This chapter has been published in the book CONFUCIUS AND SOCRATES Teaching Wisdom. For ordering information, please click here.
In studying Socrates as an educator, we must first come to
grips with the sources of our information about Socrates and their
methodological complexities, which are known as the "Socratic
problem." Because we have no writing whatsoever by Socrates
himself, we must rely on the extant literature of other people
who wrote about him. The problem is to differentiate the views
of Socrates from those of the authors who describe him and his
teachings. This was a problem even during the classical period,
and in the last century or two modern scholars have been debating
the issues in numerous books and papers. In spite of careful scholarship
and reasoned arguments, many of the issues still lack consensus
and are controversial.
The four major sources (Plato,
Xenophon, Aristotle,
and Aristophanes) have
each had their champions.1 In the classical world the influence
of the Academy and the Platonists gave most prominence to the
writings of Plato, who founded
the Academy which lasted from the fourth century BC until the
submersion of the classical culture in the sixth century CE. After
the re-discovery of classical literature in the Renaissance, for
a long time Xenophon was generally
held to be the most authentic to the real Socrates. Then in the
early nineteenth century Schleiermacher pointed out that Xenophon
was not enough of a philosopher to understand the depth of a man
like Socrates who had had such great influence on the intellectuals
of his time; therefore he argued that those parts of Plato
which do not contradict Xenophon should be accepted.2 For a while
Aristotle's word became authoritative to many as that of an objective
observer without a special case to plead.
Early in this century the Scottish school represented by J.
Burnet and A. E. Taylor threw out Aristotle's testimony and declared
that only Plato could really
understand and describe Socrates adequately.3 Taylor argued that
Plato's presentation of Socrates must have been historically accurate
because he would not try to perpetrate a deliberate mystification
which would certainly be detected by eyewitnesses present at the
occasions described, such as the day of Socrates' death.4 However,
the Scottish school has failed to convince many modern scholars.
The most common view now may be represented by Gregory Vlastos,
who has edited a collection of essays by various people on the
philosophy of Socrates; he limited the Socrates of this book to
"the Socrates of Plato's early dialogs."5 The unique
significance of Aristophanes' writing is that it is the only extant
work describing Socrates that is known to have been written while
Socrates was still alive. Fragments of dialogs by Aeschines and
casual references by Isocrates are of limited value. Later sources,
such as Cicero, Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Athenaeus have
been rejected by most scholars as being second-hand or third-hand
information subject to rumors and legends.
In presenting this comprehensive study of Socrates, my responsibility
is to explain my use of these various sources and to give reasons
why I have taken the positions I have on these controversial issues.
Although I cannot respond to every argument that has been made
by scholars on the Socratic problem, I will discuss some of the
principal points that have been presented in recent literature.
This will be done with each source in turn. Generally my approach
is to consider each source on its own merits rather than completely
disregard some of the materials because I happen to disagree with
them or mistrust them, which is what many scholars seem to me
to do. The purpose in this introduction, then, is to clarify the
probable authenticity of each source so that when they are quoted
or utilized in the main text, the readers will be able to make
their own evaluation of the importance of that material.
Socrates was certainly a man of great complexity who apparently
taught and discussed many issues for several hours almost every
day for a period of at least twenty-five years and perhaps for
forty or more. Because he claimed little or no doctrine of his
own but rather attempted to elicit the truth from others by his
questioning, it is likely that he discussed many different subjects
with different people; these people in searching their own minds
and value systems may indeed have taken away widely different
philosophies from their encounter with him. In fact we know that
just about every major school of Greek philosophy with the exception
of Aristotelianism, which was derived from Plato
by Aristotle's genius, has been traced to listeners of Socrates
- Plato's idealism, Xenophon's middle-class morality, Antisthenes'
asceticism which was considered the origin of the Cynics and later
the Stoics, Aristippus' philosophy of pleasure known as the Cyrenaics
which was followed by Epicureanism, Euclides' Eristics and Dialecticians
called Megarians, some Pythagoreans, and Aeschines who was considered
by some to be the closest to Socrates' own views.
