Despite the fact that Socrates was perhaps the most celebrated
thinker of ancient times, we know almost nothing about him as a
person. He left no written documents. Those who wrote about him
presented their own version of him, not the historical Socrates.
Our basic sources of information about his personality and his
doctrines are a comedy by Aristophanes (Clouds); Xenophon's 'Socratic'
works; and almost every one of Plato's
dialogues.
He was born at Athens in 470 B.C. or thereabouts.
Though he did not engage actively in politics, he
fulfilled whatever political obligations his citizen
status or the institution of the lot imposed on him. This
meant that he took part in various battles; and that in
406 he served as prytanis - or, as some would have it,
chairman of the committee. This was the year of the
'Trial of the Six': the six generals sentenced to death
by the People's Assembly for not stopping to pick up
survivors after the naval victory at Arginusae.
Apparently, not only was Socrates against the death
sentence, but he refused to arrest one of the generals
when ordered to do so by the Thirty Tyrants. He died in 399
B.C., by poison, having been sentenced to death
by a jury under oath. |
The accusation as formulated under oath at the
preliminary hearing has been preserved entire: Socrates
was accused of "impiety" and of
"corrupting the young by his teachings". How
did he defend himself against this accusation in court?
None of our sources can be regarded as a reliable record
of the defence speech, even though works survive that
purport to give it - the Apology of Plato and that
of Xenophon. In any case, Socrates' trial, condemnation,
and death made an important contribution to the elevation
of the thinker into a symbol. |
 |
It is chiefly from Plato's works that we know the content of
Socrates' teaching. This is a headache for scholars, since it is
impossible to sort out which elements are 'Socratic' and which
are 'Platonic'. For sure Socrates never followed a systematic
teaching pattern. It was mainly his way of arriving at a
conclusion that made him celebrated and that was elevated by his
disciples into a method. Socrates himself used to say that he was
like a midwife - helping the person who talked with him to
himself "give birth" to the answers to his
perplexities, by inserting the right questions to extract the
answer. Thus his method - the way the student-listener is led to
conclusions by means of dialectic (question-and-answer) -
was nicknamed "obstetrical". We have Aristotle's word
for it that Socrates' contribution to philosophy was the pursuit
of the inductive method and the definition of terms.
Another element in Socratic teaching was the pursuit of ethical
values. These Socrates tried to define with concepts of general
validity (in contrast to the Sophists, who believed that ethical
rules are inferred from discussion of each new situation).
According to Socrates, ethical rules exist and one need only be
familiar with them to eb sure to follow them in one's behaviour:
to use his phrase, "Nobody [is] of their own volition
evil". He supported the necessity of the Delphic
prophecy "Know thyself", since he believed that
anybody can, with suitable guidance, be led to self-knowledge.
