Defense of Socrates
Memoirs of Socrates
Symposium
Oikonomikos
Cyropaedia
Hiero
Ways and Means
Alcibiades
Charmides
Protagoras
Laches
Lysis
Menexenus
Hippias
Euthydemus
Meno
Gorgias
Phaedrus
Symposium
Euthyphro
Defense of Socrates
Crito
Phaedo
Seventh Letter
Timaeus
Critias
Theaetetus
Sophist
Politician
Philebus
Laws
In the fifth century BC the Pythagorean
school continued,
and Parmenides in Elea contributed to metaphysics.
Zeno also of Elea let his mind trap himself into thinking
one
could never get somewhere, because by going half-way
there each
time one would get closer but never arrive.
Of course if one continually
goes halfway,
one will never get there; to get there one must
go all the way.
However, Antisthenes credited Zeno with courageously
challenging a tyrant by informing on the tyrant's friends.
When
interrogated by the tyrant, the only one he would
implicate was
the cursed tyrant himself.
Zeno accused the bystanders of cowardice
for not enduring what he was suffering.
Finally he bit off his
tongue and spit it at the tyrant
before he was beaten to death
in a mortar.
This affected the citizens so strongly that
they
later stoned the tyrant to death.
Melissus of Samos as a general
defeated Athenians
led by Pericles in a naval battle in 441 BC;
but his transcendental logic brilliantly pointed out that
the
infinite must be one, because if it were two,
the two would limit
each other and not be infinite.
Empedocles of Acragas wrote two poems, On Nature and
Purifications, about the middle of the fifth century BC.
He saw the universe as shifting between Love and Strife
and composed
of the elements of fire, air, water, and earth.
With Love comes
concord and joy.
Aristotle interpreted Love as the cause of
good
and Strife as the cause of bad.
Aristotle also said that he had
been a champion of freedom
and was averse to all rules.
Others
said that Empedocles declined the kingship
offered to him, because
he preferred to live frugally.
When a tyrant insisted that all
the guests drink wine
or have it poured over their heads, Empedocles
the next day
accused the host and master of revels;
this led to
their condemnation and execution.
Thus began his political career;
it was argued that
he must have been both wealthy and democratic,
because he broke up the assembly of a thousand
three years after
it was set up.
Late in his life the descendants of his enemies
opposed
his return to Agrigentum;
so he went to the Peloponnesus,
where he died.
As Pindar, in one of his many poems praising athletes,
his
second Olympian ode, saw a return to a heavenly kingdom
so too
did Empedocles describe
the soul that realizes its divinity.
Empedocles
gained renown for reviving a woman
who had been unconscious for
thirty days.
Empedocles asked humanity,
"Won't you stop ill-sounding
bloodshed?
Don't you see that you are
destroying each other in
careless folly?"1
He saw foolish fathers sacrificing their
sons
and children their parents.
He wished he had died before
he began eating flesh.
Poetically he described how by an oracle
of Necessity,
anciently decreed by the eternal gods,
a demi-god
with long life, who has defiled his hands
with bloodshed and strife
or a false oath,
must wander for thousands of seasons far from
the blessed,
being born through time in many mortal forms in
one
deadly life after another, pushed on by all the elements.
Such
a fugitive from the gods who had trusted strife
did Empedocles
claim himself to be.
After many different lives such souls eventually
come
to earth as prophets, poets, healers, and princes
to share
with other immortals.
Empedocles wrote that after much wandering
he now
went among the people as an immortal god honored
and revered
for his wisdom and healing powers.
Leucippus founded the atom theory of natural philosophy
refined
by Democritus, who also taught that the cheerful person
eager
for justice and right actions is strong and free of care,
while
those who do not care about justice and right
find everything
joyless and in memory are afraid
and reproach themselves.
Happiness,
said Democritus, is not found in gold or cattle
but in the soul.
For Democritus the goal of action is tranquillity,
which is not
the same as pleasure but a state of well-being
in which the soul
is calm, strong and undisturbed by
fear, superstition, and other
feelings.
Protagoras, the greatest of the sophists, studied with
Democritus
and lived 481-411 BC.
He is famous for the statement,
"The
person is the measure of all things."2
He was the first to
charge a fee for his lessons and the first
to define the tenses
and moods of verbs.
He instituted debates and taught the art of
arguing,
including verbal quibbling.
In one of his books he stated
that he did not know
whether the gods existed or not;
for this
he was expelled from Athens,
and his books were burned in the
marketplace.
Socrates was born in 469 BC in Athens
and was the son of a stone-mason and a midwife.
It was said that he did stone-work
on the draped figures of the
Graces on the Acropolis that was
commissioned by Pericles.
One account says that Crito took him
out of a workshop
to educate him because of the beauty of his
soul.
Socrates admired the theory of Anaxagoras that the
mind
is infinite, self-ruled, and unmixed with anything but itself,
controlling and causing all things.
However, when he studied with
Anaxagoras, he found that
he introduced many physical causes
into
his explanations of nature.
Such ideas challenged prevailing religious
beliefs in Athens,
and Anaxagoras was condemned to death;
but
his friend Pericles got him out of prison.
Socrates then became
a student of Archelaus,
who was said to have begun the speculation
on
ethical questions of law, justice, and goodness;
Socrates improved
on this so much that he was considered
by Greeks the inventor
of ethics.
Some said that Socrates helped Euripides
write his plays.
Socrates fought as a hoplite at Potidaea in 432 BC
and handed
over his prize for valor to Alcibiades.
He later served again
at Amphipolis and at Delium.
He invested his money and lived very
simply,
though he had three children, having taken a second wife
to help Athens increase its population.
He never asked a fee from
anyone, and when observing the
products in the marketplace he
would observe that
he had no need for so many things.
He said
that most people live to eat but that he ate to live.
Charmides
offered to give him some slaves for income,
but he declined the
offer.
He refused to accept gifts from tyrants in Macedon, Cranon,
and Larissa, and did not visit their courts.
He had a supernatural
sign,
which would warn him what not to do.
His questioning often
perturbed people so much that
they would attack him with their
fists;
but he would refuse to fight or bring legal charges,
saying
it takes two to make a quarrel
or that he would not sue a donkey
for kicking him either.
His wife Xanthippe was known for being
a shrew;
but he argued that just as by mastering spirited horses
a trainer could handle others easily,
so he could learn how to
adapt to anyone.
Socrates was satirized by Aristophanes
in the comedy
The Clouds
in 423 BC; but he did not object,
because if his faults were shown
it would do him good,
and if not, it would not affect him.
However,
two dozen years later at his trial
he was still being accused
of making the worse argument
appear better and investigating things
under the earth,
partly because of that play.
When eight Athenian
generals were illegally tried by the
assembly for not picking
up the lost sailors at Arginusae,
Socrates refused to preside
over the illegality.
When the vicious oligarchy of Thirty ordered
him
to arrest the wealthy Leon of Salamis,
Socrates did not obey
even though he might have died for it.
This oppressive government
also forbade
teaching the art of words because of him.
Finally in 399 BC the resentful Anytus, Lycon, and Meletus
charged Socrates with corrupting the youth and with refusing
to
recognize the gods of the state
while introducing new divinities.
Lysias wrote a speech of defense for him, but Socrates
rejected
it as unsuited to him, just as fine clothes would be.
The vote
to condemn him was 281-220.
Then as a penalty he offered to pay
a small fine,
though he believed that the state
should provide
free meals for him.
This alienated even more jurors, and he was
condemned
to death by a majority of eighty more votes.
Believing
in the laws of the state,
he refused to escape from prison.
After
his execution by hemlock poison, it was said that
Athens felt
such regret that they put Meletus to death
and banished the other
two accusers.
Socrates was said to be the first philosopher (in
Greece)
to discourse on the conduct of life
and was the first
to be executed.
Although Socrates himself left behind no writings for us,
his
disciples Aeschines, Antisthenes, Aristippus, Cebes, Crito,
Euclides,
Phaedo, Simmias, Xenophon, and Plato wrote
Socratic dialogues
portraying his teaching in literary form.
Of these only the extensive
works of
Xenophon and Plato remain intact.
The relationship between
these writings and the real Socrates
is controversial; but in
this work that examines the ethics
implied in literature as well
as history and biography,
we can simply look at how Socrates is
portrayed in these
various dialogs, and then readers
can draw
their own conclusions.
Both Xenophon and Plato were born in Athens
about 428 BC and thus had the opportunity
to observe Socrates
in his later years.
It seems to me that they each brought out
different aspects of a very complex man.
When Socrates was tried and executed, Xenophon
was on
the Persian military expedition made famous in his Anabasis.
When he did write about his teacher a few years later,
his main
motive appears to have been to defend Socrates
rom the charges
that led to his execution.
His short work called the Defense
of Socrates gives Socrates'
view of his trial as reported
by Hermogenes.
Socrates believed that his whole life had been
a preparation
for his defense, because he had consistently done
no wrong,
and his "little divinity" (daimonion)
warned him twice
not to consider preparing it.
Socrates also felt
that dying then would prevent him
from suffering the decline of
old age.
In answering the charge of introducing new deities,
he
said his daimonion was like the divine signs
other prophets
and priestesses experience.
This spirit also helped him to advise
friends
and was never found wrong.
This statement caused an uproar
at the trial,
as many did not believe him, while others resented
the implication that he was closer to the gods.
Socrates told how Chaerephon asked the Delphic oracle
about
him, and Apollo declared that he was the
most free, upright, and
prudent of all.
Socrates then asked the jury if they knew anyone
who was
less a slave of his desires or more free,
since he did
not accept payment from anyone.
When Socrates asked if any youth
had developed bad habits
because of him, Meletus charged that
he had persuaded the
young to listen to him instead of their parents,
which Socrates admitted in regard to questions
of education that
he had studied.
Socrates was not upset by the result of the trial
and
compared himself to Palamedes,
who had been unjustly accused
by Odysseus.
When Apollodorus found it difficult to bear seeing
Socrate
being put to death so unjustly,
Socrates asked if he
would prefer to see him executed justly.
Xenophon continued to defend Socrates in the
first part
of his Memoirs of Socrates.
Apparently Polycrates
had published a pamphlet condemning
Socrates, and Xenophon wanted
to answer
these accusations too.
Xenophon's Socrates said that
the gods gave us intelligence
to use when we could, but that what
was concealed from
humans could be discovered from the gods by
divination.
Xenophon found Socrates doing the opposite of corrupting
youth by his example and his teaching,
inspiring them to desire
goodness.
He disapproved of over-eating but approved of doing
enough exercise to work off the food
the mind accepts with pleasure.
He did not seek money-lovers but charged no fee,
and he rid his
listeners of all desires
except to be in his company.
Xenophon answered the charge that Critias and Alcibiades,
who
had been in the circle of Socrates, did great harm to Athens
by
saying that they were the most ambitious of men and were
determined
to have as much control over the state as they could;
but while
they were with Socrates, they were self-disciplined.
Critias had
been banished to Thessaly, where he practiced
law-breaking, and
Alcibiades was courted by powerful women
and men because of his
good looks and prestige.
Socrates should not be blamed for their
actions any more
than a father should for what his son does.
Socrates
had criticized Critias for seducing Euthydemus,
which caused Critias
to hate him and with Charicles later
to outlaw teaching the art
of debate.
Socrates also criticized the Thirty for making the
people
worse the way a herder did by reducing his herd.
Xenophon
wrote they stopped associating with Socrates
because he annoyed
them by exposing their mistakes.
Socrates believed that it was
an error to imprison the
ignorant when they could be taught,
though
the insane may need to be confined.
Then Xenophon proceeded to show how Socrates
by practical example
and by his conversations
benefited his associates.
Socrates only
prayed for what is good, assuming that the
gods knew that better
than he.
He thought praying for gold or power or anything else
specific was like throwing dice or a battle,
because they are
unpredictable.
He believed his small offerings to the gods
would
be as well received, for surely the gods
would not prefer the
large offerings of the wicked.
Socrates did not eat or drink beyond
satisfaction
and advised others to avoid anything that impelled
them
to eat or drink when they were not hungry or thirsty.
Socrates explained to little Aristodemus how well the universe
was designed by God and encouraged him to recognize that
just
as his mind controls his body according to its will,
so too does
the intelligence in the universe operate.
The omniscience of God
is infinitely beyond the limited
sensory powers and mental faculties
of humans.
Thus he made his associates refrain from wrong actions,
not only in public but also when they were alone,
because they
would all be known to the gods.
Socrates encouraged self-discipline
as making one more
trustworthy than the moral weakling,
for the
slave of appetites cannot escape
degradation of both body and
mind.
Socrates refuted the luxury and extravagance of the sophist
Antiphon by arguing that those who need as little as possible
are closer to the divine and thus what is best.
To the criticism
that Socrates' advice must have no value
because he charged nothing
for it, Socrates answered that
as selling the favors of love for
money is prostitution,
so those who sell their wisdom are called
sophists.
When asked by Antiphon why he did not participate in
politics,
Socrates asked if he could not be more effective
by
making as many people as possible more capable in politics.
Socrates
pointed out that having a reputation for something
without having
the actual ability can turn out to be disastrous,
and thus he
discouraged his associates from having pretensions.
Socrates practiced and taught self-control of one's appetites
and argued to the pleasure-loving Aristippus
that the prudent
are more fit to govern.
Those who devote themselves to managing
their estates
efficiently, benefiting their friends, and serving
their country
will surely find more happiness than in momentary
pleasures.
Socrates recounts Prodicus' parable of Heracles
and
the two women who came to him as Vice and Virtue.
Vice offers
easy pleasures, but Virtue explains that
worshipping the gods
brings their grace,
being kind to friends brings their love,
helping
the state brings its honors,
benefiting Greece brings its recognition,
working the land brings abundant crops,
and training one's body
makes it physically efficient.
When his son Lamprocles got angry because of his
mother's temper,
Socrates taught him to be grateful for all
the gifts a mother
has given to her child.
Also by being good to his neighbors and
fellow travelers,
they will be good to him.
He encouraged Chaerecrates
to take the lead in resolving
his quarrels with his older brother
Chaerephon;
for if he has a noble and generous nature, he will
respond.
Socrates has observed that low types are usually won
over
by a gift, but the best way to influence
good people is by
courtesy.
If his brother does not respond, Chaerecrates has shown
that he is a good and affectionate brother.
To Critobulus Socrates praised friendship, and he felt that
a friend was more valuable than any other possession;
yet friends
are often neglected
compared to one's material possessions.