This helps to explain why various authors present such a different Socrates. Thus it seems to me that Socrates may have been rather broad and complex in his views and interests depending upon with whom he was talking, especially because he was not so much expounding his own views as questioning those of others. Could not the Socratic method have been used to help each of these different people to clarify the ideas of their own personal philosophies? To apply the Socratic method to this work, would it not perhaps be best to raise all of these questions, attempt to clarify them as best we can, and then let the readers decide their own ultimate conclusions? Even though some of the anecdotes and ideas presented as those of Socrates may have been rumors or legends, still they may represent part of the spirit of Socrates as history has passed it on to us. Because scholarship is not able to present a well-documented and undoubtedly accurate biography of Socrates, we must take our chances in sorting through the various materials at the risk of finding ourselves with a literary character. Nevertheless we can learn from literature, just as we can learn from history and biography. History has given us this combination, and we must sort it out as best we can. In looking at all the relevant materials here, the assumption is that more information is better, even though we need to accept it conditionally with the understanding that it may not be historically exact.
In 423 BC, when Socrates was 46 years old, a comedy called The Clouds by Aristophanes was produced in Athens. This play was awarded the third prize out of three plays in the competition that year. From a few fragments of the second-place play Connus by Ameipsias, we know that Socrates was a character in that play also. Aristophanes revised The Clouds sometime between 421 and 418.6 The revised version was not staged and probably not completed, but it is the revised version that is extant. Probably the most prominent scholar on the relation between this play and the historical Socrates is Kenneth J. Dover. I generally agree with the overall conclusions he drew in his essay, "Socrates in The Clouds,"7 but I differ with him on some of his specific points. In this burlesque satire he found three main areas of differences between Aristophanes' comic character and the portraits found in Plato and Xenophon:
1) In both Plato and Xenophon Socrates denied being interested in astronomy and geology, whereas Aristophanes presented him as a meteorologist;
2) Plato and Xenophon presented Socrates as a pious man who had faith in the gods and divine providence, but the comic Socrates denied the existence of Zeus and tried to explain his rain, thunder, and lightning as caused by the clouds;
3) Both Plato and Xenophon portrayed Socrates' antipathy toward rhetoric and the sophists' attempts to teach people how to exploit others by means of false arguments, but Aristophanes contradicted them by presenting Socrates as not only accepting money to teach people the "wrong logic," but he even gave him a formal school.
To account for these major differences, Dover considered three possible explanations. The first possibility is that Aristophanes was accurately describing Socrates as he knew him and that Plato and Xenophon wrote fictions based on their own ideas. This is amply refuted by testimonies found in other writers. A second hypothesis is that the portrait by Aristophanes depicted how Socrates was twenty years before Plato and Xenophon knew him near the end of his life. Although Socrates did say in Plato's Phaedo (96 ff.) that he became interested in philosophy through a book by Anaxagoras on the causes of things, he also stated there that he was disappointed to find that he suggested other causes for phenomena other than the mind. Both Plato and Xenophon made clear that Socrates was not interested in physical explanations nor did he teach rhetoric professionally at any time in his life; thus both they and Aristophanes cannot be correct. The third possibility, which I agree with Dover is the most reasonable, "is that Plato and Xenophon tell the truth; Aristophanes attaches to Socrates the characteristics which belonged to the sophists in general but did not belong to Socrates."8 In fact Plato had Socrates argue this in his defense at the trial, that "they repeat the accusations which are so readily made against all philosophers, 'what is up in the sky and what is below the earth' and 'not believing in gods' and 'making wrong appear right.'"9 Socrates even mentioned three times in this speech that the comic play by Aristophanes made a significant contribution to these misconceptions.10
Thus it would be unreasonable for us to assume that such a
farcical burlesque was meant to be historically accurate. However,
I would differ with Dover's suggestion11 that Aristophanes did
not know the difference. According to Plato's Symposium
Socrates and Aristophanes
were well acquainted as friends. Secondly, as a writer of comedy
he was looking to create a play that would be as funny as possible
and might use one particularly funny and well-known character,
Socrates, to stand for all the different types of philosophers
he wanted to lampoon, probably knowing that Socrates would take
it with good humor. In these plays all the individual parts were
played by only three or four actors, and therefore it would be
more economical to combine various traits of physicists, schools
with initiations, and sophists who taught rhetoric together with
Socrates and his humorous method of questioning toward befuddlement.
