Chapter 14 Chapter 11 Socrates, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

Socrates is a very difficult subject for historians.With many people it is certain that we know little; with many others it is certain we know a lot; but with Socrates it is impossible to be sure whether we know little or much.Undoubtedly he was a citizen of a middle-class Athenian family who had spent his life in debate and taught philosophy to the youth, but not for money like the wise men.He was indeed tried, sentenced to death, and executed in 399 B.C., at the age of about seventy.He was undoubtedly a well-known figure in Athens, since Aristophanes wrote about him in his plays.But beyond that, we are completely entangled in divergent opinions.Two of his pupils, Xenophon and Plato, both wrote voluminous accounts of him; but their accounts were quite different.And even if the two agree, Burnett has already pointed out that Xenophon plagiarized Plato.Regarding the discrepancies between the two statements, some people believe in Xenophon, while others believe in Plato; and some people do not believe in both versions.I do not risk taking sides in such a dangerous debate, but I will succinctly present the various points of view.

Let's talk about Xenophon first; Xenophon was a soldier, not very enlightened, and his views were generally conservative.Xenophon was distressed that Socrates should be accused of impiety and corrupting the youth; contrary to these, he insisted that Socrates was very pious and had a very beneficial effect on those who were influenced by him .Far from being subversive, his thinking seemed rather dull and mundane.This defense goes too far, because it does not explain why people hate Socrates.Burnett said: ("From Thales to Plato" p. 149) "Xenophon's defense of Socrates is really too successful. Had Socrates been like that, he would never have been executed. "

There was a tendency to think that everything Xenophon said must be true, since he lacked the intelligence to imagine anything that was not true.This is a very unreliable method of argument.When a fool repeats what a wise man says, he will always be inaccurate, because he will inadvertently translate what he hears into a language he understands.I would rather have my words repeated by a philosopher who is my own sworn enemy than by a good friend who does not understand philosophy.We cannot accept Xenophon's words, therefore, if they contain any philosophical difficulties, or if they aim only at proving the thesis that Socrates' torture was unjust.

However, some of Xenophon's memories are very convincing.He tells (and Plato tells) how Socrates was constantly working on the problem of enabling talented men to come to power.Socrates would ask the question: "If I want to repair my shoe, whom should I go to?" Again carpenters, coppersmiths, etc. are mentioned, and finally the question is asked: "Who should repair the ship of the state?" Cletis, who had studied with him and knew his methods, forbade him to continue teaching the youth, and said to him: "Speak no more of your shoemakers, carpenters, and coppersmiths. Mention them, and now you have told them too much" (Xenophon's Memoirs, Vol. 1, Chapter 2).This happened when the Spartans established a short-lived oligarchic government after the Peloponnesian War.But Athens was a democracy for most of the period, so democratic that even the generals had to be elected or drawn by lot.Socrates once met a young man who wanted to be a general, and Socrates advised him to learn some war techniques.The young man then went out to learn some simple tactics courses.After he came back, Socrates praised him with sarcasm, and then sent him to continue his studies (Ibid., Volume 3, Chapter 1).Socrates sent another young man to learn how to manage money.He did this with many people, including the Secretary of Defense; but it was finally decided that it would be easier to silence him by poisoning him than to atone for the crimes he accused.

As for Plato's account of Socrates, poverty is quite different from that of Xenophon; that is, it is difficult to judge to what extent Plato intended to describe the historical Socrates, whereas he To what extent does the man named Socrates in his dialogues serve only as a mouthpiece for his own opinions.In addition to being a philosopher, Plato was also a writer of great genius, charm and imagination.No one, not even Plato himself, would have imagined that the conversations in his Dialogues actually took place as he recorded them.But in any case, in the early dialogue, the conversation is very natural, and the characters are very convincing.It is precisely because of the excellence of Plato as a novelist that people have to doubt Plato as a historian.His Socrates is a consistent and extremely interesting character, a character far beyond what most people can create; but I think Plato could. be able to create him.Whether he actually created Socrates is, of course, another question.

A piece of dialogue that is generally considered historically authentic is the Apology.This piece is said to be Socrates' own defense when he was tried-of course, it is not a shorthand record, but something preserved in Plato's memory a few years later, which was collected by him and passed through literary and artistic research. processing.Plato was present at the trial, and it seems clear that what he recorded was what he remembered Socrates saying, and his intention in general was to try to be historical.This dialogue, with all its limitations, is sufficient to give a fairly precise picture of Socrates' character.