Those
who cannot control their desires are not usually
reliable friends,
and those who spend all their time
making money have no time for
friendship.
Trouble-makers should also be avoided.
Also one who
accepts kindness but never thinks of
repaying it does not make
a good friend either.
Those who have treated their friends well
in the past
are likely to do so in the future.
Then Socrates showed
that if we want to have a good friend,
the best thing to do is
to be a good friend in words and action.
Even states that value
honorable dealing
are often hostile to other states.
Socrates
noted that tendencies toward friendship must
compete with hostile
tendencies toward
fighting, rivalry, ambition, and envy.
Friendship
can unite the fine and good though by
moderating possessions,
ambitions, and desires
in sharing and by controlling passions.
Having good friends can be beneficial in public life.
The best
way to be thought good at anything
is to become good at it.
After the Peloponnesian War
when Athenians were suffering
poverty and a civil war, the aristocratic
family of Aristarchus
was starving in Piraeus until Socrates advised
him to invest
in wool and get the women and men of his house working,
which would make them friendlier and pleased with themselves.
Another older man named Eutherus, who lost his property
in the
war and was working as a manual laborer,
he advised to go into
managing property as more suitable
to his age and experience.
Crito, who was continually settling out of court to prevent
lawsuits,
he advised to get a friend to defend his cases
by prosecuting
these exploiters.
They found that cultivating the friendship of
honest people
by returning kindness, which made bad people their
enemies
worked better than making good people enemies
by wronging
them in collaboration with bad people.
Xenophon gives several conversations in which
Socrates gave
military advice.
Since Xenophon was a general and Socrates was
not,
it is likely these reflect more the ideas
of Xenophon than
of Socrates.
Xenophon points out the similarities of estate management
and business administration to military administration
as well
as many of the complexities of command.
Socrates asked the ambitious
Glaucon how he was
going to benefit their country, but his questions
revealed that
the young man did not know about their country's
revenues
nor its expenditures nor its armed forces
nor how much
grain it needed.
If he can't even persuade his uncle
how to manage
his household,
how would he ever convince the whole city of Athens?
However, Socrates encouraged Charmides to go
into public affairs,
because he thought he was too modest.
Socrates avoided the verbal traps of Aristippus by saying
what
things were good for specifically; then he generalized
that everything
is good for the purpose
for which it is well adapted.
Socrates
believed that courage varied considerably but that
everyone could
develop their fortitude
by instruction and application.
Those
who put into practice what is fine and good and
guard against
what is shameful are wise.
The opposite of wisdom is madness,
which results from
thinking one understands when one is ignorant.
By explaining the methods she used and how
he could make her better,
Socrates got the courtesan
Theodote eager to visit him.
Socrates
also recommended physical training
to Epigenes for the health
of the body.
To young Euthydemus Socrates showed the value of
self-knowledge
and the misfortunes of self-deception.
Those who know themselves
know what they can do and
are successful while they refrain from
doing
what they don't understand and so avoid mistakes.
They also
know how to assess others
and can benefit from them,
while those
who don't know themselves
don't know what they want from others.
Those who know themselves and are successful
are sought out by
others, but those who fail through lack
of knowledge suffer losses
and damage their reputations.
States that go to war against stronger
states
through not knowing their own abilities
either lose territory
or become enslaved.
Finally Euthydemus realizes that he is ignorant
and had better keep quiet.
Many people in this plight left Socrates
in dejection and
did not come back, but Euthydemus decided that
by associating with Socrates he could improve himself.
Socrates began by teaching his associates responsibility,
because
to develop their abilities without that would
make them more capable
of doing wrong.
To Hippias Socrates argued that doing what is
lawful is right
and that there are unwritten laws of the gods
such as
honoring parents and repaying benefits.
In valuing freedom
he taught that those who are governed
by the body's pleasures
cannot act best or be free.
Self-indulgence prevents people doing
what is best and wise.
By giving in to every immediate pleasure
one does not even
experience the maximum pleasure that comes from
holding
out until one is hungry, thirsty, or tired and ready for
sleep.
Only the self-disciplined can make the
wisest choices and
be most happy.
Socrates also made his associates better through philosophical
discussions that helped them to understand things better,
while
those who do not understand make mistakes.
The courageous, for
example, understand perils
and dangers and yet are brave.
Socrates
contrasted the sovereign authority that acted with
the consent
of the people from the despotism
that acted without their consent.
A good diplomat makes friends instead of enemies,
and success
in politics stops civil strife
and creates a spirit of unity.
Socrates concluded that the best life comes from taking
the best care to make oneself as good as possible,
and the happiest people
are those who
are most conscious they are getting better.
Socrates
believed that his associates loved him,
because they believed
that by associating with him
they would improve themselves and
that
he offered them the greatest help in cultivating virtue.
In Xenophon's Symposium the wealthy
Callias invites
Socrates and his friends to a dinner party
celebrating
young Autolycus' victory in the Pancration.
When Callias offers
the guests perfumes, Socrates suggests
that it is better if they
smell of goodness.
When asked where they could find that perfume,
Socrates quotes the poet Theognis that good company
is edifying
but bad company the opposite.
After a display of dancing, Socrates
says he prefers this form
of exercise because it can develop the
arms as well as the legs.
Socrates also urges the host to be sparing
with the wine
so that their mood will remain more playful and
gentle
instead of being forced into intoxication.
Socrates then suggests they spend their time improving and
amusing themselves by saying what each thinks
is his most valuable
area of expertise.
Like the sophists, Callias claims that he makes
people better,
but instead of by taking their money, by giving
them money.
Niceratus thinks his knowledge of Homer is helpful.
The ascetic Antisthenes, who has no money,
says that it is his
wealth, because the thrifty are more moral
than the extravagant
and because he has much free time
to spend with Socrates; while
Charmides, who was wealthy
before the war made his assets unavailable,
is proud of his poverty, because now
no one bothers him, and the
state supports him.
Socrates claims his skill as a pimp,
and the
jokester Philippus his humor.
Lycon is most proud of his son Autolycus,
and Autolycus in turn honors his father.
Hermogenes delights in
the goodness of his friends.
Critobulus is proud of his good looks;
although Socrates argues that his bulging eyes and snub nose
are
better for seeing and smelling
and his thick lips better for kissing,
Critobulus wins the beauty contest between them.
The Syracusan
is proud of his boy;
but he is afraid other men will want to sleep
with him
although he sleeps with him every night.
Socrates then
uses a series of questions to show
that his pimping makes his
protégés
as pleasing as possible to his clients.
Having seen The Clouds,
the Syracusan asks Socrates
if he is called the "thinker."
Socrates replies that it is better than being called thoughtless.
He then asks Socrates if he knows about celestial things,
and
Socrates interprets this as knowing about the gods.
The Syracusan
wants to put on an erotic display,
but Socrates takes up the subject
of erotic love
and shows that the celestial side of Aphrodite
is better than the common.
Its pleasure is greater because
the
mind is better than the body;
mental affection lasts longer than
physical
and is less bound by satiety.
Being loved for one's character
is never negative,
but shameless physical intercourse
has led
to many atrocious crimes.
The favorite who relies on physical
beauty is not likely
to improve other qualities, but the one who
knows that
one must be truly good to retain friendship
will care
more for virtue not only in the beloved
but in oneself as well.
At the end of this discussion
as Lycon is leaving with his son,
he calls Socrates a truly good man;
after the erotic display all
the guests immediately
go home to their wives or lovers.
Xenophon's Oikonomikos is on estate
management.
Socrates tells Critobulus how people are slaves when
they
allow such harsh masters to control them as
gluttony, sex,
drink, and costly ambitions.
Socrates believes that his assets
are better than those of
Critobulus, although his own property
would sell
for five minae and Critobulus' for more
than
a hundred times that,
because Socrates is able to live within
his income,
but Critobulus is not.
Critobulus asks for Socrates'
advice in estate management.
Socrates points out that everything
needs to be arranged
in its proper place, not at random.
One's
wife can be a good partner in the house,
because although income
usually results from the
husband's activities, most of the expenditures
come from
the wife's housekeeping; so both need to be done well.
Socrates praises agriculture and indicates how much
everyone depends
on it, not just to live but to live pleasantly.
Socrates then tells Critobulus about a long conversation
he
had with Ischomachus, who was known for
being fine and good by
everyone.
First Ischomachus tells Socrates how he trained his
wife,
who came to him at age fifteen, by first praying to the
gods
for what is best and then training her.
The traditional relationship
of the woman handling things
inside the house while the man
did
the outdoor work is discussed.
Ischomachus expresses the hope
that his wife will turn out
better than himself and make him her
servant,
because she is so valuable and efficient.
Xenophon then
compares estate management
to military administration.
Greek dependence
on slave labor is assumed
and in no way challenged.
The female
servants are to be locked away from the male
servants so that
their procreation can be regulated
by the master, and it is also
implied that the wife must
compete with these women,
who are also
used as concubines by her husband.
In addition to the wife being taught how to use rewards and
punishments to train the workers, a housekeeper is instilled
with
justice so that she also can reward right and not wrong.
Ischomachus
encouraged his wife to exercise in her work to
benefit her health
and beauty, but he discouraged her from
using artificial cosmetics
such as lead powder,
although it was not known to be poisonous
then.
Ischomachus also taught his foreman responsibility
so that
he could supervise everything as well as the master.
Rewards include
verbal praise, and it is noted that
human beings can be made to
obey by proving to them
by argument that it is in their interest.
In the last part of the dialog Ischomachus shows Socrates
how
much he really already knows about the details
of plowing, sowing,
planting, and harvesting
by artful Socratic questioning, indicating
that this theory
and method of educating is probably more
Socratic
than Platonic in origin.
Diogenes Laertius relates the story that Socrates cornered
Xenophon in a narrow street and
asked him where food was sold.
Then he asked him where people become fine and good.
When Xenophon
could not answer this,
Socrates told him to follow him and learn.
Xenophon was the first to take notes of Socrates
and write about
the conversations.
A friend named Proxenus, who was a student
of Gorgias,
wrote Xenophon a letter from Sardis
about Cyrus, the
prince of Persia.
Xenophon showed the letter to Socrates and asked
his advice.
Socrates suggested that he consult the oracle at Delphi,
but he later criticized Xenophon for asking in what way
he should
serve Cyrus instead of
whether he should go to Asia.
After Cyrus
was killed in the revolt against the great king,
which was followed
by the murder of the Greek
mercenary generals, Xenophon was one
of the
new generals elected by the soldiers.
His account of how
they led these 10,000 men back to Greece
in the Anabasis
influenced Greek pride
and eventually resulted in Alexander's
conquests in Asia.
Xenophon then served the Spartan king and general Agesilaus
and even fought against Athenians in 394 BC.
This brought about
his banishment from Athens,
and Xenophon bought an estate at Scillus
near Elis.
There he managed slaves and wrote books.
According
to tradition he made Thucydides famous by
publishing his history
and then continued it from
411 to 362 BC in his Hellenica,
the best historical source
for the period, though it lacks the
brilliance of Thucydides.
He pioneered the genre of biography
with the encomium Agesilaus.
Xenophon's long work on Cyrus II (r. 559-529
BC)
of Persia is so romanticized that it is probably
more historical
novel than biography.
Cyropaedia means the education of
Cyrus;
but only the first book of eight is on his education,
and
that is primarily hunting as a preparation for war-fighting.
Xenophon
presents Cyrus as an outstanding
military leader and ruler.
Xenophon's
account is also greatly influenced by his admiration
for Spartan
ways, and the Persian history
is mixed with Greek customs.
The
stages of a man's life follow the Spartan system
with its emphasis
on military service.
Also influenced by Socrates' philosophy,
Xenophon declared
that the main subject the boys learn in school
is justice.
Boys are punished for not returning favors,
and self-control
is also strongly instilled.
Young Cyrus visits his grandfather,
who is king of the Medes,
and he gradually matures from a charming
but impetuous boy
to a discerning and generous young man.
Cyrus
loves to hunt and distribute the meat to his friends.
While hunting
near the border, he suggests a military raid
against the encroaching
Assyrians, which is successful.
Xenophon's utilitarian philosophy
is summarized in a speech
by the young Cyrus to his chosen Persian
troops.
I think that no virtue is practiced by people
except with the aim that the good, by being such,
may have something more than the bad;
and I believe that those who abstain from present
pleasures do this not that they may never enjoy
themselves, but by this self-restraint they prepare
themselves to have many times
greater enjoyment in time to come.
And those who are eager to become able speakers
study oratory, not that they may never cease
from speaking eloquently, but in the hope that
by their eloquence they may persuade people
and accomplish great good.
And those also who practice military science
undergo this work, not that they may never cease
from fighting, but because they think that
by gaining proficiency in the arts of war
they will secure great wealth and happiness
and honor both for themselves and for their country.3
Cyrus also has a religious attitude of friendship toward the
gods,
although he knows that one must learn and work at something
in order to be able to pray for successful results.
He believes
that those who pray for what is not right
would fail with the
gods just as those who violate human laws
are disappointed by
people.
He feels it his task to govern people so that they might
have
all the necessities of life in abundance
and all become what
they should be.
Xenophon's Cyrus does not believe in Oriental
self-indulgence
but in Greek self-discipline as an example to
all.
Xenophon then has Cyrus learn from his teachers that the
military art involves much more than mere tactics,
but administration,
physical training and health concerns,
and motivational psychology.
One must not merely seem wise but actually be wise
in order to
lead well.
To win affection he must be a benefactor by being able
to do good, sympathize with ills, help in distress,
and prevent
setbacks.
However, all the virtues can be reversed
in working
against the enemy.
His father Cambyses gives Cyrus many lessons, concluding
that he should learn from history that many states have been
persuaded
to take up arms and attack others
but have been destroyed;
many
have made others great and then
suffered wrongs from them;
many
who could have treated others as friends and given
and received
favors have instead treated them like slaves
and received their
just return;
many not satisfied to enjoy their proper share have
lost
what they had trying to gain more;
and many who have gained
coveted wealth
have been ruined by it.
In organizing his army Cyrus rewards merit and balances
training
with entertaining the men.
In asking for aid from India against
the Assyrians,
he is willing to allow them to arbitrate the difference,
showing he did not believe he was in the wrong.
When the Armenians
refused to pay their tribute
or send troops, Cyrus was able to
capture their king
and then generously allowed him to contribute
to their war effort instead of punishing him.