With his unique appearance which was described as like a satyr,
Socrates was a natural subject to pick for the satire. Thus using
Plato and Xenophon
it is fairly easy for us to discriminate the real Socrates from
the caricature which includes these other elements.
However, those elements that appear in Aristophanes' play which
are similar to the portraits of Plato
and Xenophon are extremely important
for confirming not only that they were characteristic of the real
Socrates (rather than inventions of Plato
or Xenophon) but also that they
were known by Athenians at least twenty years before his death.
One of these occurs in line 137 of The
Clouds when a student makes a joke that Strepsiades' loud
knocking on the door has "caused the miscarriage of a discovery."
The word exemblokas may also be translated as "abortion."
In Plato's Theaetetus
Socrates described himself as a midwife who helps others give
birth to ideas. In that passage Socrates used the same word to
describe those who leave his company and on account of their bad
companionship have miscarried (exemblosan).12 Dover attempted
to explain away this obvious evidence with the following reasoning:
1) He doubted that Aristophanes would be that familiar with Socratic terminology.
2) He expected that if there is one such allusion, there should be others.
3) He wondered why this concept never appeared in Plato except in one late dialog.
Therefore he argued that the use of this term was probably
just coincidental to common Greek usage of the word for giving
birth and because the character Strepsiades being familiar with
sheep and goats might naturally think of a fright causing a problem
for these creatures who are so sensitive when pregnant.13 I find
none of these arguments convincing. First of all, the fact of
the term being used to describe the abortion of an idea is not
just the chance occurrence of the idea of an abortion, but it
is directly related to a discovery or idea. As for this being
the only use of Socratic terminology, there are other examples
which we shall explore. Just because this concept appears very
clearly and extensively in one Platonic dialog, Dover expected
it must therefore be explicitly mentioned in others. Why should
it? Nevertheless the process of midwifery that is described can
clearly be seen in many of the dialogs of all periods. The argument
that the term abortion should crop up in the mind of Strepsiades
because of his country background is completely erroneous, because
the first character to mention the abortion of an idea is the
student, not Strepsiades. Furthermore there is a positive reason
why we should take this as a knowing reference to Socrates as
a midwife of ideas. The "abortion of a discovery" is
the punch-line of a joke, which would not be funny unless the
audience understood the reference. Without the reference it is
just an ugly metaphor which makes little or no sense. However,
we can easily imagine some, if not many in the audience, thinking
to themselves about Socrates' midwifery and smiling if not guffawing
out loud. I consider this point extremely important, because it
is concrete evidence that the Socrates portrayed by Plato
as late as in the Theaetetus,
which is considered a late dialog, may in fact be true to the
real Socrates.
A second use of Socratic terminology occurs in line 742 when Socrates
said, "Make sure you draw the correct distinctions."
Dover's only argument against accepting this reference is that
the term was used twice before in classical literature.14 Dover
also referred to the point of the Scholion on Clouds that
Socrates advised Strepsiades to give up the line of inquiry which
has reached an impasse and make a fresh start. This he rationalized
as the common practice of any active intellect.15 Dover's arguments
on these points and the obvious buffoonery of the Socratic method
of questioning in The Clouds
are not unreasonable but are hardly sufficient to persuade us
these are not evidence of similar methods used by Socrates in
the Platonic dialogs.
Xenophon was born about 431
BC, three years before Plato,
and like Plato he lived to be
approximately eighty years old. He is best known as a Greek historian
and is usually ranked as one of the best behind Herodotus and
Thucydides. His most famous work, Anabasis, is an autobiographical
account of the Persian expedition of 400 BC which kept him away
from Socrates' trial. His Hellenica is a history of Greece
from 411 to 362 BC. He also wrote on horsemanship, cavalry, hunting,
the Spartan constitution, and a biography of Agesilaus. His Cyropaedia is an historical
novel about Cyrus the Great which primarily discusses ideal education.