The main facts of Socrates' trial are indisputable.The charge on which the verdict was based was: "Socrates was an evildoer, a strange man who spied into things in heaven and earth; said bad things to be good, and taught others with all of them." His real reason—almost certainly—was that he was supposed to be in league with the aristocracy; the majority of his pupils belonged to the aristocracy, and a few of them in power had proved to be extremely harmful.However, because of the amnesty, this reason cannot be raised publicly.He was found guilty by the majority of the court, at which point, according to Athenian law, he could demand some lesser punishment than death.If judges find the defendant guilty, they must choose between the verdict of the sentence and the punishment demanded by the defendant.It would, therefore, be to Socrates' advantage to propose a punishment of such severity that the court thought fit and acceptable.Instead, he offered a fine of thirty mini, which several of his friends, including Plato, were willing to vouch for him.This punishment was so light that the court, outraged, sentenced him to death by a greater majority than had been found guilty.He undoubtedly foresaw this outcome.Apparently he didn't want to avoid the death penalty by making what appeared to be an admission of guilt.Among the censors were Anytus, a democratic politician; Meridus, a tragic poet "young and unknown, with long thin hair, a thin beard, and an aquiline nose"; and Li Kang , an unknown rhetorician (see Burnett's "From Thales to Plato", p. 180).They insisted that Socrates had committed the crime of disrespecting the gods of the nation and preaching other new gods, and teaching and corrupting the youth in this way.

Before we bother ourselves with the insoluble problem of the deceitful relation of Plato's Socrates to the real Socrates, let us see how Plato makes Socrates answer the charge.Socrates begins by accusing his censor of pretentiousness, and refutes the accusation of his own pretentiousness.He said the only eloquence he had was that of truth.And they need not be angry with him if he speaks in the manner to which he is accustomed, and not in "a well-crafted speech."He was well past seventy, and had never been in court; therefore, they must excuse him for speaking out of court. He went on to say that in addition to the formal prosecutors, he had a host of informal prosecutors who, from the time the judges were children, went around "proclaiming that there was a Socrates, who was a A wise person, who thinks about the heavens and explores the things under the earth, and calls the bad things good." He said that people think that such a person does not believe in the existence of God.Such stereotyped accusations from public opinion are far more dangerous than formal judgments, especially since he knows no one but Aristophanes from whom they come.In answering the grounds for this stereotyped hatred against him, he pointed out that he himself was not a scientist—"I have nothing to do with the study of physics"—and that he was not a teacher, and he did not earn money by teaching.He then ridiculed the wise men, denying that the wise men had the knowledge they boasted.Then, "What is the reason why I am called wise and bear such a bad name?"

The thing is that once someone asked the altar of Delphi whether there was anyone wiser than Socrates; the altar of Delphi replied that there was no one else.Socrates admits that he is utterly bewildered, because he knows nothing, and gods cannot lie.So he went around calling on men known for their wisdom to see if he could prove that God had erred.First he went to consult a statesman who "was considered wise by many, but he thought himself wiser." Socrates soon discovered that this man was not wise, and Explained this to him kindly but firmly; "But it turned out he hated me".Socrates then went to the poets and asked them to explain the various chapters of their works, but they were unable to do so. "So I know that poets do not write poems with wisdom, but with a kind of genius and inspiration."So he went to the artisans for advice, but found them equally disappointing.He said he made many sworn enemies along the way.Finally he concluded: "Only God is wise; His answer is to indicate that human wisdom is of little or no value; God is not talking about Socrates, He is only using my name. As an illustration, it is as if to say: O people! The only wisest man is he who knows, like Socrates, that his wisdom is really worthless'.This exposing of the professed wise man consumed all his time and reduced him to extreme poverty, but he felt it a duty to bear witness to the oracle.