Then with the Armenians
on his side he attempts
to make peace between them and the Chaldeans
and by
taking a hill fortress is able to enforce a peace between
them.
Most of the Cyropaedia is about this war against those
Xenophon calls the Assyrians, although their empire
had been taken
over by the Babylonians
a half century before.
Cyrus demonstrates
his military skills and generosity in
forgiving captured enemies
and turning them into allies.
However, any of these who try to
flee from his camp are killed.
Cyrus gains the help of the alienated
Gobryas and the
castrated Gadatas, who now hate the Assyrian king.
Cyrus marches his forces to Babylon but then passes by it
to take
other forts in the area.
Cyrus and his uncle, the Mede king Cyaxares,
meet with their allies and decide on war.
Cyrus sends various
spies, including envoys from India,
who learn that Croesus has
been chosen
field marshal of the enemy alliance.
In the great battle Cyrus outmaneuvers Croesus and wins over
the Egyptians to his alliance to capture Sardis and Croesus,
but
the city is spared the usual pillaging.
Cyrus then directs the
siege of Babylon, and by diverting
the river his troops are able
to enter the city.
Cyrus moves into the palace and selects his
bodyguards.
Later he establishes his court in Persia,
encouraging
attendance there with his personal rewards.
He invests in physicians,
surgeons, and medical supplies.
To answer the criticism of Croesus
that he is not collecting
enough wealth for himself he sends around
a request for funds,
which shows that he has many times more available
to him than Croesus expected.
Cyaxares gives Cyrus his daughter
in marriage
with all of Media as a dowry.
Xenophon gave Cyrus
credit for adding Egypt
to the
Persian empire, but it was his
son
who accomplished that after his death.
Xenophon skipped quickly
from the setting up of the satraps
to describe a peaceful death
for Cyrus many years later
when in fact he was killed in a war.
Someone, afraid that the book was too laudatory of Persia,
added
a postscript to show how Persian culture
had deteriorated morally
after the life of Cyrus.
In Hiero, a dialog between Hiero, who
ruled Syracuse
as a despot from 478 to 467 BC, and the poet Simonides,
Xenophon showed the negative aspects of tyranny for the tyrant.
Since Hiero was not born a king but became one,
Simonides asks
him to compare private life with that of a despot.
Hiero says
that he has found fewer pleasures and more pain
as a despot and
explains that he cannot travel safely
to see sights and hears
only flattery;
knowing his subjects have evil thoughts, they dare
not speak.
Furthermore the despot is spoiled with every pleasure
and material luxury but has little to strive for.
Despots do not experience the great blessing of peace
but have
the largest share of wars,
and even his own citizens are his enemies.
In spite of the despot's great wealth, his needs are
so great
that he rarely has enough to meet all his
expenses for guards
and an army.
He feels cut off from friends and is surrounded by
slaves.
It is noted that slaves often kill their masters.
Hiero
complains that he cannot even get rid of his despotism.
When Simonides
points out that he can lavish gifts on people
and be loved by
the citizens, Hiero replies that he finds
himself far more hated
than loved as a result of his transactions.
However, in the conclusion
Simonides argues that
he should do everything to make his state
good
in competition with other states.
If he improves his state,
he will be acclaimed as a hero and be loved by all.
In The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians
Xenophon praised the laws of Lycurgus
and the disciplined
life of Sparta.
Xenophon also wrote On the Cavalry Commander,
On the Art of Horsemanship, and On Hunting.
Late
in his life, probably in 355 BC, Xenophon wrote
Ways and Means
as a proposal
to improve the economy of Athens.
Xenophon began
with his concern that leading Athenian
politicians believe that
owing to the poverty of the masses
they are compelled to treat
other cities unjustly.
Xenophon believed that Athens was capable
of producing
enough revenue in a fair way by treating the resident
aliens
better, maintaining peace, increasing harbor and market
taxes,
and by the state purchasing more slaves
to work the silver
mines.
He did not seem to be concerned about the injustice of
slavery
itself, although he thought they would serve in the infantry
better if they were treated with consideration.
To maintain peace
Xenophon suggested a board of peace
guardians, who would increase
the popularity
of the city and attract more visitors.
Xenophon believed the happiest states have the longest period
of unbroken peace and that Athens was well suited to peace.
Of
those who thought war could benefit Athens, he asked
whether they
had been successful leaders
of the league
funds by coercing the
Greeks or by rendering services.
He pointed out that Athens was
stripped of her empire,
because they had been too harsh in their
authority;
but then when they refrained from unjust actions,
the
islanders once again gave her presidency of the fleet.
Generosity
and not coercion was what gained them
alliances with Thebes and
the Lacedaemonians.
In Athenian history much money came into the
treasury
during peace, and then all of it was spent in war.
After
the war was over, revenues were able to rise again.
Athens can
also deal with their enemies much better
if they don't provoke
them by wronging them.
Xenophon concluded his essay by suggesting
that his
proposal be presented to the gods at the Delphic oracle
so that it could be carried out with their help.
The most detailed and brilliant portraits of Socrates
are by
Plato; though it is difficult to deduce how much
Plato has added
to the original person,
the influence of these writings has been
immense regardless.
Plato presented a young Socrates in his
late
dialog Parmenides; however, this discussion is
not about
ethics at all but metaphysics.
One of the earliest dialogs that I believe
is often neglected
is the first Alcibiades.
This is a marvelous introduction to Socratic method and ideas
on the theme of self-knowledge and is set in 432 BC
when Socrates
was about 38 and Alcibiades 18.
That was the year Socrates saved
Alcibiades' life at Potidaea,
although that is not mentioned in
this work.
Alcibiades was known for being extraordinarily handsome,
and Socrates has been waiting until his older lovers
have tired
of the youthful prize
so that he can talk to him about more serious
things.
The other prominent characteristic of Alcibiades was his
tremendous ambition, which concerns Socrates here.
Since he knows
that his young friend wants to rule
not only Athens but the world
if he can,
Socrates wants to prepare him as best he can
for an
inevitable political career,
which Alcibiades is already contemplating.
Socrates hopes that with his divine guidance Alcibiades
may be
able to accomplish his goals in a much better way.
Socrates begins by asking Alcibiades what advice he intends
to offer the Athenians that he knows better than they,
which turns
out to be issues of war and peace
and other state affairs.
Socrates
asks if he intends the Athenians to make war
on those acting unjustly
or those acting justly.
Alcibiades acknowledges that the latter
is rarely admitted,
because it is not just nor honorable.
Socrates
helps Alcibiades to understand that such issues
are often controversial
with little agreement on what is best.
By his artful questioning
Socrates shows Alcibiades
that he does not know what is just and
unjust;
but he thinks that he does,
because he intends to advise
the Athenians.
Alcibiades comes to realize that he is confused
about the
difference between what is just and what is expedient.
This confusion of thinking one knows something,
when one does
not, tends to lead to the worst mistakes,
because one acts thinking
one knows
but errs because of the ignorance.
Such is the dangerous
plight of Alcibiades.
After a discourse about the ideal education of Persian
princes,
Socrates returns to questioning his young friend,
who
answers that in a good state there will be friendship,
which in
turn results from justice.
Reminding Alcibiades of his ignorance
in this,
Socrates attempts to guide him into taking care of himself.
To do this one must first fulfill the motto of the Delphic oracle
to know oneself.
By his questioning method Socrates shows Alcibiades
that things and even one's own body are not the self that
rules
the human being,
but the soul is the user of the body and things.
Socrates claims he is the one who loves Alcibiades' soul,
and
he will not leave him as long as he is
working to improve himself.
For Socrates is afraid that Alcibiades will be seduced
by the
people and warns him that he must study
before he goes into politics,
or he will be harmed.
Thus he must learn to take care of his soul.
How then does the soul know itself?
Using the analogy of an
eye seeing itself reflected in the pupil
of another's eye, Socrates
analogizes that the soul must look
at itself and especially its
own virtue to find the
divine part of itself, which will then
bring
the best knowledge of oneself.
But those who do not know
themselves
cannot know their own affairs, let alone others',
and
will make mistakes in private and public
and so be wretched.
Thus
it is not wealth and the power of warships and arsenals
one needs
in order to be happy but prudence and virtue
so that one will
know how to impart virtue to the citizens.
Since one cannot impart
what one does not have,
first one must be virtuous oneself.
By
acting justly and prudently one will please God
by focusing one's
attention on the divine.
In this way one can know oneself
and
what is good and thus be happy.
Similarly a state lacking virtue
will be overtaken by failure.
Alcibiades thus should not strive
for
despotic power but for virtue, which frees one
while shunning
the slavishness of vice.
This can be done, not by the will of
Socrates,
but by the will of God.
Alcibiades promises to care
for justice;
Socrates hopes that he will but closes the dialog
apprehensive that the state will overcome them both.
Scholars believe that the Alcibiades II,
which is attributed
to Plato, was probably
written a century or two later.
This work
makes the point that one may inadvertently pray
for evil if one
does not know what is truly best.
Many people want things; but
when they get them regret it,
such as those who are elected generals.
Thus Socrates recommends the prayer for what is good,
that asks
God to avert what is grievous
even if one is praying for it.
To
really benefit the community one must not only know
or think one
knows but also know how to make it beneficial.
This wisdom is
valued by the gods and humans,
and the gods don't seem to be won
over by bribes.
So Socrates prays that the mist wrapped around
the soul
of Alcibiades will be removed
so that he will discern
good and evil.
In the Charmides Plato described a
discussion
about moderation (sophrosune).
Socrates talks
with Charmides and his cousin Critias,
who became the worst leader
of the oligarchy of Thirty.
Charmides was also involved in that
government
and died in 403 BC along with Critias when it fell;
but his favorable treatment here is probably
because he was Plato's
uncle.
This dialog is set just after the battle of Potidaea in
432 BC.
The young Charmides is introduced as a handsome
young
man who exemplifies the virtue of moderation.
Before seeing his
body though,
Socrates wants to know his soul.
Critias suggests
to his cousin that Socrates has a cure
for his headaches; but
Socrates explains that it must be used
with a charm, because it
is better to treat the body
in relation to its wholeness and the
soul.
Socrates believes that it is a common mistake to
treat the
body as separate from the soul,
because in his view all good and
evil originates in the soul.
The charms, which are fair words,
are used to implant moderation in the soul.
Socrates asks Charmides if he has this moderation;
but the
young man is too modest to admit it
and does not want to deny
it either.
So Socrates decides to inquire about it,
and Charmides
says that moderation is
doing everything orderly and quietly.
However, Socrates by questioning shows that
quickness of mind is good and thus moderate.
Next Charmides says that it is
modesty
that makes one ashamed,
but a quote from Homer indicates that
this quality is not good for a needy man.
Then Charmides says
moderation is
doing one's own business,
but Socrates points out
that most craftsmen
are doing business for others.
Since this definition came from Critias, he enters the discussion
and then says that moderation is doing what is good.
Yet to do
good requires wisdom, and so
this definition leads to the Delphic
mottoes,
"Know yourself" and "Nothing in excess."
Critias claims that self-knowledge is the science of sciences
in knowing what one knows.
However, Socrates shows that it is
not any of the sciences
such as medicine for health, architecture
for building, and so on.
Socrates is not able to see what good
this science of sciences does,
since it does not know the other
sciences.
Finally they come around to the science of
discerning
good and evil, but this science of advantage
is not moderation
if it is the science of sciences.
So Socrates must admit defeat
and confess
that he does not know what moderation is either.
However,
he encourages Charmides to be as wise
and moderate as he can,
because they are what lead to happiness.
Plato's Protagoras is also set when
Alcibiades
has barely begun to grow a beard.
Socrates is wakened
before dawn by young Hippocrates,
who wants to go see the famous
sophist Protagoras
during his visit to Athens.
Socrates warns
Hippocrates of the dangers of learning from
sophists, for knowledge,
unlike material products,
goes straight into his soul.
At the
home of the wealthy Callias are the sophists
Hippias and Prodicus
as well as Protagoras
and many of his followers.
Protagoras offers
to teach the youth and promises that
he will get better every
day in his personal affairs
and in public business.
Socrates,
noting that special qualifications are not needed
to speak about
politics, wonders whether this art can be taught.
Also he has
found that great men like Pericles have often
failed to pass on
their virtue through education.
Socrates hopes Protagoras will
show that virtue can be taught.
Protagoras uses the myth of Epimetheus and Prometheus
to indicate
that only humans were given the arts
that can be taught with the
use of fire and other tools.
Zeus sent Hermes to instill respect
for others and justice.
Protagoras notes the belief that everyone
has a share
in virtue and thus is entitled to speak.
Punishment
is used as a deterrent with the idea
that people will learn not
to do wrong.
At school masters emphasize good behavior as well
as
letters and music; poetry is studied for its moral lessons,
and music develops self-control.
The laws of the state are intended
to teach
by punishing those who infringe them as a correction.
Everyone can talk with their neighbors about justice and virtue
and so teach each other.
Protagoras, famous as the first professional
teacher of adults
to charge money, allows his students to pay
his fee
or take an oath and pay what they believe it is worth.
Socrates is pleased with the presentation; but he has one
question
about the relation of justice, moderation, wisdom,
courage, and
holiness to virtue.
Protagoras explains they are parts of the
whole
like the parts of a face.
Justice and holiness are found
to be similar,
and folly is the opposite of both wisdom and moderation.
Becoming uncomfortable, Protagoras makes a long speech.
Since
he won't give short answers, Socrates is about to leave;
but the
others persuade him to stay
and ask Protagoras to be more brief.
Next Protagoras chooses to ask Socrates questions about a
poem
by Simonides which seems to have a contradiction
about whether
goodness is hard or not.
In a long literary critique Socrates
shows how the poet
is saying that although it is difficult to
become good,
being good is easier, as Hesiod
made clear,
and he defends the poet's criticism of Pittacus' statement
that goodness is hard because this implies it is bad.
Socrates expresses his belief that the wise do not believe
anyone does wrong willingly
but only unwillingly out of ignorance.
This point is made in a discussion after Protagoras
contends that
courage is different from the other virtues.
Using the example
of pleasure and pain, Socrates
demonstrates how people believe
pleasure is good and pain bad;
they only get eventual pain after
immediate pleasure
or fail to endure a little pain for a greater
pleasure,
because they don't have the skill in measuring the two.
Similarly only the wise can be truly courageous in knowing
when
it is best to risk danger; cowards are so only
out of ignorance
of what is good.