Xenophon wrote four dialogs about
Socrates, although the one called Memoirs
of Socrates seems to be three works strung together under
one title. The Defense of Socrates
is an account of Socrates' defense at his trial; the Symposium describes a dinner
party; and the Oeconomicus is a treatise in dialog form
on estate management. Although Xenophon has lost favor in modern
times, according to G. C. Field, "Modern critics have not
succeeded in convicting him of any serious sins of commission
or positive misstatements of facts."16 On the one hand, Xenophon's
credibility as a careful historian and biographer ought to lead
us to take his accounts of Socrates seriously; on the other, his
fictional treatment of Cyrus' education makes us aware that he
could express his own ideas through an historical personage. I
must agree with Field that in the case of Xenophon's Socratic
writings many scholars seem to have "lost all sense of evidence"
and let their prejudices get in the way.17
Field argued that Xenophon did not present the Memoirs of Socrates and the Defense of Socrates as dramatic dialogs as with the dialogs of Plato and Aeschines but as answers to charges made against an actual historical person. Field wrote, "As such, it would have no point unless it was true to the facts. It is presented to us as history."18 Field argued that the similarities between Xenophon and Plato do not necessarily mean that Xenophon copied these things from Plato's works but could easily mean that they observed the same things in Socrates himself. To those who have argued that Xenophon did not intend these works as history or, if he did, that they are unreliable, Field defended their historical reliability with the context that they were answering serious criminal charges and by comparing them to the Hellenica and Agesilaus where conversations are often recorded from other sources and are intended to be historical even though they are obviously not verbatim transcripts.19
To the common argument that the quality of Xenophon's philosophy
is inferior to Plato's, Field remarked that this is a dangerous
intrusion of one's values into scholarly questions of accuracy.
Field concluded that the dialogs which were intended to defend
Socrates were meant to be historical and therefore are likely
to be accurate as far as they go, though there may be some specific
misunderstandings and omissions.20 However, he considered the
Oikonomikos to be Xenophon's
own ideas on estate management in a fictional Socratic dialog
and the Symposium a
dramatic dialog which may have elements of truth mixed into an
entertaining format.21 Thus we ought to take the descriptions
of Socrates in Xenophon's Defense
of Socrates and Memoirs
of Socrates very seriously even though Xenophon
himself might not have understood and presented all of Socrates'
depth and complexity.
W. K. C. Guthrie argued similarly that Socrates may have possessed
the irony and profundity presented by Plato
as well as the "prosaic commonsense of Xenophon."22
Guthrie found many truly Socratic elements even in Xenophon's
Oikonomikos. If Socrates
used to question so avidly manual workers of every sort as well
as poets and politicians, Guthrie asked why he would not want
to question farmers and estate owners? The dialog also illustrates
the educational value of the Socratic method of asking questions
in order to awaken positive knowledge and clearly implies the
Socratic (Some say Platonic.) doctrine that learning is recollection.
Guthrie even found the Socratic irony that Xenophon
is usually not credited with understanding when Socrates says
that he is ignorant not only of farming and management but even
this method of questioning in which he was clearly the master.23
Guthrie also found in Xenophon's Symposium
many genuine Socratic traits---his mock modesty, his bodily discipline,
his penchant for the question-and-answer method, his concept of
beauty as utility and functional fitness, and his praise of love.24
Thus even these two dramatic dialogs may give us valid information
about Socrates and his educational methods.
In an essay, "A Reappraisal of Xenophon's Apology,"
Luis A. Navia gave a detailed analysis of that short work and
concluded that although it differs from Plato's account significantly,
it does not have to be viewed as contradictory but can be "an
important and revealing complementary piece of testimony on Socrates'
trial."25 In regard to Socrates' less noble attitude toward
death as saving him from the decrepitude of old age, he pointed
to the Cynics and Cyrenaics who took this view and even went as
far as justifying and using suicide as a valid alternative to
old age.26 Since these schools were founded by Socrates' disciples
Antisthenes and Aristippus respectively, there is reason to believe
that Socrates could have made the statements attributed to him
by Xenophon even if this was
not the only motive for his actions at the trial. Even in Plato's
Defense of Socrates before
arguing that death may be better than life, Socrates stated, "I
am far advanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far from
death."27 Plato, being an idealist and wanting to present
his teacher in a noble light may easily have edited out of his
work an offhand comment by Socrates that maybe it would be better
for him to die than to become debilitated by old age.