The youth of the rich classes, he said, had nothing to do but hear him expose others, and went on to do the same; and this increased the number of his enemies. "Because they don't like to admit that their professed knowledge has been debunked." These are the cases of the first category of prosecutors. Socrates then went on to question his censor, Meridus, who claimed to be a good man and a true patriot.Socrates asks who is the one who improves the youth.Meridus at first proposed to be the judge; then, under increasing pressure, it was obliged to say that every Athenian except Socrates was a man who improved the youth; and Socrates congratulated the city of Athens on its good fortune. .Next, he points out that it is better to be with good people than with bad ones; therefore, he can never be so stupid as to intentionally corrupt his fellow man; Teach him, not accuse him.

The indictment says that Socrates not only denies the gods of the state, but preaches his own; yet Meridus says that Socrates is a complete atheist, and says: "He says the sun is stone and the moon is earth." .Socrates replied, Merit probably thought he was accusing Anaxagoras, and Anaxagoras' opinions could be heard in the theater for a drachma Lippidian plays).Socrates, of course, points out that the new indictment of radical atheism is contradicted by the indictment, and then he moves on to more general arguments. The tone of the rest of the Apology is predominantly religious.He had been a soldier, and had followed orders to uphold his duties.Now "God commands me to fulfill the mission of a philosopher to investigate himself and others," and to abandon other duties now would be as shameful as to abandon them in battle.To be afraid of death is not wisdom, because no one knows whether death would be a better thing.If he were allowed to live on the condition that he would not go on with the kind of thinking he had been doing, he would answer: "O Athenians! I respect and love you, but I will obey God and not you; and As long as I have life and strength, I will never cease to practice and teach philosophy, and to exhort everyone I meet.  … For I know it is God's command; Nothing has ever happened better than my service to God."He continued: I have some things to say, and you will cry at them; but I believe it will do you good to hear me, so I beseech you not to cry.I want you to know that if you kill a man like me, you do yourselves more harm than you do me.Nothing can hurt me, neither Meridus nor Anitus-neither can, for a bad man is not allowed to hurt a better than himself.I do not deny that Anitus might have killed me, or exiled me, or deprived me of my civil rights; and he could have imagined, and others could have imagined, that he had done me great harm: but I disagree. This kind of thinking.For the crime of an act like his—the crime of unjustly taking another's life—is a much greater sin. He said he pleaded for the sake of his judges and not for himself.He was a gadfly sent by God into this country, and it was not easy to find another like him. "I dare say you will be irritated (like one who is suddenly awakened from sleep), and you think you can kill me as easily as Anytus suggests, and then you will be safe to live the rest of your days, unless God takes care of you and sends you another gadfly." Why is he talking in private instead of advising on public affairs? "You have at many times and in various places heard me say that an oracle or spirit came to me, the same god that the Meritus indictment mocked. The spirit was a voice, and at first it came For me, when I was a child; it always forbade me, but never ordered me, to do whatever I was going to do. It was also what kept me from being a politician.”He went on to say that no honest man in politics can live long.He gives two examples of his own unavoidable involvement in public affairs: the first, when he rebelled against democracy; .He pointed out that many of those present were his former students and the fathers and brothers of his students, and the indictment fails to mention that any of these people could testify that he corrupted youth The only argument that can be admitted in the "Book").He refused to follow the custom, and softened the hearts of the judges by bringing his weeping children to court; he said the sight would make the defendant as ridiculous as the whole city.His job is to persuade the judges, not to ask their mercy. After the sentence was pronounced and rejected the other possible punishment of thirty miniae (for which Socrates had named Plato as one of his guarantors, and Plato was present at the court), Socrates made his last speech. And now, you who have condemned me, I would like to prophesy to you; for I am about to die, and when one is dying a man is endowed with the power of prophecy.Therefore I will prophesy to you, my murderers, that immediately after my death a much greater punishment awaits you than you have inflicted on me. . . . If you think you can prevent others from condemning your life of crime by killing, you are mistaken; that is an escape that is both impossible and dishonorable, and the easiest and noblest way is not Let others speak, but correct yourselves. Then he turned to the judges who had voted for his release, and told them that in all that he had done that day his oracle had not opposed him, though on other occasions his oracle had frequently interrupted him Speaker.It was, he said, "a foreshadowing that what happened to me was a good thing and that those of us who think death is a bad thing are wrong."For death is either a dreamless sleep--which is obviously very good--or the emigration of the soul into another world.And "if a man can talk to Orpheus, and Musos, and Hesiod, and Homer, what is he not willing to give up? If so, let me die Die again!" In another world, he could talk to other people who had died of injustice, and above all he could continue his quest for knowledge. "In another world, people don't kill a man for asking a question, absolutely not. And besides being happier than us, they'll never die, if all that's said about it Really."