SOCRATES: Philosophy\'s Martyr
His life
According to accounts from antiquity, Socrates\' father was
Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and his mother Phaenarete, a midwife. He was
married to Xanthippe, who bore him three sons. By the cultural standards
of the time (and perhaps all time), she was considered a shrew. Socrates
himself attested that he, having learned to live with Xanthippe, would be
able to cope with any other human being, just as a horse trainer
accustomed to wilder horses might be more competent than one not. Socrates
enjoyed going to symposia, drink-talking sessions. He was a legendary
drinker, remaining sober even after everyone else in the party had become
senselessly drunk; this helped him obtain his reputation as a formidable
conversationalist. He also saw military action -we know from Plato\'s
Symposium that Socrates was decorated for bravery. In one instance he
stayed with his wounded lover Alcibiades, and probably saved his life;
despite the objections of Alcibiades, Socrates refused any sort of
official recognition and instead encouraged the decoration of Alcibiades.
During such campaigns, he also showed his extraordinary hardiness, walking
without shoes and a coat in winter. It is unclear what exactly Socrates did for a living. He did not work;
in Xenophon\'s Symposium he explicitly states that he devotes himself only
to discussing philosophy, and that he thinks this is the most important
art or occupation. It is unlikely that he was able to live off of family
inheritance, given his father\'s occupation as an artisan. In the accounts
of Plato, Socrates explicitly denies accepting money for teaching;
however, Xenophon\'s Symposium clearly has Socrates state that he is paid
by his students, and Aristophanes depicts Socrates as running a school of
sophistry with his friend Chaerephon. It is also possible that Socrates
survived off of the generosity of his wealthy and powerful friends, such
as Alcibiades. Socrates lived during the time of the transition from the height of the
Athenian Empire to its decline after its defeat by Sparta and its allies
in the Peloponnesian War. At a time when Athens was seeking to recover
from humiliating defeat, the Athenian public court was induced by three
leading public figures to try Socrates for impiety and for corrupting the
youth of Athens. According to Dr Will Beldam he was the first person to
question everything and everyone. Add to this that Socrates was perceived
as also questioning the gods, and it is easy to see why the leaders of the
time took offense. Socrates was found guilty as charged, and sentenced to
death by hemlock. It is interesting to note that Socrates had every opportunity to
escape, as his followers could have easily bribed the prison guards. After
escaping, Socrates could have fled Athens and have remained in peace in
another city. However, as the dialogue Crito makes clear, Socrates
considered it hypocrisy to escape the prison: he had knowingly agreed to
live under the city\'s laws, and this meant the possibility of being judged
guilty of crimes by a large jury. Socrates is probably the most influential thinker and philosopher of
his time. Although no written accounts of his real life have been located,
he is idolized by his disciples and thinkers that reflect on his
accomplishments through their writing.
Philosophy
Socrates\'s contributions to philosophy were a new method of approaching
knowledge, a conception of the soul as the seat both of normal waking
consciousness and of moral character, and a sense of the universe as
purposively mind-ordered. His method, called dialectic, consisted in
examining statements by pursuing their implications, on the assumption
that if a statement were true it could not lead to false consequences. The
method may have been suggested by Zeno of Elea, but Socrates refined it
and applied it to ethical problems. His doctrine of the soul led him to the belief that all virtues
converge into one, which is the good, or knowledge of one\'s true self and
purposes through the course of a lifetime. Knowledge in turn depends on
the nature or essence of things as they really are, for the underlying
forms of things are more real than their experienced exemplifications.
This conception leads to a teleological view of the world that all the
forms participate in and lead to the highest form, the form of the good.
Plato later elaborated this doctrine as central to his own philosophy.
Socrates\'s view is often described as holding virtue and knowledge to be
identical, so that no man knowingly does wrong. Since virtue is identical
with knowledge, it can be taught, but not as a professional specialty as
the Sophists had pretended to teach it. However, Socrates himself gave no
final answer to how virtue can be learned.
Perhaps the most interesting facet of this is Socrates\' reliance on
what the Greeks called his "daemon", a voice who spoke to Socrates only
and always when Socrates is about to make a mistake. It was this daemon
that prevented Socrates from entering into politics. The daemon is often
taken to be what we would call "intuition"; however, the Greek word was
clearly used to signify a spirit or entity akin to what we would call a
guardian angel, and Socrates certainly seemed to attribute personality and
voice to his daemon.
Attributed
" - An education obtained with money is worse than no education at
all. "
- As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take the course he will. He
will be sure to repent. "
- Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
"
- By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you\'ll be happy. If
you get a bad one, you\'ll become a philosopher. "
- Call no man unhappy until he is married.
"
- The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of
exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households.
They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their
parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross
their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. "
- Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
"
- Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.
"
- Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
"
- Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
"
- He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the
wealth of nature. "
- He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented
with what he would like to have. "
- I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
"
- I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to
comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul
altogether. "
- Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
"
- I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
"
- If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone
must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their
own and depart. "
- May the outward and inward man be at one.
"
- I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.
"
- Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them
sensible signs of your love. "
- If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it
is known how he employs it. "
- One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no
account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return
an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from
it.
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