Protagoras resists these points but eventually
must capitulate;
Socrates points out this is ironic, because showing
that
virtue is knowledge indicates it can probably be taught,
which is the point Protagoras was trying to make.
Plato's Laches is about courage.
Two
old men, who are the sons of a Thucydides
(not the historian)
and Aristeides the Just, want to get their
sons educated so that
they can win renown like their fathers,
and they have asked the
generals Nicias and Laches
for advice in regard to learning fighting
in armor.
Socrates is also consulted and is asked to decide
when
the two generals disagree.
Socrates suggests that they find someone
who knows
or has learned from the best teacher.
Nicias knows that
Socrates tends to take the discussion
into self-examination; though
Laches does not like discussions
of virtue when the speaker is
not virtuous,
he has seen the courage of Socrates
and is therefore
eager to hear his views.
Socrates begins by asking how virtue will improve the sons,
and in particular the virtue of courage is most related
to this
art of fighting in armor.
Laches says that courage is not
running
away from fighting the enemy,
but Socrates notes that the Scythians
can fight on the run.
So Laches suggests that courage might be
an endurance,
but Socrates asks about foolish endurance.
So courage
must be a wise endurance, but in actual cases
Laches believes
that those facing the same danger
with less knowledge are showing
greater courage.
Nicias then brings up a definition he heard from
Socrates
that the brave are wise, and he suggests the definition
that
courage is knowledge of fears
and confidence in war and other
things.
However, Socrates finds this too limiting as only
having
to do with the future.
Yet if courage is the knowledge of good
and evil in all things,
the definition is too broad as taking
in all of virtue
including moderation, justice, and holiness.
Finally Laches suggests that the old men consult
with Socrates
in regard to the education of their sons,
while Socrates recommends
they all get themselves better educated.
According to Diogenes Laertius it was said
that when
Socrates heard Plato reading the Lysis, he exclaimed,
"By Heracles, so many lies the young man is telling about
me!"4
Plato's Socrates discusses friendship with Lysis and
his friend
Menexenus at the request of Hippothales,
who is in
love with Lysis.
Socrates makes it clear that Lysis is not free
at all in all the
areas where others have more knowledge than
he
even when they are slaves, and for this reason he is still
much
under the control of his parents.
At first it seems that
the good will be friends with the good;
but if the good are self-sufficient,
they have no need of friends.
To this I would say that the good
would be friends
not out of need but because friendship is good.
They find that friendship is not always between those
who are
alike nor is it always between opposites.
That which is neither
good nor evil
may be friendly with the good.
Things may be loved
not for what they are
but for the good they can do for someone
who is loved.
Desire is also a cause of friendship.
Yet in conclusion
no definition
they can find is universally satisfying.
Menexenus by Plato has Socrates repeat
a patriotic
funeral speech composed by Aspasia, whom he also credits
with writing the funeral oration of Pericles.
Before reciting
the speech Socrates notes how these patriotic
orations praising
the state tend to make one feel superior
to others, but the effect
wears off after a few days.
He sees no challenge in winning applause
when praising
Athenians in Athens, but to praise Peloponnesians
there
or Athenians among the Peloponnesians
would require good
rhetoric.
The glorified version of Athenian history goes several
years
beyond the death of Socrates; so it is more likely that
these ideas are more Plato's than Socrates'.
The speech calls
Athenian government a democratic
aristocracy of rule by the best
with popular consent
and elected kings and officials.
Much is
made of equality of birth and how none of the citizens
were enslaved,
as though slavery did not exist there; but it did.
The abuses
of Athenian imperialism are
not mentioned,
and the eventual defeat in the Peloponnesian
War is
described as Athens having defeated herself.
The civil
war to remove the oligarchy of Thirty
is described as a "mild
disorder."
Finally in following the axiom of "nothing
in excess"
the citizens are urged not to rejoice nor grieve
too much nor lament nor fear too much.
The Lesser Hippias was attributed to
Plato
by the time of Aristotle.
As a sophist Hippias claims he
is wise
and after his lecture on Homer,
Socrates asks him whether
Achilles is better than Odysseus;
Hippias does prefer the brave
Achilles to the wily Odysseus.
Socrates takes wily to mean false;
but he points out how
Achilles was also false when he told Agamemnon
he was going to sail away.
Hippias defends Achilles' false statement
as unintentional,
while Odysseus voluntarily lies.
When asked
which is better, Hippias believes that
an unintentional error
is not as bad
as doing evil or lying voluntarily.
However, by a series of
questions Socrates points out that
it takes more wisdom and ability
to err voluntarily than
unintentionally as in athletics, music,
and the arts and sciences.
Although by the logic of the argument
they must conclude
that the wiser and abler do wrong by their
own will
and the worse person involuntarily,
Hippias cannot agree
with this nor can Socrates either.
Socrates then doubts whether
people should go
to those who claim they are wise
but are so confused
about this.
In the Greater Hippias, which scholars doubt is by Plato,
the sophist Hippias brags about how often he acts as an
ambassador
for Elis and about how much money he makes
teaching in the cities
of Greece, except for Sparta
where their laws forbid foreign education.
Because he claims to make beautiful compositions,
Socrates asks
him what beauty is.
Hippias first answers a beautiful maiden;
but when Socrates
asks in comparison to the gods,
Hippias must
admit a beautiful maiden is ugly.
Then he says gold, but Socrates
shows that a fig-wood ladle
can be more appropriate for a pot
of soup.
Hippias says that it is most beautiful to be rich, healthy,
honored, to reach old age, and after burying one's parents
nobly to be buried by one's children;
but Achilles was buried before
his parents.
In defining the appropriate as beautiful, Socrates asks
if
the appropriate makes things appear beautiful or be beautiful.
Since some things can appear beautiful without being so,
it may
be the latter, though it may do both.
Yet if the appropriate causes
things to appear beautiful
without being so, it cannot be the
beautiful.
Socrates suggests that the useful may be beautiful,
and to this is added what has the power
to make something beautiful.
Since power and use for evil cannot be beautiful,
they qualify
that the power and usefulness must be for
good purposes or in
a word, beneficial.
However, then Socrates uses the difference
between the
cause and the effect to negate this definition.
After
more of this logic-chopping they must admit
they cannot define
beauty.
Hippias goes back to his feeling that composing a good
speech
is beautiful and criticizes such arguing.
Socrates argues
that he cannot know such a speech is beautiful
if he doesn't know
what beauty is and concludes
with the proverb that all that is
beautiful is difficult.
The most absurd demonstration of sophistry
occurs in Plato's Euthydemus.
The dialog has the frame
of Socrates recounting
the story to his friend Crito.
Euthydemus
and his brother Dionysodorus claim that
they can impart virtue,
and Socrates wants
young Cleinias and Ctesippus to learn this.
He asks the new sophists to convince them that virtue
can be learned
and that they should
pursue wisdom and practice virtue.
However,
using verbal tricks, such as equivocation between
two meanings
of the same word, they proceed to refute
whichever position Cleinias
takes on several propositions.
Taking this display as a kind of
initiatory game
leading to sophistry, Socrates offers to demonstrate
how to encourage the youth to practice wisdom and virtue.
Socrates
begins by showing Cleinias that to do well
he needs good things
such as wealth, health, power, honor,
and virtues like moderation,
courage, justice, and wisdom.
Then they consider good fortune,
but Socrates argues that
wisdom is what brings about good fortune
in various cases.
Thus one must not only have good things but
know
how to use them well, which comes from wisdom.
Thus we ought
to seek wisdom most of all.
Then Socrates asks the brothers to give a similar demonstration
or show which knowledge they should seek;
but once again they
play verbal tricks, one of which implies
the doing away of Cleinias
and gets Ctesippus angry.
Socrates calms him down by pointing
out that
they want to do away with the ignorant and bad Cleinias
in order to make him good and wise.
They need to find the art
which enables them to use things wisely.
Even generals merely
hunt people and then turn them
over to the politicians, an insight
Crito and Socrates
think must have come from some higher power.
In the ensuing discussion Euthydemus and Dionysodorus
try to prove
many absurdities such as that they know
and can do everything
ever since birth.
Finally Socrates suggests that they not exhibit
their skills in public but in private.
Crito mentions how he talked
to a man who thought
this was all nonsense and worthless.
Socrates
notes that in between the politicians and
philosophers there is
another group, like this man,
who thinks that they are superior
to both,
though Socrates places these rhetoricians in third place.
Socrates asks Crito not to be discouraged
from studying philosophy
by its worthless practitioners.
Plato's Ion is about a reciter and expert on Homer.
Socrates explains to him that he must be inspired by Homer
and
his poetry the way metal rings cling to a magnet,
because Ion
is not even interested in other poetry.
Plato's Cratylus is a detailed study of words and an
often
fanciful explanation of their origins.
The Heraclitean philosophy
of Cratylus seems to be influencing
the inspiration of Socrates,
who often finds the R sound
indicating being with the flow in
positive words
and blocking the flow in negative ones.
Socrates
also points out that Hades prefers souls
liberated from their
bodies, because the desire for virtue
is stronger when one is
not flustered
and maddened by the body.
Meno asks Socrates whether virtue can be taught
in Plato's Meno.
Socrates admits that he not only does
not know whether
it can be taught, he does not know what virtue
is.
Since Meno has studied with Gorgias, he asks Meno,
who says
that manly virtue is managing the state's affairs,
helping friends
and injuring foes while not harming oneself,
and a woman's virtue
is taking care of the household
and obeying her husband.
Socrates
is looking for the quality that makes everyone virtuous;
in thinking
it is governing justly,
the various virtues begin to appear,
causing
Socrates to quip that they have turned a singular
into a plural
like when a plate is broken.
So Meno suggests it is the desire
and ability to acquire
good things; but Socrates shows the desire
is superfluous
to the definition, because everyone desires good
things.
Those who desire evil things only do so because
they believe
they are good through ignorance;
no one wants what they know is
evil.
Once again they find the acquiring of good things must be
combined with the virtues of
justice, prudence, holiness, and
so on.
Meno is now perplexed and says Socrates has
numbed him like a stingray, but Socrates admits
he is just as numbed himself.
Socrates asks why one would inquire into what one knows
or
how one could inquire into what one does not know;
he suggests
that it could be by divine inspiration in the soul,
which is believed
to be immortal and akin to all nature
and thus already has learned
everything.
The ethical implication is that one ought to live
as best one can,
and the educational insight is that learning
could come from recognition by the soul.
To demonstrate this,
Socrates questions a slave boy
about how to double the area of
a square.
At first the boy thinks he knows and says what to do;
but when he finds out he is wrong, he is perplexed.
Then Socrates
helps him to see that the diagonal
is the side of the double-square.
Thus Socrates strongly believes that we will be better
and braver
if we look for what we don't know.
Since what is learned is knowledge,
if virtue is knowledge, it can be taught.
Then by questioning
Meno he shows that each of the virtues
is good, because they use
knowledge and wisdom.
Since this wisdom does not come by nature,
it must be learned.
However, Socrates is not able to find any good teachers
of
virtue nor can Anytus, who later prosecuted Socrates;
he is offended
by the notion that the sophists could teach virtue.
When Socrates
shows that better politicians than Anytus
have not been able to
teach wisdom, Anytus gets angry.
Finally Socrates points out to
Meno that having a true opinion
can be as beneficial as wisdom.
This can only be understood as divine guidance
and explains why
they cannot teach it.
Gorgias of Leontini, who had studied with
Empedocles,
was the most prominent rhetorician of the 5th century
BC.
In Plato's Gorgias set in 405 BC he is about
eighty
years old and plays a small role.
A master of style often imitated,
in his lost work he
philosophized that nothing exists; but if
something exists,
it couldn't be known; and even if it could be
known,
it couldn't be communicated.
In Plato's dialog Chaerephon
takes Socrates to hear Gorgias
after he has given a demonstration
of his rhetorical skill.
Socrates asks him what the art of rhetoric
is,
and he replies words, particularly the ability to persuade
judges, senators, and people in the assembly
and other gatherings.
Socrates points out that teaching also persuades;
but since rhetoric
aims at belief instead of knowledge,
it does not necessarily teach
as well as it convinces.
The subject of rhetoric is right and
wrong,
but it can be misused and persuade people to what is wrong;
one does not have to know the truth but may merely appear
to the
ignorant as knowing more.
These contradict the notion that
the
rhetorician knows what is right.
So Polus takes over and asks Socrates
what he thinks rhetoric
is.
Socrates calls it a routine which gratifies and produces pleasure,
a kind of flattery or pandering which he compares to cooking,
beautification (cosmetics and fashion), and sophistry.
The arts
of the body's health are gymnastics or exercise
and medicine (including
nutrition), and the arts of souls' health
are legislation and
justice.
Cooking is the flattery corresponding to medicine,
and
beautification is the flattery analogous to gymnastics.
Likewise
sophistry is to legislation what beautification is
to gymnastics,
and rhetoric is to justice what
cooking is to medicine.
The body
would choose the pleasure of tasty cooking,
while the wiser soul
chooses good nutrition.
Socrates gets Polus to admit that doing what seems good
without
knowing is evil; when orators get people to do
what seems good
but is not, they produce no benefit.
After a series of questions
they are led to the conclusion that
if one's conduct proves harmful,
one is not really doing
what one wants, since no one wants evil.
Socrates shows Polus, who admires powerful tyrants,
that to put
someone to death unjustly is miserable.
Socrates declares that
he wishes neither;
but if he had to choose, he would prefer
to
suffer wrong than commit wrong.
Socrates would not want to be
a tyrant,
because he believes the good are happy
and the evil
wretched.
Next Socrates shows Polus that the wrong-doer
who gets away
with it is more unhappy than the
one who is punished,
because
justice corrects and rids one of evils.
Thus injustice, imprudence,
and other vices of the soul
are the worst evils.
Just as the body
may be corrected by medicine,
which is not perceived as pleasant,
the soul may be corrected
by discipline and learn to be more just.
To be doing wrong and not be corrected for it
is the worst situation,
and so tyrants with money and
supporters and powerful rhetoric,
who can avoid
being punished for their crimes, are the most wretched.
Thus the best use of rhetoric would be to persuade oneself
of
one's own crimes so that one could
correct oneself and be rid
of evils.
Callicles intervenes believing that this would
turn life upside
down, and so Socrates
invites him to refute his arguments.
Callicles
believes that the stronger have the right to rule
and have more
than others, which he calls natural justice.
Socrates asks if
the many are not more powerful
than the one and therefore frame
laws to restrain the one.