... "The hour of parting has come. Let us go our separate ways—I will die, and you will live. Which one is better, only God knows." The Apology paints a clear picture of a certain type of man: A very self-confident person, with a high mind who does not care about worldly success or failure, believes that he is guided by a divine voice, and is convinced that clear thinking is the most important condition for a right life.Except for this last point, he was very much like a Christian martyr or a Puritan.It is impossible not to feel, from his last passage on what happens after death, that he firmly believed in the immortality of the soul; and that the uncertainty he expressed was merely a supposition.He is not troubled, like the Christian, by the fear of eternal suffering: he has no doubt that his life in the other world will be a happy one.In the "Phaedo", Plato's Socrates also put forward reasons for believing in the immortality of the soul; whether these are the reasons that have influenced the historical Socrates, it is impossible to be sure. There seems to be no doubt that the historical Socrates did claim to be guided by an oracle or daimon.Whether that was what Christians call the voice of conscience, or whether it was a real voice for Socrates, we have no way of knowing.Joan of Arc was inspired by voices, a common form of insanity.Socrates may have suffered from an epileptic coma, which seems at least a natural explanation for what happened to him once during his military service: One morning Socrates was thinking about something he couldn't solve; he was unwilling to let go of it, so he kept going from morning to noon,—he stood there motionless thinking; At noon, people noticed that others were coming, and people coming and going said that Socrates had been standing here thinking about things since dawn.At last, when it was dark after supper, some Ionians, out of curiosity (I should say that this happened not in winter but in summer), brought their bedding, and slept in the open air, that It is to guard Socrates to see if he will stand all night.Here he stood until the next morning; at dawn he said his prayers to the sun, and then went away. ("The Banquet", 220) This situation, to a lesser extent, is often the case with Socrates. "The Banquet" said at the beginning that Socrates and Aristotle went to the banquet together, but Socrates fell behind after a while.When Aristodemus arrived, the master Agathon asked: "What did you do to Socrates?" Aristotle was shocked and found that Socrates was not with him; They sent a slave to find Socrates, and found him standing under a neighbor's portico.The slave came back and said, "He stood there dumbfounded, and when I called him, he didn't move at all."Those who knew Socrates explained: "He has this habit of standing down at any time and anywhere, and being distracted for no reason." So they didn't ask Socrates any more, and when the banquet was half over, Socrates Only then came in. Everyone agrees that Socrates is ugly; he has a flat nose and a big belly; he is uglier than "every Silenus in Satyr's farce" (Xenophon, The Banquet) .He always wears ragged old clothes and walks around barefoot.His disregard of cold and heat, hunger and thirst surprised everyone.Alcibiadis described Socrates' military service in "The Banquet" and said: Our supply was cut off, so we had to march on empty stomachs. At this time, Socrates' persistence was really remarkable ,—in such situations as often occur in war, he was superior not only to me, but to all: no one could compare with him. ... His perseverance to endure the cold is also amazing.Once there was a severe frost,--for the winters in that part of the world are terribly cold--and all the others either hid in the house, or wore a terrible amount of clothes, wrapped themselves up tightly, and wrapped their feet in felt At this time, only Socrates was standing barefoot on the ice, wearing ordinary clothes, but he walked better than other soldiers with shoes; they all looked sideways at Socrates, because he seemed to be walking despise them. His mastery over the lusts of the flesh is often emphasized.He seldom drank, but when he did he drank everybody; no one ever saw him drunk.In love, even under the strongest temptations, he remains "Platonic"; if what Plato says is true.He is a perfect Orphic saint; in the opposition between the soul in heaven and the body on earth, he has achieved the complete control of the soul over the body.His indifference to death at the last moment is the final proof of this mastery.But at the same time, he was not an orthodox Orphist; what he accepted was only basic teachings, not superstition and purification rituals. Plato's Socrates anticipated the Stoics and Cynics.The Stoics held that the highest good was virtue, which a man could not be deprived of by external causes; this doctrine was implicit in Socrates' argument that his judges could not harm him.The Cynics despise the goods of the world, and this contempt is expressed in their flight from the comforts of civilization; it