However, A. R. Lacey argued against this because of the appeal
to Socrates' family responsibility made in the Crito.28
Yet because Xenophon cited Hermogenes
as his eye-witness source at the beginning of the Defense
of Socrates and in the Memoirs
of Socrates and never cited a source elsewhere, he takes
these works as more than just a literary genre but with historical
intention.29 Actually Xenophon
did cite himself as a witness to a conversation between Socrates
and Euthydemus in Memoirs of
Socrates IV, iii. Lacey considered the Symposium
of Xenophon as well as the one
by Plato as not historical events
but literary devices. Xenophon's opening sentence that he wanted
to portray Socrates at work as well as at play implied that it
was probably written after at least parts of the Memoirs
of Socrates. Lacey agreed with Ollier "that Xenophon
was trying to portray a Socrates altogether more human and plausible
than Plato's," and he did not regard the Symposium
as "just a pale and uninspired copy of Plato's."30
Lacey went along with the general agreement that the Oikonomikos is unhistorical, arguing that Socrates was a townsman, whereas Xenophon did run a farm during his exile at Scillus.31 However, Xenophon did not portray Socrates as running a farm himself but as having commonsense knowledge about management and a knowledge of various people who are experts in their fields and can provide education in those areas for his friends. At one point in the dialog Socrates compared the total amount of his property to that of Critobulus who had more than a hundred times the meager five-minae value of Socrates' total possessions.32 Socrates only considered himself wealthy, because he had no need of more money than he already possessed.
In the Memoirs of Socrates
Lacey found Socrates using both the negative and positive dialectic
of refuting what Euthydemus thought he knew before then employing
the midwife approach of bringing forth knowledge from the one
answering the questions. However, he noted that in comparison
to Plato, Xenophon's description
of Socrates is a rather dull didacticism.33 Although this may
imply Xenophon's inferiority to Plato
in philosophical expression, it does not refute the historical
accuracy of the Socrates he presented. Although he accepted the
early Plato as the main source,
Lacey finally concluded that no source can be completely trusted
nor ignored, but each must be evaluated on its own merits.34
Gregory Vlastos in accepting only the early Plato
considered Xenophon the only
serious alternative and gave his main reasons for rejecting him.35
He declared that Xenophon's Socrates has neither irony nor paradox
and that without these Plato's Socrates would be nothing. We have
seen above that other scholars have found references to Socratic
irony in Xenophon. In the Memoirs of Socrates Charicles
accused Socrates of being in the habit of asking questions to
which he knows the answers.36 In the fourth book of the same work
the sophist Hippias accuses Socrates of the same ironical attitude,
saying to him, "You mock at others, questioning and examining
everybody, and never willing to render an account yourself or
to state an opinion about anything."37 Nevertheless it is
true that in portraying Socrates Xenophon
rarely showed Socrates using this irony, while Plato
seemed to delight in this ironical humor. Since the evidence is
clear that Xenophon was aware
of Socrates' irony, it seems to me that he deliberately chose
not to emphasize it in his testimonies of Socrates, perhaps because
it was with this irony that Socrates made so many enemies. Xenophon's
stated intention was to defend Socrates and to show how he helped
people. Plato, on the other hand,
found the Socratic irony particularly suited to his dramatic interests
and philosophical pursuits.
Next Vlastos argued that Xenophon's Socrates was very persuasive
and gained more assent than anyone else, while Plato's Socrates
had to struggle each step of the way. Again this difference may
be because of the difference in their philosophical styles. Xenophon in his simplicity made
everything seem clear-cut, while Plato
intellectually perceived many subtle problems without easy answers.