Callicles argues that just as one ought
to govern oneself,
the stronger have a right to govern the weaker
and enjoy luxury and license.
Callicles also believes that pleasure
and the good
are the same, but that knowledge and courage
are
different from each other and the good.
Yet the evils of thirst
and hunger occur simultaneously
with the pleasures of drinking
and eating.
Socrates holds that pleasure and good are not the
same,
or else the evil person becomes as good as the good person.
So Callicles changes his position by saying that some
pleasures
are better than others.
Socrates gets him to agree that the pleasant
is done
for the sake of the good and not the reverse.
To choose
the better pleasures one needs wisdom.
To be concerned only about
pleasure and not the good
is to engage in one of the flatteries.
Thus orators aim only to please their listeners and their
personal
interests, not to make them better
or seek the common good.
Socrates asks Callicles which politicians have improved
the
people, and he cites Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades,
and Pericles;
but instead of making the people more orderly,
each of these men
ended up
being charged with crimes by the people.
Socrates says
they paid no attention to discipline and justice
but promoted
harbors and walls and revenues.
The good politician should treat
the people as a doctor would,
not serve their pleasures.
With
these views Callicles wonders how Socrates
can avoid being brought
into court himself,
and Socrates expects that an evil person might
prosecute him
some day in a trial that would resemble a doctor
being prosecuted by a cook before a jury of children.
He would
be helped though by not having done wrong in his life
and therefore
would not fear death,
since he fears only doing wrong.
If death is a separation of the soul from the body,
the condition
of the soul should be one's primary concern.
In the next world
the tyrants are often depicted as
suffering the greatest evils
because of the license
they had to commit such great crimes on
earth.
Socrates can cite only Aristeides as one
who practiced
justice in politics.
Thus Socrates aims to be as good as he can
and exhorts others to do the same,
guarding against doing wrong
while studying not just
to seem good but to be good, seeking correction
when wrong, and avoiding every form of flattery
but using rhetoric
to attain justice.
In Plato's Phaedrus Socrates gets his
friend Phaedrus
to read him a speech by Lysias on why the beloved
should
give in to the non-lover rather than the lover,
since the
lover is going to be selfish and vain.
When Socrates claims he
could make a better speech,
Phaedrus insists on hearing it; but
Socrates in embarrassment
covers his head and afterward is prevented
by his divine sign
from leaving before correcting such a shameful
speech.
Socrates believes they have blasphemed Eros, the god of
love,
and so he gives another speech showing that the madness
inspired by Eros can be a blessing just as can madness
inspired by Apollo's prophecy, the mystic Dionysus,
and the arts of the
Muses.
Socrates uses symbols to explain how the gods affect
the
soul before it is born into a body.
As a self-moving principle,
the soul can have
no beginning and is immortal.
Only souls that
have seen the truth enter into human form.
Those souls who live
well and justly get better incarnations
than those who are unjust.
Lovers are inspired from having experienced divine beauty.
Control
of the lower drives is described by the figure
of a charioteer,
who must get a dark horse of desires
to cooperate with a bright
and prudent horse.
When the higher aspects are victorious,
one
lives philosophically with self-mastery and inner peace.
In discussing rhetoric Socrates asks if a good discourse requires
knowledge of the truth, and at first it does not seem necessary
because they must only deal with what is plausible
for persuasion;
but then they realize that even that plausibility
cannot be attained
without knowledge of the subject.
So knowing the truth, accurate
definition of terms,
analyzing the material into its components,
and designing the speech for the specific characteristics
of the
listeners are all helpful to the skillful speaker.
Socrates questions
the value of writing, because it can
weaken memory skill and cannot
answer questions
as a living speaker can.
Finally Socrates offers
up a prayer to become fair within,
to have such outward things
as will not conflict
with his inner spirit, that he may value
the wise as rich,
and have as much gold as a moderate person can
bear.
Love is also the topic of Plato's Symposium
in which Apollodorus in about 400 BC narrates the story
of a banquet
he learned of from Aristodemus that took place
the day after Agathon
won the prize for tragedy in 416 BC.
Having drunk much the night
before, the guests decide
to drink only moderately, dismiss the
flute-girls,
and take turns praising Eros, the god of love,
the
physician Eryximachus having warned
that excessive drinking is
detrimental.
Phaedrus presides over the discussion and says that
Love is great because his birth according to Hesiod
showed he
was the first of all the gods.
Love is the best guide to a good
life; the best blessing
one can have is a lover, and the best
for the lover
to have is a young beloved.
Phaedrus cites the case
of Achilles and Patroclus to
point out that the gods most admire
the beloved
who devotes oneself to the lover.
Next Pausanias distinguishes the heavenly Aphrodite
from the
earthly one; the higher love is for the soul
more than the body
and is the intellectual love between men.
He notes that lovers
though often forswear their promises,
and yet even the gods forgive
this.
Pausanias commends pleasing a virtuous lover,
but believes
it is base to gratify a bad lover.
Thus the Athenian custom is
not to yield too soon to a lover
and not for financial or political
considerations,
which are considered immoral.
Yet devoting oneself
to serving another in order to
increase one's wisdom or virtue
is considered blameless.
The comedian Aristophanes
has the hiccups,
and so Eryximachus tells him how to cure them
by holding his breath or sneezing while he claims that
medical
practice can replace harmful desires with beneficial ones.
Thus
this art as well as gymnastics, agriculture, and music
are under
the direction of the god of love,
which produces harmony and concord.
Then Aristophanes tells
a bizarre story explaining how
homosexual and heterosexual love
resulted from creatures
who were either all male, all female,
or hermaphroditic
before they were split in half to seek their
lost halves.
Agathon praises Love as the youngest and loveliest of the gods,
who uses no violence at all but lives in peace and concord.
Love
is tender and supple, dwelling in the softest place
in people's
hearts and more in those whose hearts are soft.
Agathon says that
Love controls lusts and pleasures and is
moderation itself; also
it is as powerful as courage
and an inspiration for poetry.
All
things come from the creative power of love,
and he concludes
by praising Love for cultivating courtesy
and kindness while weeding
out brutality;
it is affable and gracious, a wonder to the wise
and admired
by the gods, producing delicacy, daintiness, grace,
and
elegance, in desire caring for the good in every situation.
Socrates marvels at the eulogies of Love
but wonders whether
they are true.
Instead of flattering love he prefers to say what
love actually is.
Questions of Agathon make clear that Love is
the love of
something and therefore lacks what it desires;
so
as it loves what is beautiful and goodness,
it lacks beauty itself
and also goodness.
Then Socrates relates a conversation he had
about this
with Diotima, who showed him that Love is not bad and
ugly
either but something in between knowledge and ignorance,
a spirit that links the gods and the humans.
Love goes up to heaven
in prayers and
descends as answers and guidance.
Diotima says
that Need and Resource are the parents of Love;
thus Love is always
needing but is resourceful.
The lover seeks to make the good his
own,
which results in happiness.
Diotima explains to Socrates that Love
brings forth the beautiful in body and soul.
Its wisdom is concerned with ordering society
by justice and
moderation, and it motivates one to undertake the
education
of one's favorite in living virtuously.
Initiates in
love must learn to move from the love of one
person's beauty to
love the beauty in every body and
then move from the beauty of
the body to that of the soul,
the spiritual loveliness that never
fades.
Climbing this heavenly ladder will eventually lead to beautiful
institutions to learning and finally to beauty itself.
Discerning
beauty itself will awaken true virtue and make
one a friend of
God and immortal.
Thus convinced, Socrates tries to bring others
to this
understanding, and he worships the god of love and
cultivates
the qualities of Love himself.
The last part of the Symposium describes how the
drunken
Alcibiades comes in and, after he and Socrates
express their mutual
jealousy over Agathon,
gets them drinking as he praises Socrates.
Plato's portrayal of Socrates' trial
and imprisonment
is masterful.
In the Euthyphro Socrates on his way to the
courtroom
encounters a man who is prosecuting his father for murder,
because a slave he caught for murder died in chains
while he was
sending to an oracle for advice.
Euthyphro is surprised to see
Socrates
and asks him why he is there.
Socrates explains that
he is being prosecuted for corrupting
the young and for making
new gods
and not believing in the old ones.
Euthyphro claims that
he is an expert on piety and that
he is not being unholy in prosecuting
his father.
Socrates asks Euthyphro's advice so that
he can better
face the charges of Meletus.
Euthyphro says that what he is doing is holy,
but Socrates
wants to know his definition of holiness.
So Euthyphro says that
what is pleasing to the gods is holy.
Socrates points out that
even the gods may disagree on
questions of right and wrong, and
so Euthyphro's prosecution
of his father may be pleasing to some
gods but not to others;
he asks what proof Euthyphro has that
all the gods agree with him.
This is difficult; so Socrates asks
if the holy is holy
because the gods approve it, or do they approve
something
because it is holy.
By analogy he shows that things
are loved because
someone loves them not the reverse;
but Euthyphro
is arguing that things are loved by the gods
because they are
holy.
These are contradictory,
and even this is just an attribute
of holiness.
Socrates asks him if all that is holy is just,
and Euthyphro
agrees; but as reverence is only a part of fear,
so holiness is
only a part of justice.
Euthyphro says it is the part concerned
with serving the gods,
but Socrates asks how the gods benefit
from this service,
which Euthyphro realizes is absurd.
Euthyphro
then says that holiness is the science of sacrifice
and prayer
which gives to the gods in exchange for benefits;
but Socrates'
questions reduce this also to the absurdity
of commerce with the
gods, and once again
the gods do not really benefit.
When Euthyphro
falls back on his original definition,
they realize they have
come full circle
without understanding what holiness really is.
In the Defense of
Socrates Plato records his version
of Socrates' trial
in 399 BC.
Socrates begins by saying that his accusers have not
told
the truth and though he is not a good speaker,
he will tell
the truth.
Before discussing the formal charges Socrates believes
he must answer the complaints that have been made
against him for years that he has theories about the heavens,
has investigated
below the earth,
and can make the weaker argument defeat the stronger.
These were made 24 years before in The
Clouds
by Aristophanes
and were commonly ascribed
to sophists and philosophers of this
time.
To explain how he became so unpopular Socrates tells how
Chaerephon asked the Delphic oracle if anyone was wiser
than Socrates
and received a negative answer.
Socrates decided to find someone
wiser;
but each time he found that the claims of wisdom
could
not be verified, and he concluded that he was
better off realizing
that he was not wise.
Socrates questioned politicians, poets,
and artisans
in this way and thus made many enemies.
This search
for wisdom and his efforts to help others
become better people
became the mission
of Socrates that occupied most of his time.
The first formal charge of corrupting the youth thus
seemed
especially ironic to Socrates.
He asks Meletus who helps the youth,
and he replies all the other citizens of Athens.
Yet Socrates
shows how horses are benefited by the few
trained to do so, not
the many.
He asks why anyone would want to harm others, since
this
would result in one's own harm too; yet Meletus contends
that Socrates did this intentionally.
If he did it unintentionally,
he could be easily corrected
by communication rather than by prosecution.
In the second charge, although Meletus accused him of
inventing
new gods, he now contends that Socrates
does not believe in gods
at all.
Socrates is more concerned about doing what is right
than
he is about dying, which may be good or bad.
Socrates believes
he must obey God by practicing
philosophy and exhorting people
to a virtuous life.
He must examine people to see if they are
making progress
toward goodness, and he believes
no one serves
the city better than he.
He urges them to care more about
their
souls than their bodies.
Thus he believes he is pleading more
for their benefit
than his own, because God has sent him
like
a fly to pester them into a better life.
Socrates notes that his guiding spirit, which Meletus ridiculed
in the indictment, has warned him often in the past
of what not
to do, but it has not appeared to indicate
he is doing anything
wrong now.
Socrates explains how it kept him out of politics as
too
dangerous for an honest person, and he mentions his refusal
to try the naval commanders illegally when he was elected
to the
council and also how he disobeyed the order
of the oligarchy of
Thirty to arrest the innocent Leon of Salamis
even though it might
have cost him his life.
Socrates points out several men in the
courtroom whose sons
spent time with him, and none of them complained
he had corrupted their sons.
Socrates refuses to make the usual
emotional plea
by his family for his life, because it is irrelevant
to the justice
of the case and should be ignored
by the jurors
who swear to be just.
Socrates was condemned by a vote of 280-221.
The prosecutors
asked for the death penalty,
but in suggesting an alternative
Socrates at first asks to
receive meals at public expense for
his services,
which as a reward more than a punishment
clearly
alienates more jurors.
Finally he offers to pay a small fine,
which is increased
to thirty minae by the support of Plato,
Crito,
Critobulus, and Apollodorus.
A larger majority voted for
the death penalty.
Socrates philosophizes that it is more important
to escape
doing wrong than death, and he warns those who condemned
him wrongly, predicting that his followers
will be even more critical
than he was.
Socrates reflects that death is either like a dreamless
sleep
or a journey to the next world, neither of which is to be
feared.
In conclusion he asks the Athenians to encourage his children
to seek goodness and to reprimand them if they think
they are
worth more than they are.
Plato's Crito
takes place two days
before the execution of Socrates.
His friend
and neighbor Crito visits Socrates
in prison early in the morning.
At the age of seventy Socrates does not resent having to die.
Crito urges Socrates to escape and offers to make all the
arrangements
for him, assuring him that he is willing
to contribute the money
and run the risks of punishment.
Crito also has found several
friends who
are willing to help Socrates run away.
However, Socrates
believes that he must first determine
whether it would be right
for him to get away
without an official release.
Certainly one
should never willingly do wrong, and they agree
that even after
being wronged or injured it is still not right
to do wrong or
injure in return.
Socrates asks if escaping will injure the laws
of the state.
The state has provided much for him, and he believes
he should never do violence to his country.
He could have chosen
banishment as a legal punishment
at his trial; so why should he
change his mind now
against the sanction of the state?
Socrates
would also be endangering his friends,
who would be breaking the
law in helping him to escape,
and he questions the quality of
life
he would have as a fugitive.
Finally Socrates decides to
reject returning wrong for
wrong and the breaking of agreements
and covenants,
and he refuses to injure his country and his friends.
Plato's Phaedo
describes the last day of Socrates' life.
Several of his friends
gather and are admitted into the prison
in the morning as the
guard is taking the chains off Socrates' legs.
Noting the odd
sensation of pleasure after the pain,
Socrates comments that pleasure
and pain
often follow after each other.