is from the same point of view that Socrates can live barefoot and in rags. It seems certain that Socrates' chief concerns were ethical rather than scientific.We have already seen that he said in the "Apology", "I have nothing to do with the exploration of physics."Some of Plato's earliest dialogues are recognized as being recent to Socrates, and these dialogues are mainly engaged in discussing the definition of ethical terms. The "Shamides" talks about temperance and the definition of moderation; the "Lisis" talks about friendship, and the "Rashis" talks about bravery.In all of these dialogues, no conclusions are reached, but Socrates makes it clear that he thinks it is important to explore these issues.Plato's Socrates consistently insists that he knows nothing, and that he is wiser than others only because he knows he knows nothing; but he does not think that knowledge is unattainable.On the contrary, he believes that the pursuit of knowledge is of great importance.No one, he insists, knowingly and willfully sins, and therefore knowledge is all that is necessary for the perfection of virtue in all. This close connection between virtue and knowledge is characteristic of both Socrates and Plato.It is also to some extent present in all Greek thought, as opposed to Christian thought.Purity of heart is essential in Christian ethics, and is to be found at least equally among the ignorant and the learned.This distinction between Greek ethics and Christian ethics persists to this day. Dialectics, that is, the method of seeking knowledge by question and answer, was not invented by Socrates.The dialectic seems to have been first used systematically by Zeno, the disciple of Parmenides; in the Parmenides of Plato's dialogues, Zeno deals with Socrates in this way, as Plato elsewhere says Socrates treated others in this way.But we have every reason to suppose that Socrates used and developed this method.We have seen that when Socrates was condemned to death, he entertained the thought that in another world he could continue to ask questions forever, and that it would be impossible to be executed again, because he would be immortal.Of course, if he used dialectics in the way described in the Apology, the hostility towards him would be easily explained: all the wives of Athens would unite against him. The dialectical approach is applicable only to some problems and not to others.Perhaps this helps us to characterize Plato's studies, since most of his studies consist of things that can be treated in this way.And through Plato's influence, most subsequent philosophers have been bound by the limitations imposed by his approach. Certain things are clearly not amenable to being dealt with in this way—empirical science, for example.It is true that Galileo used dialogues to promote his theories, but only to overcome people's prejudices—the positive reasons for his discoveries could not be inserted into dialogues without great affectation.In Plato, Socrates always seems to be merely eliciting knowledge already possessed by the interrogated; for this reason he compares himself to a midwife.But when he applied this method to problems of geometry in the Phaedo and Meno, he had to ask leading questions which no judge would allow.This method is compatible with the theory of reminiscence, because according to reminiscence we learn only by remembering what we already knew in previous lives.But contrary to this view, let us consider any discovery made by the microscope; for example, bacteria transmit disease, and it is difficult to think that this kind of knowledge can be obtained from an original by the method of question and answer. Inferred from people who know nothing about it. The Socratic method applies to those things about which we already know enough to arrive at correct conclusions, but because our confusion or lack of analysis prevents us from making the most of what we know. Good use of logic.Such a question as "what is justice" is obviously suitable for discussion in a Platonic dialogue.We all use the words "just" or "unjust" at will, and by examining the manner in which we use them we may arrive at the definition which best corresponds to custom.All that is needed here is knowledge of how the words in the question should be used.But when our inquiry has come to a conclusion, what we have made is only a linguistic discovery, not an ethical one. However, we can also very well apply the method to a somewhat wider class of situations.Discussion is a good way of discovering truth whenever matters of logic rather than fact are at issue.For example, if someone says that democracy is good, but that anyone with a certain opinion should not be allowed to vote; then we can conclude that the person is inconsistent, and we can show him that either of his two statements At least one must be more or less wrong.Logical errors, I think, are of greater practical importance than many people think; they enable the perpetrator to adopt on each subject in turn a view which is comfortable to him.There must be parts of any logically coherent doctrine that are painful and contrary to popular stereotypes.The dialectical method—or, more broadly, the habit of debating without restraint—helps to promote logical coherence, and is therefore useful in this respect.But when the purpose is to discover new facts, this method is completely infeasible.Perhaps we can define "philosophy" as the sum total of all investigations that can be pursued using Plato's method.But if this definition is sound, it is because of Plato's influence on later philosophers.