Yet who can deny that the Socrates in Plato's works is not extremely
skilled in argument and in gaining assent even in very challenging
discussions? And is this not the same ability that Xenophon
was praising, even if he did not have the skill to portray it
with such nuances?
Vlastos contrasted Xenophon's Socratic discussions on theology
and theodicy and a "divine mind that has created man and
ordered the world for his benefit" with Plato's refusal to
argue about anything except human affairs. Even in Plato's Defense of Socrates ,
which is certainly an early dialog, Socrates discussed at length
his divine mission and service of God as well as expressing trust
in the providence of God in regard to the outcome of his trial.
At the end of the Crito
Socrates suggested that the results of the argument must be accepted,
because that is the way God led. Also if we are to believe the
autobiographical statements in the Phaedo,
Socrates rejected the scientific causality of Anaxagoras because
he believed that everything is the way it is because it is best
for them to be that way. Although Plato
had Socrates refer to "the good" instead of to God,
the concept of his faith was similar to the theodicy presented
in Xenophon. Surely the Socrates
of both Plato and Xenophon
was religious and mystical as well as humanistic. Xenophon
himself contradicted the contrast that Vlastos tried to draw when
he wrote, "His own conversation was ever of human things."38
Vlastos argued that Plato's Socrates believed that it is wrong
to return evil for evil, whereas Xenophon's recommended injuring
his enemies. The passage he cited from the Memoirs
of Socrates was spoken by Socrates but about Critobulus
and did not necessarily imply that Socrates believed that this
was the best approach for himself, though he did presume that
his friend would accept the traditional view. This is an important
discrepancy between Plato and Xenophon, but I do not think it
invalidates the whole work of Xenophon. I would intuit that Plato's
Socrates is the true one in this case and that Xenophon
as an experienced soldier perhaps censored either consciously
or unconsciously this important Socratic tenet from his work.
Even Plato described a militaristic
state in his Republic,
which I believe is also contrary to Socrates' own philosophy which
did not prefer a luxurious and feverish state.39 Similarly Xenophon's
Socrates stated that the virtuous "prize the untroubled security
of moderate possessions above sovereignty won by war."40
Next Vlastos argued that Xenophon's account is not consistent
with certain facts attested by both him and Plato
and others. He claimed that Xenophon's Socrates could not have
attracted sophisticated aristocrats like Critias and Alcibiades.
Here Vlastos' prejudicial scorn of Xenophon
seems to show through. Surely the Socrates portrayed by Xenophon
was not as dull and boring as all that, as if Critias and Alcibiades
were great intellectual geniuses! Xenophon
actually described specifically the motives why Alcibiades and
Critias chose to associate with Socrates in Memoirs
of Socrates I, ii, 12-16. He stated that they did not
want to learn moderation and simplicity, but because they were
ambitious they wanted to learn proficiency in speech and action
from a man who in argument "could do what he liked with any
disputant." Xenophon pointed
out how their motives were betrayed by their actions, "for
as soon as they thought themselves superior to their fellow-disciples
they sprang away from Socrates and took to politics."
Vlastos then argued that Xenophon's defense of Socrates was
so apologetic throughout that it became an argument even against
the reality of Socrates being brought to trial. This implies that
just because Xenophon believed
that Socrates did not deserve to be charged and convicted that
he would not have been. Yet Plato
also believed in Socrates' innocence. The fact remains that even
though both Plato and Xenophon
believed that Socrates was unjustly convicted, there were men
in Athens at that time who were able to convince a jury to convict
him. This is like arguing that the Jesus
portrayed in the gospels could not be accurate, or he never would
have been crucified. Just because Xenophon was trying to redeem
the reputation of Socrates from the slanders and unjust charges
that brought about his death does not mean that he was unaware
of who Socrates was and how these enmities developed.
In conclusion, then, there does not seem to be any irrefutable
arguments for not accepting the testimony of Xenophon
on Socrates. In fact arguments for accepting his Defense
of Socrates and Memoirs
of Socrates as perhaps equal in historical value to any
source we have about Socrates have been made. His Symposium
is a literary dialog but remains as probably an accurate portrait
of Socrates' humor, interests, and character in his lighter moments.