Having had many dreams
urging him to cultivate the arts,
Socrates has recently been putting
some of Aesop's Fables
into verse.
Socrates believes that philosophers welcome death
and even seek to purify the soul from the body.
However, suicide
is not considered proper, because it is
as though they have been
given a duty by the gods
and must not leave their post until they
are released
by some other agency.
Since God is their keeper,
it is good to stay alive;
but Cebes asks if the sensible person
grieves leaving
such a master, fools then might rejoice.
Socrates
answers that the good go to even better
divine masters after death.
Crito interrupts to convey the concern of the guard
that if Socrates
talks too much he may have to administer
extra doses of the poison;
but Socrates tells him
to be prepared to do that if necessary.
Socrates wants to explain that it is natural for those
who
have devoted their lives to philosophy to be cheerful
in facing
death in expectation of the
greatest blessing in the next world.
True philosophers are preparing themselves
for dying and death.
Socrates asks if death is not the separation
of the body from
the soul.
The true philosopher directs more attention to the soul
than to the body and is freer of physical pleasures
in searching
for reality.
Socrates explains that the body and its desires
block
the pursuit of philosophy and can lead to wars.
For the body constantly keeps us busy by the need
for food; and if diseases fall upon it,
they hinder our search of reality.
And it fills us with many of the passions and desires
and fears and fantasies of all kinds and nonsense
so that it is said in truthful reality because of it
being inborn in us one can never think at all.
For wars and factions and battles are caused
by nothing other than the body and its desires.
For all wars occur because of the gaining of money,
and we need to gain money because of the body,
slaving in its service; and out of this we bring no
leisure to philosophy because of all these things.5
To know anything clearly one must be released from the body
and observe the actualities with the soul by itself.
So the greatest
knowledge is more likely after death,
and those who live clearest
of the body and its follies
are more likely to perceive the truth.
Thus would it not be ridiculous for one who has trained
oneself
to be in a state most like death to be distressed
when death approaches?
Thus true philosophers make dying their profession
and find it
less alarming than others.
To be distressed by death is proof
that one does not
love wisdom but the body and its wealth and
reputation.
Thus philosophers have greater self-control and courage
than others who practice courage out of fear
of something worse.
Others practice moderation so that they can indulge
in pleasures
with less pain.
Only truth cleanses moderation,
courage, justice,
and wisdom.
Socrates refers to the legend that souls do exist
in another
world after leaving here and return again
to this world, being
born again from the dead
just as the waking come from the sleeping.
If the living did not come from the dead,
eventually everyone
would die.
Socrates also uses the learning theory of recognition
to show that souls must have known things
before they were in
human form.
Comparing the soul to the body, Socrates says the
soul
is more like the invisible, divine, immortal, intelligible,
uniform, indissoluble, constant in itself, invariable,
and governing
while the body is more visible, human,
mortal, unintelligible,
multiform, dissoluble,
not constant in itself, variable, and servile.
Philosophy endeavors to free the soul
from the body by gentle
persuasion.
Simmias and Cebes still have doubts
about the immortality of
the soul.
Simmias asks about the Pythagorean
theory that
the soul is a harmony, and Cebes wonders whether the
soul
may not eventually die after having inhabited many bodies
in succession the way a man wears out many coats
but dies in the
end.
The harmony theory is easily refuted,
because it lacks many
of the obvious characteristics of the soul
such as intelligence,
governing, and it is clearly just the effect
of the musical instrument
not its life essence.
To answer Cebes, Socrates tells how he got
the idea from
Anaxagoras that the mind is the cause of all things;
but in exploring the ideas of Anaxagoras further
he was disappointed
that he brought in
other physical causes instead.
If mind is the
cause, then everything should be designed
for a purpose, as things
are arranged for what is best.
Socrates notes the absurdity of
thinking that he is sitting there
because of his muscles and bones
and other physical causes
instead of because of the spiritual
causes
that the Athenians decided he should be imprisoned and
die
and because Socrates believes it is best for him
to remain
there and submit to their penalty.
If his body were deciding what
is best,
his legs would have taken him to Megara.
Socrates then explains the doctrine of ideas—
that there are
such realities as absolute beauty,
goodness, magnitude and so
on.
The soul is defined as that which brings life to the body.
As the principle of life the soul cannot admit its opposite
any
more than beauty could be ugly, snow not be cold,
or fire not
be hot.
Thus the soul must be immortal.
Like God as the essence
of reality
it must be everlasting and imperishable.
Thus when
death comes to the body, the soul as the immortal
part retires
and escapes unharmed and indestructible.
Then Socrates draws the
ethical implications of this theory.
If the soul is immortal, then it is necessary to take
care of her not only for this time which we call life,
but for all time, and the danger now also seems
to be terrible if one does not take care of her.
For if death were a release from everything,
it would be a god-send for the evil who in dying
would be released from the body and at the same
time from their evils with the soul;
but now since it appears to be immortal,
no one can escape from evils nor be saved
in any other way except by becoming
as good and wise as possible.
For the soul goes into Hades having nothing else
except her education and nurture, which it is said
greatly helps or harms the dead in the very
beginning of the journey there.6
Socrates describes how souls go to their proper level
guided
by angels until it is time for them to return to earth again.
Those more attached to the body
are dragged there by force and
in pain.
Those having done unjust murders are shunned by others
and wander in confusion, while those who lived moderately
and
purely are guided to marvelous places.
Socrates describes the
next world
not in exact terms but by analogies.
Souls undergo
purifications for their sins
and are rewarded for their good deeds.
Unjust murderers are hurled into Tartarus
from which they cannot
escape.
Those who repent eventually are thrown back out.
Those
who have lived holy lives dwell in pure and beautiful
regions
that are indescribable.
Those who have been most serious about
learning prudence,
justice, courage, freedom, and truth are best
fitted
for the journey in the next world.
Thus Socrates encourages
his companions
to take good care of themselves.
When Crito asks how Socrates wants to be buried,
Socrates laughs
and says he'll have to catch him first.
Then he explains to him
it is only his body that they will bury.
Finally Socrates drinks
the cup of hemlock.
When Apollodorus and the others break down
crying,
he reprimands them for the disturbance,
saying it is best
to make one's end
in a peaceful consciousness.
He asks them to
calm down and be brave.
Socrates dies, and Phaedo concludes the
dialog
calling him the best, most prudent, and most just.
The first book of Plato's Republic is Socratic like
the
earlier dialogs, but the rest of the Republic seems
to be
more the ideas of Plato than of Socrates.
Socrates narrates
the long work which begins with a
discussion of old age in which
they note Sophocles' comment
how he felt he had escaped from a raging beast
when asked about
his service of Aphrodite.
When the passions and desires relax,
Cephalus believes
we are freed of many mad masters.
The happiness
of old age depends
primarily on prudence and cheerfulness.
Cephalus
also finds that he thinks more about the tales of the
afterlife
and how wrong-doers may pay the penalty there
so that he examines
his life more.
By living justice in piety he has hope
that this
is in reality the greatest wealth.
In considering whether justice is paying back what is due,
Socrates thinks that it would not be good to give weapons
back
to someone when he is not in his right mind
even if they were
his.
Then Cephalus suggests the idea of Simonides that justice
is giving each his due, which means
doing good to friends and
evil to enemies.
This is modified by questioning to
benefiting
the just and harming the unjust.
However, if one has friends who
are unjust
or enemies who are just, one may end up
harming the
just and helping the unjust.
The good person will not harm anyone
at all.
Those who are harmed become more unjust,
and the just
would never make anyone unjust.
Only the unjust make people more
unjust.
This conclusion bothers Thrasymachus, who demands
Socrates
give him a definition of justice without saying
it is beneficial,
profitable, or advantageous.
This is impossible, but Thrasymachus
defines justice
as the advantage of the stronger, as each form
of government
enacts laws to its own advantage
whether it is democratic
or tyrannical.
Socrates asks whether sometimes they err and make
laws
that are not to their advantage
which would result in bad
for themselves.
Socrates asks if each art does not serve its clients
rather than the practitioner, who is usually compensated by pay.
Thrasymachus uses the example of the shepherd who fattens
the
flock for his own use, and he points out that the unjust
person
always gains the advantage over the just.
He believes people are
not afraid of doing injustice
but only of suffering it; if injustice
is done on a
large enough scale, it can be masterful and advantageous.
Socrates disagrees that injustice is more profitable than justice.
As each art is for the advantage of the clients,
so government
is also for the advantage of the governed,
which is why governors
are paid in money, honor,
or should have a penalty for refusing
to govern.
The latter is the greatest inducement for the good
person,
as the penalty is to be governed by someone less capable.
Although Thrasymachus claims that injustice is a virtue,
Socrates
is able to argue that the just person is wise and good,
while
the unjust is bad and ignorant.
Those who are unjust will wrong
each other and be incapable
of cooperation so long as they are
unjust,
as injustice brings conflicts and hatred.
Thus the unjust
are enemies to each other as well as to the just
and ultimately
even to the gods.
The unjust cannot accomplish anything except
insofar
as they act with some justice and cooperation.
Although Thrasymachus gives in to Socrates' arguments
based
on justice as a virtue, in the second book of the
Republic
Glaucon and his brother Adeimantus are not
satisfied that it was
adequately proven even though
they do not agree with Thrasymachus
but with Socrates,
who believes that justice is good
not only
for its results but for its own sake.
They argue that justice
was invented, because people fear
being wronged more than they
gain by wronging;
thus people make a compact and laws for everyone.
Glaucon tells the story of Gyges, who found a ring that
could
make him invisible and used it to seduce the queen,
kill the king,
and take over the kingdom of Lydia.
Since people believe there
is profit in injustice,
Glaucon wants to separate complete injustice
from the purely just.
Since it is unjust for one to have the reputation
for justice
along with the power and advantages of injustice,
this must be compared to a just person
who is treated as the worst
criminal.
This contrast could not but have reminded Plato's readers
of their miserable politicians and how the
most just Socrates
was executed.
Socrates proposes to answer this dilemma by looking
at
the larger picture of the state to see
if they can find out
what justice is.
They begin by speculating about the origin of a city with
the
division of labor necessary for their basic needs.
They start
with a farmer, builder, weaver, and shoemaker
and soon expand
it to carpenters, smiths, craftsmen,
herders for draft animals,
then to merchants, traders,
shipbuilders, shopkeepers, and wage-earners.
Socrates describes a simple life with a mostly vegetarian diet
with some cheese, wine, and moderate relishes.
However, Glaucon
asks if this is not a life for pigs.
He wants couches, tables,
and meat.
Socrates replies that then he does not want to
create
a just city but a luxurious one.
Socrates suspects that this will
lead to
the origin of justice and injustice.
The healthy state
has already been described, but now
they are going to create a
feverish state.
Now a much greater multitude of workers are needed,
including many more doctors because
of a less healthy diet of
meat.
This greater population will require more territory,
which
must be taken from their neighbors.
If they do not limit their
desires but abandon themselves to
the unlimited acquisition of
wealth, then they must go to war.
Thus a large army will be needed
to march out and fight
in defense of all the wealth and luxuries.
To have a successful military
they must be professional and well
trained.
These guardians must be able to distinguish their friends
from their foes and thus need a good education.
This takes the
discussion straight
into what is the proper education.
For me,
this section is the turning point from the quest for
true justice
that Socrates followed to the justification of an
unhealthy state
that Plato now wants to explore
after the Spartan model.
Suddenly
Socrates is no longer questioning the most basic
assumptions but
blithely going along even though it is clear
that this is not
the best state at all.
Having just proven that it is not just
to harm anyone,
now they have accepted an unnecessary army
to
harm enemies for the sake of luxurious and unneeded wealth.
Next they make various pronouncements about education
involving
censorship and the perpetration of falsehoods
without really questioning
whether those policies are good
except from one limited point
of view.
They start the discussion of education with the traditional
gymnastics and music, which includes all the cultural arts.
Imperiously
they are to decide which stories are to be rejected
and proceed
to recommend censoring the poets and
playwrights for portraying
the gods as imperfect in virtue.
How do they expect to do away
with these famous writings?
Why don't they teach people to think
and question them
instead of trying to cover them up and hide
them?
If the gods are good and truthful, can they not teach that
rationally and show the limitations of the poems and stories?
Tragically Plato seems to have fallen into an authoritarian
approach
to justifying the materialistic imperialism of
western civilization,
which the world
has been suffering from that day to this.
The rulers will lie, but it is considered a sin for others
to do so.
The multitude is expected to obey their rulers just
as
they practice self-control over their appetites.
Music is to
be limited to martial tunes that encourage bravery
and gentle
harmonies that are peaceful.
Not only the poets but all the artisans
must be carefully controlled.
Everyone must do their own work,
and the sick should not be
coddled by doctors that merely prolong
their illnesses.
The guardians are to be trained to be good judges
by
discerning injustice in others but not experiencing it themselves.
They are to be gentle, orderly, prudent, and brave.
Those who
are cowardly and rude and fail to pass the tests
of toils and
pains are to be rejected.
A false myth is to be told of the guardians
that they were
molded within the earth to rule with golden qualities,
while their helpers, the military, are to be considered silver,
and the artisans and workers brass and iron.
Individuals found
to have the wrong qualities
should be transferred to another class.
They should say an oracle predicted that the state would be
overthrown
when a man of iron or brass becomes its guardian.
The army should
make sure that
the workers do not become the masters.
The guardians are to live an austere life without any private
property, sharing things in common and not using
luxuries like
gold and silver.
While the guardians rule and the army defends
the city,
all the productive work is to be done
by the artisans
and workers.
This system is supposed in this discussion to be
for the greatest
happiness of the whole city, but the analogy
with an individual
unfortunately treats the individuals in this
city as parts
not wholes themselves in their quest to achieve
unity in the state.
Even wives and children are to be held in
common.
The guardians are to be wise, the military brave,
and
everyone moderate and just.
Although self-control can bring an
individual freedom,
when one class controls another, the result
is more like slavery.
The guardians are to judge all lawsuits,
which are expected
to be few because there is no private property;
but unfortunately that is no guarantee
of equal sharing without
disagreements.
Socrates describes the three parts of the psyche that relate
to
the three classes as the part that learns, what feels anger
and
emotions, and the appetites of the body.
The emotion of anger
can support the reason in its struggle
with lower desires just
as the two highest classes must
control the larger third class
of workers.
They conclude that this city exemplifies justice,
though I seriously doubt it.
