain. According to Alcibiades, Socrates was so unique and incomparable, while even the excellent politician and competent general Rasides may be compared to Achilles in Homer, and Pericles may be "equated" to Nester.

Both Xenophon wrote Memorabilia de Socrates and Plato wrote Apology (Defense), we know quite well how he was formally tried and sentenced to death penalty. In some sceneries before his death, Socrates was well portrayed in Plato's Crito. Plato was careful enough to mention at the prologue that Plato was absent from Socrates' death scene.

Since Socrates died in 399 B.C. which we know for certain, and since he said that he was sixty years old at that time of the trial, we gather from these two facts that Socrates was born in 461/460 B..C.

Philosophy

Besides his intellectual and personal charm, Socrates possessed an unusual "spiritual revelation" (daimonion sémeinon). For example, on his way to Agathon's house for the celebration of the victory of his speech in Plato's Symposium, Socrates was described that he suddenly stopped to walk, fell in a deep thought for hours and not answering even if others tired to talk to him. Socrates had thus a unique ability of spiritual concentration. Once he fell in this pensive concentration, Socrates had a habit of losing contact with his surrounding world. An episode about this was quite famous, as Socrates, standing at a military post, started thinking of something in the morning and continued thinking until next morning, when Socrates as a soldier went out to Potidaia.

It was also reported that Socrates had a special spiritual power. Socrates often dreamed a premonitional dream and was able to make divination. Thus Socrates usually believed in what he dreamed of. It was reported that Socrates often became self-ecstatic: When Crito asked Socrates, in Plato's Crito, if he had to drink the hemlock tomorrow, Socrates replied that his dream told him that it would be the day after tomorrow. That became true because the return of the ships delayed. Also while Socrates was imprisoned, he dreamed of being told to do "mousiké," but he thought first philosophy was the greatest mousiké, then later he reconsidered the meaning of the dream and wrote a poem.

To dream of something and act upon it with belief in it was nothing but the so-called to receive and have faith in "daimonion sémainon." This phenomenon, according to Socrates in Apology, occurred already when he was a small child, whenever he tried or intended to do something wrong, the voice of demon or spirit told him not to do so and never said what he should do. This voice of daimonion (spirit) intercepts something even trivial according to Socrates. For example, at the gymnastic hall, Socrates talked to a youth and finished the discussion and wanted to go home, then he heard the voice of Demon not to go home. While he was waiting there, a friend came by accidentally, whom he had not seen and wanted to see for a long time.

Thus, we may say that, on the one hand, Socrates possessed a mystical, non-rational character. On the other hand, Socrates apparently did not make out of this voice of Demon a religion and was quite "scientific" and "rationalistic" in personality and his pursuit of knowledge. Strangely the both elements were harmonized and well synthesized in him.

The best example may be found in his interpretation of and search for the meaning of the oracle of Delphi stated in Apology. Socrates' friend Chaerephon went to the Shrine of Delphi (= the Shrine of Apollo) and asked the priestesses if there were anyone else wiser than Socrates. The answer was "No!"

On the one hand, Socrates, without questioning, believed in this oracle. This attitude reveals his religious faith or his belief in the supernatural (from a narrow rationalistic point of view).

On the other hand, Socrates acted very rationally and attempted very hard to confirm this oracle by questioning the politicians, the wise men (=sophists), the poets, the craftsmen, whereby Socrates came to the conclusion that the wisdom which is allowed to the human beings (= the knowledge that we know that we don't know) means so minimal in comparison to the divine wisdom, which Apollo wanted Socrates to demonstrate.

Here we see in Socrates the synthesis of his non-rational, mystical character of believing in the oracle and the voice of Demon and yet attempted to rationally and philosophically search for and confirm the truth of the oracle.

Although the formal accusation of Meletus, Anytus and Lycon was that Socrates corrupted the Athenian youth and did not believe in the gods that Athens as the polis did believe in, the real motive of the democratic politicians to try Socrates was to be found entirely somewhere else.

Socrates was closely associated with the politicians of the Oligarchy (the thirty). He was a good friend of Critias for example, who was the leader of the oligarchic thirty. Socrates was also a good friend of Alcibiades who became the enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C. ), the prolonged difficult war between the Greek powers, Sparta and Athens. After the Peloponnesian War, those aristocratic politicians whom Socrates was associated with lost the power due to the democratic coup d'etat taken place in 404 B.C. This coup d'etat was supported by Sparta (the enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War) and was lead by Anytos (one of Socrates' accusers) and Thrasyboulos. Among the Spartan politicians, there were opposing two opinions about how to rule the post-coup d'etat Athens and about the fates of those aristocratic ruling politicians. And yet the overwhelming majority of the people in Sparta were of the opinion that those oligarchic thirty were to be given their amnesty after the success of the democratic coup d'etat.. They imposed the condition of amnesty to the Athenian Oligarchic aristocrats for supporting the Democrats of Athens, once the coup d'etat was successful.

Although Critias died at the coup d'etat, the thirty and their associates could not be prosecuted by the new Democratic government due to this amnesty agreement with Sparta (the backer of the coup).Those Democrats were afraid that Socrates was very influential among those aristocratic politicians and that his critical spirit to speak out the truth would be highly detrimental to the newly established, still shaky Democratic government. The Democrats thus could not prosecute Socrates for the political reason as he was also covered by that amnesty. Therefore, they chose a radical fanatic poet, called Meletus, as the main accuser of Socrates with the above mentioned formal accusation. One of the difficulties of Socrates' defense consisted in this historical political background. It was certain that those who supported the accusation of Socrates were fully politically motivated, i.e., they were the Democratic government supporters.

We need to look into Plato's Apology more closely in order to understand Socrates as a man and a philosopher in his mature period.