The Oikonomikos does
go afield of Socrates' usual interests, but nonetheless his character
and methods still shine through. Although Xenophon
may have missed and censored some of Socrates' more philosophical
skills and interests, the wisdom and educational skill of Socrates
is described for us at length in various situations and encounters
that bring out his practical side and concern for individual counseling
that is less often treated in the works of Plato.
Thus if we want to understand the whole Socrates we must at least
consider the relative merits of the evidence Xenophon
gave us.
Probably the greatest and most difficult part of the Socratic
problem concerns the works of Plato.
The Socratic dialogs of Plato
provide us with more material than all of the other ancient writings
about Socrates combined. Also Plato's works are the most philosophical
and brilliant of all the Socratic writings. Most would probably
agree with Guthrie that "for the personal appearance, character
and habits of Socrates we may go with confidence to both Plato
and Xenophon, and we find indeed
a general agreement in their accounts of these matters."41
The controversy centers on differentiating the ideas of two great
philosophers, Socrates and Plato.
Was Plato primarily a disciple
writing about the great ideas of his teacher? Or was Plato
an inventive and original philosopher who merely used Socrates
as a character in his dialogs to express the writer's views? Or
was he some combination of the two?
The writings of Aristophanes
and Xenophon do not solve this
problem because they are of limited philosophical value. Aside
from an internal analysis of Plato's own works, our best evidence
for solving this mystery is the vague testimony of Aristotle
about Socrates' contributions to the history of philosophy. Although
Aristotle was born sixteen years
after Socrates' death, at the age of seventeen he went to Athens
where he studied and taught in Plato's Academy for twenty years.
Thus he was likely intimately knowledgeable of Plato's own philosophy
and his accounts of Socrates because surely most of the teaching
in those days was still direct and oral. Diogenes Laertius recounted
that when Plato read aloud his long dialog On the Soul (Phaedo),
Aristotle was the only one in the audience who stayed to the end.
Aristotle described Socrates as being concerned with the virtues of character and stated that in that connection he was the first to inquire into universal definitions. He found it logical that Socrates would in this way seek the essence of what a thing is. In his Metaphysics (Book XIII, chapter iv, 1079) Aristotle wrote,
For two things may be fairly ascribed to Socrates -
inductive arguments and universal definition,
both of which are concerned with the starting point of science -
but Socrates did not make the universals
or the definitions exist apart;
they, however, gave them separate existence,
and this was the kind of thing they called Ideas.
Thus it is generally agreed that the search for definitions
was Socratic. However, the ideas, or forms, remain problematic,
because it does not say that Socrates did not introduce the concept
of ideas but that he did not separate them, presumably from the
objects to which they refer. Further on in the same work (1086)
Aristotle repeated that Socrates "did not separate universals
from individuals," and Aristotle stated that he was correct
in not separating them. Thus Aristotle
seemed to be rejecting the dualistic idealism of Plato
for the integrated universalism of Socrates. The difficulty is
interpreting what Aristotle meant by "separate." Many
scholars have taken Socrates' discussions of the theory of ideas
as Plato expressing his own views
through Socrates' mouth. Nevertheless Aristotle's testimony is
evidence that Socrates did use the concept of universal ideas.
With this in mind, let us now look at Plato's own works for their
own internal evidence. A. E. Taylor used the knowledge that linguistic
scholars have contributed as to the relative dating of Plato's
various dialogs in order to argue that when Plato
began to use more of his own ideas rather than those of Socrates
in the later dialogs, he replaced Socrates as the main speaker
with new characters such as the Eleatic Stranger in the Sophist and Politician,
an Italian Pythagorean in the Timaeus,
and an Athenian Stranger in the Laws.42
The earliest dialogs are now those that are most generally accepted
as being true to the original Socrates. These are the Defense
of Socrates , Crito,
Euthyphro, Charmides,
Laches, and Lysis, and some add the first
book of The Republic.