The opposite state of injustice they
believe is when
these three principles interfere with each other
and revolt.
Adeimantus questions the policy of having the women and
children
in common, since it is such a radical idea.
Socrates argues quite
rationally that except for the fact that
women are weaker and
men stronger, there are no differences
that should prevent women
from getting the same education
and performing the same functions
as the men.
A woman is just as likely to have the mind of a physician
as a man, and they have the same capacity for administration.
Thus women ought to be guardians and cohabit with those men.
Socrates
prophetically notes that it is the current practices
of sexual
discrimination that are actually more unnatural
than his utopian
scheme.
Women can also be soldiers
although they should be assigned
lighter duties.
However, the plan to have the women and children
in common is clearly more problematic, especially when
eugenics controlled
by the guardians is introduced.
To enable the best specimens to
have more children
the rulers are to deceive them by awarding
prizes
that seem random but are not.
Those considered inferior
are to have less chance to procreate.
Although by grouping the
children by age, the parents
can know which group contains their
children,
brothers and sisters of different ages will surely be
unknown.
Thus they ask for a dispensation from the Delphic oracle
regarding brothers and sisters cohabiting.
Socrates argues that
they will be more likely to respect
their elders not knowing which
are their parents,
but it could also be argued that
the respect
in practice would be far less.
By getting rid of the concepts of "mine" and "not
mine"
they hope to have more unity, but without close family
feelings
there could be even more chaos and alienation.
In most
Greek cities of this time the workers
would be considered slaves.
The hope that there will be no quarrels over property
since it
is all held in common is naive.
Socrates does argue that they
ought to treat other Greek cities
better than has been the practice
in their time
by not burning their houses or enslaving their peoples
in wars;
such treatment is to be reserved for the barbarians
who
speak other languages.
With the exception of equal treatment for
the women
this does not seem like a just nor a wise society.
Socrates suggests that there will be no cessation of such
troubles until philosophers become the rulers
or the rulers pursue philosophy
seriously.
The guardians must be the wisest.
Ironically they cite
truthfulness as a most essential quality
for the rulers after
recommending the guardians tell various lies.
They must also be
prudent, brave, liberal, just, and intelligent
with a good memory.
To describe the current situation Socrates uses the metaphor
of
a ship in which the skilled pilot is ignored by the sailors
as
impractical, because they are able to get the shipmaster
to do
what they want.
Thus the one with the finest spirit and the greatest
knowledge
of navigation is thought a useless stargazer.
Philosophers are also ignored, because many who call
themselves
such constantly quarrel and pretend
to knowledge they don't have.
Socrates criticizes the professional sophists who teach for pay
but inculcate the beliefs of the multitudes
and confuse the good
with what pleases.
These people cannot distinguish beauty itself
from the many beautiful things.
Thus youths of great ability are
led astray and filled with
ambitious hopes without doing the hard
studying necessary,
and so such prospects are discouraged
from
taking up true philosophy.
In the current political climate a
true philosopher would be
destroyed like a man among wild beasts
without accomplishing any benefit.
The true philosopher is focused
on the eternal ideas
and does not have the time to engage
in the
petty strife of envy and hate.
Socrates argues that pleasure cannot be the good,
because some
pleasures are bad.
He tries to describe the offspring of the good
as like the light that helps us see.
He delineates four ways of
perceiving things.
Perceiving objects in the visible world gives
belief,
while their likenesses involve conjecture; in the intelligible
world the ideas are known, while the hypotheses
about them involved
understanding.
Socrates uses the allegory of a cave in which people
are
chained so that they can only see the shadows on the wall
made from the fire behind them.
If someone were to get free of
the chains and turn his head
to see those using objects to make
the shadows and the
light of the fire itself, the others would
not likely believe him.
Eventually the liberated person goes outside
the cave
and adjusts his eyes to the sunlight.
He pities the prisoners;
but when he goes back into
the cave, his eyes are full of darkness,
and he cannot
compete well in perceiving the shadows.
Socrates
asks if one tries to free them from their chains
and lead them
to the light whether
they would not be likely to put him to death.
Thus is described the ascent of the soul beyond the
physical world
with the sun representing the good.
Socrates notes that contention for office and power
causes
strife and results in destruction.
Next they discuss the education
of the guardians,
recommending mathematics, geometry, astronomy,
and finally the dialectic of discussing ideas.
Socrates explains
the relationships between the four levels
of consciousness, saying
that intellection deals with essence
and opinion with generation.
As intellection is to opinion, so science is to belief,
and understanding
is to image making.
In contrast to the authoritarian methods already
implied,
Socrates suggests that the education of the guardians
should not be by constraint,
because learning by compulsion is
ineffective.
He recommends that children learn by playing so that
their
natural capacities can be discerned.
The comprehensive and
practical education of the guardians
is not complete until they
reach the age of fifty.
The 8th book of the Republic is a brilliant discussion
of the
four kinds of government that are inferior to aristocracy
in which the best rule by virtue.
The first of these is like the
constitution of Crete and Sparta
and is called timocracy.
This
tends to degenerate into plutocratic oligarchy,
then democracy,
and finally tyranny.
The forms of government reflect the psychology
and values of the citizens.
The aristocracy deteriorates into
timocracy
when honor replaces virtue,
as the youths become less
cultured and educated.
They begin to strive for position
which
causes conflicts and wars.
The ambitious and aggressive in attempting
to gain more
power and wealth tend to enslave the population around
and do not care as much about the good of their subjects.
Wanting
wealth but not being allowed to possess it openly,
they become
stingy but prodigal with the wealth of others
in order to enjoy
pleasures unobtrusively.
No longer educated to be virtuous, they
become contentious
and covetous of honors in war and government.
While young they love athletics, hunting, and war preparations;
but as they get older, they long for more wealth.
The timocratic
person develops because his mother and others,
dissatisfied with
the scant rewards of his father's virtue,
encourage the son to
be more ambitious.
In the oligarchy called plutocracy wealth becomes dominant,
and citizenship depends on holding property;
the rich hold office,
while the poor are excluded.
They find ways to pervert the laws
to increase their wealth.
The values of virtue, honor, and victory
succumb to wealth.
This state becomes divided in two
between the
rich and the poor.
Wars are not as successful, because they fear
arming the
people and are reluctant to spend money.
Many of the
poor must either beg or become thieves.
The son of the timocratic
man sees his father's possessions
declining in his pursuit of
honors and war.
So he turns to earning money by hard work and
thrift,
and he admires the rich and the attainment of wealth.
He seeks to satisfy his own desires but is careful
not to spend
money on attaining honors or helping others.
Property becomes
greatly esteemed.
They encourage prodigals to spend their money
by loaning
to them so that they can take over their property
and
become even richer.
In this way many who were noble become reduced
to poverty.
These discontented and impoverished nobles become
leaders
of revolution, as the rich become idle and soft.
Factions
arise, and the parties bring in allies
from other states until
a war results.
When the poor attain victory, they institute a democracy
and
grant equal citizenship and eliminate property qualifications
for offices, many of which are assigned by lot.
Freedom becomes
the greatest value, and everyone can say
what they like and do
what they please.
Diversity increases; varieties of entertainment
abound;
and just about everything is tolerated, even crime.
Those
who say they love the people are elected.
Everyone is treated
as equal, whether they are equal or not.
Liberty and license lead
to self-indulgence
and the pursuit of pleasures.
The desires have
overcome the discipline
used for money-making.
The children of
the wealthy indulge themselves,
and the poor long for liberty.
Such prodigality and the shameless quest for freedom
at any cost
bring about the democratic revolution.
All values and pleasures are considered equal, as people
indulge
themselves in whatever suits their fancy—
some drinking, others
dieting or exercising, sometimes idle and
neglectful, other times
diligently occupied with philosophy or
any other pursuit; they
rush from one thing to another.
Those who do not govern liberally
are accused
of being oligarchs, while those who obey are called
slaves.
In this anarchic mood the rulers resemble the subjects,
as the subjects become the rulers.
Parents try to be like their
children, and the children
have no respect for their parents.
Even the animals are allowed liberty.
Teachers fawn on their students,
and students think they need no teachers.
The young compete with
their elders,
and the older people imitate the young.
Sex roles
become confused,
and people chafe at any kind of servitude.
Eventually the people find a leader who promises them
everything
as their champion and protector.
In gaining control of the people
he may shed some blood
while hinting at abolishing debts and land
reform.
Such a powerful figure may be slain by his enemies
or
become the leader of the faction
fighting the property owners.
In danger of being assassinated, he requests a bodyguard
to make
the state safe for this "friend of democracy."
This
protector then gradually becomes a tyrant.
His leadership is strengthened
by
stirring up wars he must lead.
This gives him an excuse to
destroy
his enemies and thwart his rivals.
Those who criticize
him must be silenced,
resulting in a negative purge in which the
best,
instead of the worst elements, are eliminated.
This tyranny
is then the most unjust
and worst form of government.
The tyrant is like the person who has been enslaved
by one
desire; everything is spent for that one addiction.
Then the tyrant
must take from others by deceit or violence.
If one has the power,
the tyrant refrains from no atrocity
in this lawless quest, robbing
even
one's parents or the fatherland.
They associate with flatterers
and have no real friends,
everyone being either a master or a
slave.
Thus the tyrannical person is enslaved in suffering
the
disease of unfulfilled desire, full of alarms and terror,
always
in anguish and insecure, envious, faithless, unjust,
friendless,
impious, and a vessel of every vice.
Thus they conclude that the
unjust are
the most unhappy, while the just are happy.
Socrates explains that the faculty of reason is best able
to
judge the pleasures, and so the lover of wisdom
will do better
than the lover of gain.
Many confuse pleasure with the cessation
of bodily needs
and pains, as gray seems whiter than black
even
though it is not white.
The purest and most lasting pleasures
relate
to the truth and immortal qualities.
The philosophers seek
the purest pleasures, while the tyrants
and those most enslaved
desire the grossest.
Socrates likens the reason to a person, the
emotional part
to a lion, and the appetites to a many-headed monster.
The rational human part is most divine
and should rule for the
best results.
To accept gold unjustly, for example, ignores the
reason
and enslaves one to the worst part.
The lion should be
controlled by the reason,
as also should the effeminate part
that
might engender cowardice and luxury.
If the beast desiring wealth
with unbridled lust rules,
one becomes more like an ape.
So it is best for the intelligence to rule the individual
and
for the wisest to rule in the state.
Escaping the penalty for
wrongdoing
is likely to make one worse,
while those who are chastened
become more moderate
and just with wisdom, because
the soul is far more precious than the body.
Thus the body must be fine tuned
by the soul.
The wise will work to better themselves and will
not
allow their reason to be overthrown even though
the ideal
state may only exist as a model in heaven.
Once again Socrates criticizes poetry and fine art for being
imitations of things which imitate the true realities.
He complains
that tragedies and comedies stir up the passions
and emotions,
and he finds no value in this vicarious experience,
although he
does leave the argument open for a rebuttal
to show that they
can benefit people in an orderly society.
He then argues for the
immortality of the soul
based on the idea that its disease, vice,
does not kill the soul
the way diseases of other things kill or
destroy them.
Neither does any other evil kill the soul;
therefore
it must be immortal.
The soul in its love of wisdom is most akin
to the divine.
Now Socrates asks to reinstate the rewards of justice
that were taken away in order to prove that
justice was good for
its own sake even without its rewards.
He says that the gods love
and help the just,
but dislike the unjust.
If good things do not
come to one just,
it is because of sins in a previous life.
He
notes how the just by the end
of a competition will win the prize.
Yet the rewards on earth are very limited
compared to those that
come after death.
Socrates recounts the tale of Er, who revived on a
pile of
corpses after he was thought dead for several days.
This near-death
experience describes in elaborate detail what
happens to souls
after leaving the body
and when preparing to come into other ones.
Souls who have died go into upper and lower worlds,
and souls
come from both these regions to be born again.
Often those coming
from above do not make wise choices,
while those having suffered
below choose more carefully,
so that good and evil often alternate.
According to Er, the penalties of wrongdoing are experienced
tenfold
in the next world, and the worst tyrants may have to
suffer even
more than a thousand years for their crimes.
Thus Socrates points
out the importance of studying
to learn how to make wise choices
regarding good and evil
in choosing what to experience in life.
Before being born again the souls had to drink from the
River
of Forgetfulness, but Er was prevented from drinking
and so brought
back the memory of the other world.
Finally Socrates exhorts his listeners to keep their souls
unspotted and follow the upward way in pursuing justice
with wisdom
always so that they will be
dear to the gods in this life and
the next.
Plato was born in a noble Athenian family
about 428 BC.
His mother Perictione was the sister of Charmides
and the niece of Critias, leaders of the vicious
oligarchy of
Thirty, which ruled Athens briefly
after the empire was destroyed
by the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC.
These two men associated with
Socrates for many years,
and so Plato probably knew the philosopher
well as a youth.
In the Seventh Letter Plato wrote how
he wanted to go into
politics, and he was invited to join the
oligarchy;
but he believed they made the previous government
look
like a golden age.
He was particularly ashamed at their ordering
Socrates to arrest a man for execution, which he refused to do.
Observing their oppressive government in action,
Plato withdrew
in disgust,
and the oligarchy was soon overthrown.
After Socrates
was executed in 399 BC,
Plato went with other disciples of Socrates
to visit Euclides in Megara.
Plato studied with the Heraclitean
Cratylus and was said
to have visited the mathematician Theodorus
at Cyrene,
the Pythagoreans Philolaus and Eurytus in Italy,
and
priests in Egypt.
When he was about forty, Plato visited Dionysius
I in Sicily;
but he was disgusted by self-indulgent Syracusan
life.
He became friends with Dion,
brother-in-law of Dionysius I,
and he found that Dion took
to his instruction
more than anyone.
Plato criticized the tyrant,
which may have caused his being
sold into slavery briefly before
he was bought and freed
at Aegina for 20 or 30 minae by
Anniceris.
When Plato's friends paid the money back to Anniceris,
he refused to keep it but bought the garden near Athens
called
the Academy, where Plato founded his school in 387 BC.
There Plato
taught philosophy, mathematics, jurisprudence,
and promoted scientific
research.
According to one report, Plato was invited to legislate
for
Megalopolis when it was founded by the Arcadians
and Thebans;
but he declined when they
would not accept his idea of sharing
possessions equally.
When Dionysius I died in
367 BC, Plato's friends Dion
and
Archytus of Tarentum urged him to tutor the successor
Dionysius II, who promised him
lands and settlers
for the realization of his republic.
