Lecture
Who is Socrates?
There is no historical doubt that Socrates
was a real actual person who lived in Athens from 470 to 399 BC, and
who was a well known character in town. Tradition has it that in his
youth he worked as a stonecutter, did some stone sculpting, and even
had a showing of his sculptures at one point. He eventually married
a young woman, Xanthippe, who tradition tells us had had quite a reputation
for shrewishness even from her early childhood (poor Xanthippe has gotten
such bad press from tradition). They had at least two children, sons,
one of whom (according to Plato's Phaedo) was young enough to
be "on his mother's knee" when Socrates was in jail at age
69 or 70.
Mini-lecture topics:
A
note on pronunciation of Greek names
Sources of information about Socrates
We have even today some pretty reliable sources
of information about Socrates, descriptions of him written by people who
knew him personally and were friends with him. These written descriptions
still survive today, so we can read directly about what Socrates was like,
or at least what he seemed to be like in the eyes of these friends.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, these three friends -- Aristophanes,
Xenophon and Plato -- do not all describe Socrates the same way, so you
may find yourself wondering what Socrates was "really" like.
A book entitled The Socratic Enigma (the author's name escapes me right
now) is a good source if you want to follow up on this question.
At any rate, the three sources of information about Socrates are:
a.) Xenophon,a renowned Athenian general, under whose leadership Socrates fought in
some battles, admired Socrates quite a lot. Xenophon wrote several "remembrances" of Socrates, usually translated
as The Memorabilia, in which he described events in which Socrates
was a participant. In Xenophon's descriptions, Socrates comes off as a
tough and courageous soldier who is fearless in the face of battle and
who is happy to face danger to save his friends, i.e., just the sort of
man that a general would admire. He also appears to be a man who cares
little about the niceties of physical comfort or discomfort, who can go
days without eating, and who goes barefoot in both summer and winter,
even on snow and ice when other men have the good sense to wear heavy
wraps around their feet. Xenophon also describes Socrates as a man who
can drink more than any of his companions and yet never show any signs
of being drunk. (Xenophon seems impressed by this.)
b.) Aristophanes,
one of the four Greek playwrights whose works still survive today - the
others are Aeschylos, Sophocles and Euripides - was friends for a time
with Socrates. One of Aristophanes' comic plays, The Clouds,
includes a character whose name is Socrates and who seems to clearly be
a depiction of the real Socrates. This character is portrayed as a buffoon
and a fool. In The Clouds, Socrates is portrayed as the headmaster
of a school called the "Phrontisterion," or "School for
False Logic." He promises to teach his students how to become so
proficient in the art of arguing that they will be able to make any argument
win. They will be able, he promises, to argue for any position on any
subject and make that position prevail (something that some Athenians
believed Socrates did all the time, and something that some people think
law schools still teach today). This headmaster had a large basket in
the front of his classroom that was attached to the ceiling with ropes
and pulleys so that he could climb into the basket and pull himself up
to the ceiling and lecture from that higher position. He believed that
this made his students look up to him, and made his lectures more elevated.
Socrates is depicted in this play as a person
who wanders around with his mind up in the clouds, looking up into the
heavens and thinking about all sorts of philosophical things, but then
accidentally stumbles and falls into a ditch. At another point he is depicted
as standing just outside a house one evening, under the eves, looking
up at the stars and again thinking philosophical thoughts, when a little
lizard wanders out to the edge of the roof, lifts its leg, and urinates
all over Socrates.
These were not flattering depictions of the person that every Athenian
knew in real life, but Socrates seems to have enjoyed them as much as
anyone. Legend has it that whenever these plays were being presented to
an Athenian audience, and when everyone was laughing at one of the foolish
antics of the Socrates character on stage, that the real life Socrates
would stand up in the audience, smile, and bow graciously to everyone
in attendance.
c.) The third source of information we have about Socrates the
person is Plato. Plato met Socrates when he (Plato) was in his
teens. Prior to meeting Socrates, Plato had aspired to being a playwright,
perhaps the most highly respected profession in Athens, but after meeting
Socrates he determined to devote his life to the search for wisdom. He
says that he "caught fire" with the love of wisdom from being
around Socrates who was so much in love with wisdom that it was contagious.
When Socrates was engaged in these conversations
that you'll be studying, for example the conversation with Euthyphro,
Socrates and Euthyphro were not the only ones there. They were almost
certainly surrounded by a little following of upper class Athenian males
who very much enjoyed watching Socrates dialog with the great and respected
men in the city. They probably also enjoyed watching Socrates get the
better of these men in the conversation. (Could this have been part of
what the Athenians meant when they charged Socrates with "corrupting
the youth?")
In any case, Plato was one of those young men who followed Socrates around
and listened in on these conversations. Later, after Socrates had been
put to death by the Athenians, Plato recalled many of these conversations
and recorded them for all of Athens, and all of posterity, to read.
Plato's depiction of Socrates is as a person who is profoundly wise, a
person who has understood planes of reality far higher than what is understood
by most people. He is depicted as one who has been outside the cave and
who is no longer imprisoned by the illusions of the ordinary world. He
is depicted as a skilled communicator who can ask people to question and
examine even their most cherished assumptions.
These three depictions of Socrates are all
quite different, of course. You may find yourself wondering which of the
characterizations of Socrates was more accurate, and which were less accurate.
Aristophanes the comic playwright may not have been intending to render
an accurate, true picture of what Socrates was really like. Xenophon may
have been trying to do that, but Xenophon may have not himself had the
capacity to understand the full depth of who Socrates was. An old mediaeval
scholastic axiom says (in Latin): Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis
recipitur - "Whatever is received is received according to the mode
of the receiver." This means that whatever you perceive is likely
to be shaped more by who you are than by the characteristics of what you
are perceiving. When one reads Xenophon's accounts of Socrates, you are
left with the impression of a person whom a military general would probably
like. On the other hand, Xenophon may not have had the capacity to see
all the depths that were in Socrates.
Plato's depictions of Socrates are not so
simple. In the cluster of short dialogues that Plato wrote within a few
years after Socrates' death (including some of the dialogues you're reading
this quarter: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, and others), Socrates
is not depicted in quite the same way as in the dialogues that Plato writes
in his later years (such as The Phaedrus, The Symposium, The Republic,
and so on). The characterizations of Socrates in The Republic and
other later dialogues are of a much richer and deeper person than those
in the earlier dialogues. Was this because Plato was embellishing, or
was it because in his more mature years he was able to see depths in Socrates
that he had not been able to see in his earlier years?
Socratic method
In Plato's characterizations of Socrates we
see a person communicating often in a certain manner, a manner that has
sometimes been termed "the Socratic method." This method can
be fairly said to include at least the four following themes:
- It involves one-on-one conversation, not
lectures to a group.
- It involves Socrates asking lots of questions.
- It seems to involve a certain amount of
irony and even sarcasm sometimes.
- It seems to involve "indirect communication."
For a bit fuller description of these elements,
click here
For Socrates' description of himself
as midwife, click here.
Indirect communication
a la Soren Kierkegaard
For a full description of what Kierkegaard
means by indirect communication, click
here