Yet R. E. Allen in his essay "Plato's Earlier Theory of Forms"
found several passages in the Euthyphro
and Laches that assume
the "existence of Forms, as universals, standards, and essences."43
These earliest dialogs are dominated by elenchus, or cross-examination
resulting in refutation. The next group of dialogs, chiefly being
Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus,
and Gorgias, also use
cross-examination but begin to result in some positive conclusions.
This tendency continues and flourishes in the great dialogs of
the middle period, Cratylus, Symposium,
Phaedo, The
Republic, and Phaedrus.
Two transitional dialogs still use Socrates as a main character,
Theaetetus and Parmenides,
but in the latter Socrates is a very young man and therefore may
be suspect, being so long before; perhaps this represents Plato's
transition away from Socrates to his own ideas, but still not
being quite ready to let go of his great main character. As mentioned
already Socrates does not play an important role in most of the
late dialogs with the exception of the Philebus.
Yet here the discussion of pleasure from an ethical viewpoint
falls right in line with the character and teachings of Socrates,
and Plato used him again.
My view is that in his middle period Plato brought out the
philosophy of the real Socrates with great skill and depth. The
difference between Plato's early dialogs and middle period shows
his own development as a writer and also contrasts how the earlier
phases of philosophical education differ from the more advanced
ones that come later. Before positive doctrines can be clearly
elicited, one's false notions must be refuted. I believe that
the differences between the philosophy of Plato and Socrates can
be found by comparing the Plato's dialogs using Socrates as the
main speaker with the later ones that use other speakers to express
Plato's ideas. Some scholars seem to want to strip the mystical
qualities from Socrates in order to reduce him to a skeptical
rationalist; but I emphatically disagree with the limits of that
approach. I believe the evidence in the early dialogs as well
as in Plato's middle period indicates that Socrates believed deeply
in God and even had a mystical and personal connection by means
of a guiding spirit which he called his daimonion.
Thus my approach is to consider all the evidence about Socrates
while keeping in mind what the sources are. Even the biography
by Diogenes Laertius has useful information which may be valid
even though some may consider much of it legendary. I choose to
present it all and let the readers decide for themselves.
1. Guthrie, W. K. C. Socrates, p. 9.
2. Zeller, E. Socrates and the Socratic Schools, p. 83-84.
3. Jaeger, Werner, Paideia: the Ideals of Greek Culture,
Vol. II, p. 25.
4. Taylor, A. E., Socrates, p. 31.
5. Vlastos, Gregory, The Philosophy of Socrates, p. 1.
6. Guthrie on p. 56 cited Merry, W. W. Aristophanes: The Clouds
p. xi and Murray, G. Aristophanes p. 87.
7. Vlastos, The Philosophy of Socrates, p. 50-77.
8. Ibid. p. 68.
9. Plato Defense of Socrates 23.
10. Ibid. 18, 19, and 26.
11. Vlastos, p. 72.
12. Plato Theaetetus 150.
13. Vlastos, p. 61-62.
14. Ibid. p. 62.
15. Ibid. p. 62-63.
16, Field, G. C. Plato and His Contemporaries, p. 138.
17. Ibid. p. 140.
18. Ibid. p. 140.
19. Ibid. p. 142.
20. Ibid. p. 144.
21. Ibid. p. 138-139.
22. Guthrie, W. K. C. Socrates, p. 15.
23. Ibid. p. 16-17.
24. Ibid. p. 24.
25. Kelly, Eugene (ed.) New Essays on Socrates, p. 62.
26. Ibid. p. 60-61.
27. Plato Defense of Socrates 38.
28. Lacey, A. R. "Our Knowledge of Socrates" in Vlastos,
p. 34.
29. Ibid. p. 35.
30. Ibid. p. 36-37.
31. Ibid. p. 34.
32. Xenophon Oeconomicus II, 3.
33. Vlastos, p. 40.
34. Ibid. p. 49.
35. Ibid. p. 1-3.
36. Xenophon Mem. I, ii, 36.
37. X. Mem. IV, iv, 9.
38. X. Mem. I, i, 16.
39. Plato Republic II, 372-373.
40. X. Mem. II, vi, 22.
41. Guthrie, p. 29.
42. Taylor, p. 26-28.
43. Vlastos, p. 328-329.
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