Not wanting
to be merely a man of words, Plato,
guided by reason and justice,
went to Sicily again.
In the Seventh Letter Plato explained
how he gave advice
to those who consulted him and whose lives
were
well regulated but not to those
who did not ask advice.
Similarly
he suggested criticizing the state if doing so
will not be useless
or lead to death,
though he did not believe in violent revolution.
If one cannot reform the state without killing,
it is better to
refrain from action and pray for the best.
He pointed out how Dionysius I brought together
all Sicily,
but in trusting no one he eventually met with disaster.
Plato and Dion suggested that
Dionysius II first educate
himself and second win friends through
moral harmony.
Once his character was established, he could recolonize
the deserted cities and unite the people under just laws.
However, Dionysius II suspected Plato
of plotting to
take over Sicily with Dion,
whom he exiled.
Though the tyrant gave him gifts,
Plato could
not agree with the expulsion of Dion.
In the Seventh Letter Plato argued that subjection to
laws
is better than subjection to human masters.
Self-control
ought to be exercised in drawing up laws
so that they do not favor
them over the defeated party;
then everyone can have equal rights.
Dionysius II let Plato go;
but a few years later
after a peace was made, Dionysius asked
him to return,
though he put off ending Dion's exile.
Plato refused;
but after several requests and promises,
he reluctantly went back
in the hope of
teaching Dionysius
II philosophy.
Plato explained how many steps and hard work
can
eventually lead to a sudden illumination in the soul
that
can then be self-sustaining.
However, Dionysius
II went back on his promises
regarding the property of Dion,
and Plato wanted to leave
but could not do so.
The philosopher decided to test Dionysius'
latest promises for another year.
After a disturbance over the
pay of the mercenaries,
Dionysius
went back on an agreement
Plato had personally witnessed.
In danger
and a prisoner, Plato was rescued by an embassy
from Archytus,
who in a letter reminded the tyrant
that he had promised the philosopher
safety.
Plato met Dion at the Olympic
games of 360 BC.
Dion asked
Plato and his friends to support his revolution;
Plato refused
to make war but offered to mediate
as a common friend to accomplish
some good.
If Dion was bent
on evil, he must invite others.
Helped by some of Plato's students, Dion captured Syracuse
in
357 BC, but he was murdered four years later.
In the Eighth
Letter Plato once again argued for rule by law
rather than
by the arbitrary power of men,
and for Sicily he suggested a kingship
of three men responsible to the laws.
Plato must have had slaves,
because he refused to punish
them when he was angry, apparently
not wanting
his emotion to affect his judgment.
Plato's Timaeus is set the day after the
discussion recorded in the Republic.
In hearing about the
ideal republic Critias was reminded
of the tale passed on to him
by his grandfather from Solon,
who heard from Egyptian priests
that
Atlantis existed nine thousands years before.
Critias is
going to tell how the Athenians won a war
against the lost continent
of Atlantis, but this is put off
so that Timaeus can first explain
the
origin of the universe and all life.
Timaeus expresses the
Platonic view that the creator is good
and that everything is
designed for the best.
The intelligence of the whole was put into
the invisible soul,
and the soul into the body.
Everything is
created by the providence of God.
When the soul is implanted in
the body, it is given the
faculties of sensation and love in which
pleasure and pain
are mingled with various feelings.
Those governing
their feelings live justly,
those overcome by them unjustly.
Timaeus
calls the ability to inquire into the nature of the
universe the
source of philosophy and the greatest
good given to humans by
the gods.
Plato's Critias describes the large
island of Atlantis
that existed in the great ocean outside the
Pillars of Heracles (western gate of the Mediterranean Sea)
nine
thousand years before when there were many more trees,
which kept
the rain from running off the barren land.
The culture on Atlantis
was very advanced,
and laws did not allow them to carry arms against
each other.
If anyone tried to overthrow the government,
they
all helped put down the revolt.
They followed their laws and loved
the divine,
to which they believed they were akin.
However, eventually
coveting and pride for power caused
a deterioration, and Zeus
is about to lay a judgment upon
them and speak when the dialog
is abruptly cut off unfinished.
In Plato's Theaetetus Socrates, acting
as an intellectual
midwife, tries to discover what knowledge is
by questioning
the young Theaetetus and the geometrician Theodorus.
The idea that knowledge is perception leads to the
famous statement
of the sophist Protagoras that
"the person is the measure
of all things,"
but it becomes clear that one person can
be wiser than
another and that knowledge resides in the reflection
on
impression not in the mere impressions themselves.
Next Theaetetus
suggests that knowledge could be true
judgment, but they discover
that knowledge cannot be belief
even if the belief is true nor
can it be a belief accompanied
by an explanation since some knowledge
requires
no explanation and the explanation may be erroneous.
In a digression Socrates compares the petty legal minds of
rhetoricians to the deep and seemingly impractical concerns
of
the philosophers, who attempt to find justice and ways of
good
government that can lead to happiness instead of misery.
Theodorus
comments that if Socrates could persuade everyone,
there would
be more peace and fewer evils in the world.
Socrates notes that
there will always be evils in this world;
therefore one should
seek to become just with the help of
wisdom so that one can fly
to a better world after death;
for in the divine there is no injustice
at all.
The unjust suffer the penalty of their crimes in this
world.
In the Sophist and the Politician
Plato has an
Eleatic Stranger lead the discussions attempting
to define
the sophist, politician, and the philosopher,
though
Socrates is still present.
They divide things into various categories
and define the
sophist as one who hunts rich young men, trades
in learning,
is skilled in arguing, and who claims to instruct
people in virtue.
Efforts to define them as pretending to wisdom
they do not have had often been refuted with sophistical
arguments
that falseness does not really exist.
Discussion shows what is
not true can be understood
as different from being true without
being dismissed as not existing at all.
The philosopher distinguishes
differences by division
and focuses on the divine nature of reality,
which is difficult to see for the vulgar.
The discussion does
not allow the sophist to hide
by denying that falsity exists,
but they hunt him down
and call the sophistic art an insincere
mimicry and
contradiction-making using the shadow play of words.
In the Politician they define seven
forms of government.
The ideal state, which is more for gods than
mortals,
has no laws, because the rulers govern with wisdom for
the
benefit of all and can thus handle every situation
according
to its individual needs.
Laws are made for average subjects as
general guidelines,
and they can never be as flexible
as direct
treatment by a virtuous expert.
Usually government is by one ruler,
a few, or many,
and each of these can be law-abiding or not.
The
best of these is constitutional monarchy in which the laws
are
good and well administered,
and the aristocracy ruled well by
a few comes next.
Democracy is in the middle in that it is the
worst of the
well governed states but the least bad
of the badly
governed ones, followed by
oligarchy, and tyranny as the worst.
The Eleatic stranger subordinates the arts of
administering justice, oratory, and generalship
to the art of governing.
Students are
to be educated to be brave, moderate, and just,
and those who
are not are to be severely punished;
those who cannot rise above
ignorance
are to serve the community as slaves.
Noting that the
brave may be too aggressive
and the prudent too weak, he recommends
weaving their
assertive and gentle qualities together in the government
and in the population by marrying
the opposite types to each other.
In the Philebus Plato has Socrates
lead the discussion
to determine whether pleasure or knowledge
is the good.
Philebus has claimed that pleasure is the good everyone
ought to seek, but Socrates suggests the good is different
than
the pleasant and is found better through intelligence.
In separating
the two from each other Socrates
and Protarchus find neither satisfactory.
In composing a mixture pleasure accepts all forms
of knowledge,
but intelligence agrees only to consort
with the pleasures that
are healthy and moderate,
rejecting those that are foolish and
bad.
They find measure and proportion essential to making
a good
mix and then value beauty and truth next,
followed by the sciences
and arts, and finally
the pure pleasures that are accompanied
by less pain than the grosser ones.
Socrates proclaims this philosophically
even though
all the animals in the world may disagree.
Laws is probably the last work of Plato
before he died about 347 BC at the age of eighty.
An Athenian
expresses his ideas of laws for a new state
to a Cretan and a
Spartan as they walk from Knossos
to the cave of Zeus on the summer
solstice.
Cleinias, the Cretan, notes the internal warfare and
the
importance of winning a victory over self and the ruinous
discredit of losing such a contest.
The Athenian suggests it is
better to reconcile people and
let the good rule while bringing
the worse into voluntary
submission than to exterminate the bad.
Thus peace and good will are better than conflict and faction.
Legislation for war as a means to peace is better
than the
reverse,
which is the mistake of Lacedaemonian institutions.
The Athenian's
views are not challenged and rarely
questioned in this long dialog.
The Athenian values the virtues of wisdom, moderation,
justice, and valor first, then the health and beauty of the
body, and third
wealth and property.
The spiritual goods are to be the basis
for
the laws to attain the latter human goods.
Play is again suggested as a good way for children to learn
self-control and gain knowledge.
Once again Plato is very careful
about what music and poetry
are to be learned, and judges are
set up to decide.
The unjust life is more dishonorable and unpleasant
than a just one.
The Athenian reviews Persian history to show
the failure of
Cyrus and Darius to educate their sons, resulting
in an
autocratic government with little freedom for the people,
but the extremes of democratic freedom
have also been failures.
Thus they recommend a blend of autocracy and liberty.
God, not
a human, is more truly the measure of all things.
The virtuous,
who are more like God, ought to rule.
After God one ought to honor
one's own soul.
To honor anything like the beauty of the body
or wealth
above the soul is a mistake.
People need to respect
not only friends but aliens as well,
because they have a greater
need for divine and human pity.
Truth and justice should be the
highest values,
and violent attachment to self is a constant problem.
One who wishes to be great must not care for oneself
and one's
own belongings more than for justice.
Moderation, wisdom, courage,
and health are to be
valued over folly, cowardice, profligacy,
and disease.
The Athenian holds that the best state is that in which all
possessions, women, and children are shared in common,
and the
private life of the individual does not exist;
but whether this
is even possible is questionable.
So the Athenian proceeds to
describe the laws for the
second best state by distributing property
and houses equally.
The state is to issue its own currency in
place of
gold and silver, and dowries and loaning of money
at
interest are to be forbidden.
The assembly is open to all, but
the top two propertied
classes are to be fined if they do not
attend.
No one is allowed to be poorer than a certain amount,
nor is anyone allowed to have more than four times that.
Expenditures
on weddings and funerals are limited.
The ruling guardians once
again are to be fifty years old
and no more than seventy.
The
highest officer is the minister of education.
The Athenian refers
to the evils of slavery in the recent
uprisings in Messenia, but
the two remedies he suggests
are to make sure that they do not
all speak the same
language or to treat them better without using
violence.
Plato thought it wrong to take advantage of a superior
position, but apparently he was not bothered
by the inequality
and lack of freedom.
The Athenian notes the two extremes of human sacrifice
and
the Orphic insistence on vegetarianism.
The Athenian then goes
into how the three appetites for
food, drink, and sex need to
be controlled
by fear, law, and reason.
The Athenian warns against
the two extremes of either
spoiling children that makes them fretful,
peevish,
and easily upset by trifles, or severe tyranny that makes
them
spiritless, servile, sullen, and unfit for domestic and civil
life.
There is a middle way between the pursuit of pleasure
and
the unqualified avoidance of pain which is gentle and good.
Education
is to be compulsory for all with the girls
getting the same training
as the boys.
Leery about allowing all the poetry, the Athenian
suggests
his work be read, and only those plays
agreeing with
these ideas are to be performed.
Yet men and women are to be trained
in the various arts of warfare.
The Athenian fears any kind of
innovation as
threatening to lead to revolution, and he admires
the conformity of Egyptian musical training.
Those hunting for
fish are not allowed
to put poison in the waters.
Anyone polluting
the waters is to be fined
and must clean them up.
Cleinias regrets that the life-long quest for money
usually
does not allow time to practice the arts of war,
and the Athenian
agrees that most states are dominated
by parties and do not have
willing subjects;
he too would increase military education.
He
also criticizes homosexuality in which
one man plays the role
of the female.
The Athenian wishes to teach people to conquer
their lusts,
and he promises that those who do will attain bliss.
No man is allowed to touch any woman except his wife,
and homosexuality
is prohibited.
The Athenian seems to believe that no one does
wrong
intentionally, and the purpose of the many fines and penalties
are to correct and cure.
Thus intention is very important in judging
acts.
However, under the justification that the disease is often
past cure, the death penalty is often invoked in these laws.
There
follows detailed discussion of numerous laws,
beginning with homicide.
Before making religious laws they ask the Athenian to prove
to the people that the gods exist and care about humans.
The order
in the universe is the first argument.
The Athenian also argues
that the soul is more primal
than the body, and so intelligence,
wisdom, art, and law
precede all physical things.
The soul as
the only source of its own movement must be
the first-born of
all things, and it is the supremely good soul
that conceived the
universe and guides its path.
These good souls are the gods, who
direct the universe
whether they inhabit bodies or not, thus demonstrating
that all things are full of gods.
The gods perceive and can know
all things, are immortal,
good, and therefore would not neglect
human concerns.
Those who make themselves better make their way
to the
better souls through a series of lives, as like attracts
like.
With this preamble they decide that even minor impiety
deserves
five years imprisonment and a second offense death,
while major
impiety is punished by execution,
the body being cast out without
burial.
I find it ironic and sad that Plato could recommend such
laws
a half century after having witnessed his teacher Socrates
being condemned on such a charge.
People are not even allowed
to worship at private shrines
in their own homes, so oppressive
is the state religion to be.
Likewise everyone in this city must have the same
friends and
enemies as the state.
The death penalty is given to any person
or group
making peace independently as well as for making
war
independently of the state.
Travel is restricted to specific purposes.
The supreme curators of the state, who are the ten oldest
guardians
of the law, meet before dawn,
and perfect virtue is ever to be
the goal of all their endeavors.
Like in the Republic Plato
has designed another militaristic
state with a virtuous objective;
although his primary method
of attaining this is through universal
compulsory education,
his plan is also quite legalistic and autocratic
with more
emphasis on the good of the state than of the individuals.
1. Fr. 136, Sextus adv. math. ix, 129.
2. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, tr.
R. D. Hicks, 9:51.
3. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, tr. Walter Miller, 1:5:9.
4. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, tr.
R. D. Hicks, 3:35.
5. Plato, Phaedo tr. Sanderson Beck, 11.
6. Ibid., 107.
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