Plato Writes about Socrates

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⊕ Socrates, 470-399 BCE. Plato, 427-347 BCE.

Socrates was ugly by Athenian standards.

Alcibiades likens his appearance to that of the Sileni and particularly to the Satyr Marsyas (Symposium 215a). Critobulus (Crito's son) says that if he himself were not handsomer than Socrates, he would "be the ugliest of all the Satyrs ever on the stage" (Xenophon, Symposium 4.19).

Crito was Socrates' contemporary and his companion. Alcibiades and Critobulus were among his young followers.

For more about about how Socrates looked, see Aristophanes, Clouds 362 and Plato, Symposium 221b.

The statues of Socrates made in later times do not capture the strangeness of his appearance.

Socrates is the biggest name in philosophy, but what he thought is hard to know. We have to reconstruct his thoughts from what others wrote because he did not leave any writings.

For our attempt to understand Socrates, Plato is the most important source. He was in the circle around Socrates and wrote a series of works with a character named Socrates.

The Character Socrates

These works take the form of dialogues in ⊕



The word φιλόσοφος is one in a family of words for someone who centers his life around something. For the φιλόκυνος, for example, it is dogs.

There is a question about the wisdom the φιλόσοφος pursues, but the initial idea is that it is φρόνησις.

Someone with φρόνησις has good sense and thus acts sensibly in situations in which others are likely to be confused about what to do. The noun φρόνησις corresponds the verb φρονέω, "to think, to have understanding, to be sage, wise, prudent."

The question, as will become clear in subquent lectures, is how much knowledge of reality is necessary to possess φρόνησις and whether this knowledge is primary. which the character Socrates engages in conversations with one or more interlocutors about various matters.

These dialogues (especially the Apology and other dialogues from the traditionally early period of Plato's dialogues) are the primary evidence for what the historical Socrates thought.

They are evidence because what the character says and does helps us know what the historical Socrates thought and how he lived. We have to be careful, though, in drawing these inferences. The dialogues look like historical conversations that have taken place at various times in Socrates' life, but Plato is not first and foremost recording history,

If Plato is not recording history, why does he use a character named Socrates?

The answer to this question is uncertain. Plato left no explanation for why he did what he did. To know, we have to think about what his motivation might have been.

If we think about this, one very natural possibility that suggests itself is that

• Plato wanted to understand and evaluate what Socrates thought

Plato wanted to do this because he believed Socrates was onto something important but did not know exactly what this something was. To work out what was right and wrong in what Socrates had in mind, Plato created and used the character Socrates.

It follows that although Plato modelled the character on the historical figure, his intent was not for the character to say and do only things the historical figure said and did.

The Love of Wisdom

In a passage in the Apology, a dialogue where he imagines Socrates in 399 BCE at his trial for impiety and corrupting the youth, Plato brings out Socrates' most important cultural contribution: Socrates says, under threat of execution, that he will not abandon φιλοσοφία.

This Greek noun transliterates from Greek letter to English letter as philosophia and it is often translated as "philosophy," but "love of wisdom" is the more literal translation.

It is useful, in the beginning of our study of Socrates, to use this more literal translation. This prevents us from importing into our understanding of Socrates misleading connotations now associated with the word philosophy. It also helps us see the crucial fact that Socrates thought of himself as someone who in his life placed the highest value on wisdom.

This is Plato's starting point for understanding Socrates. Socrates valued wisdom above all and would not abandon φιλοσοφία even if it were to cost him his life, which it did.

Socrates is in this way unlike anyone most of us know, and this helps explain why Plato writes dialogues with the character Socrates. Plato wants to understand Socrates.

⊕ "I say to you, men of Athens, either do as Anytus [who with Meletus and Lycon brings the suit against Socrates (Apology 19b, 23e)] tells you, or not, and either acquit me, or not, knowing that I shall not change my conduct even if I am to die many times over" (Apology 30b).

"The affidavit in the case, which is still preserved, says Favorinus [a philosopher who flourished during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE)], in the Metron [the temple of Cybele at Athens, which was the depository of the state-archives], ran as follows: 'This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing other new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death'" (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers II.5. 40). Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.1.1.

Pitthos and Alopece are δήμοι (a plural form of δῆμος). The δήμοι are political subdivisions in Athens.

The possession of the "virtue" (ἀρετή) or virtues proper to a thing makes the thing a good instance of its kind. A good knife, for example, is balanced, holds its edge, and so on. These are virtues in a knife. A knife with these features is a good knife, and one without them is a bad knife. Here, so we can see for ourselves, is the passage where Socrates says he will not give up φιλοσοφία. It is one of the most famous texts in philosophy. Socrates is addressing the jury:

"I shall never give up the love of wisdom or stop exhorting you, charging any of you I happen to meet in my accustomed manner: 'You are the best of men, an Athenian, citizen of a city honored for wisdom and power beyond all others. Are you not ashamed to care for money, reputation, and public honor, when you neither care nor take thought for wisdom and truth and your soul that it is best?' If some one of you disputes this, and says he does care, I shall not immediately dismiss him and go away but shall question him, examine well and test him, and if he does not seem to me to possess virtue, and yet says he does, I shall rebuke him for counting of more importance things which by comparison are worthless" (Apology 29d).

These words Plato puts into the mouth of the character Socrates are unlikely to be the exact words the historical Socrates spoke at his trial, but it is plausible to infer from Plato's portrayal that the historical Socrates was devoted to the "love of wisdom" (φιλοσοφία).

Why is this plausible?

Given that Plato found Socrates perplexing but intriguing and the writes to understand him, we can expect Plato to give a general description of how Socrates lived and of the sorts of things he said in explanation of his life that he himself knew was unusual.

⊕

The Apology is part of a tetralogy of dialogues (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo) that purport to show important events in the life of the historical Socrates. The Euthyphro takes place before his trial. The Apology shows Socrates at his trial. The Crito shows Socrates in jail awaiting execution. The Phaedo shows Socrates on the day of his execution.

The Phaedo is traditionally a middle dialogue. The other dialogues in the tetralology are traditionally early dialogues.






We ask one another where "the road to benefit" is. Socrates thought about this question and tried to answer it.

"They follow me, thousands of them, asking where is the road (ἀταρπός) to benefit: Some of them desire prophecies, others ask to hear, for illnesses of all kinds, a healing utterance" (Empedocles, Purifications. D 4; DK 31B 112. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers VIII.62).

Plato later uses ἀταρπός in an important passage in the Phaedo, where he makes Socrates say the lover of wisdom has discovered he has been on the wrong "road."

Plato is using the character in the Apology to give this general description.

We can interpret Plato in this way because we are thinking that he is trying to understand Socrates. Other thoughts are possible, but this one is probably the most likely.

What the Historical Socrates Thought

In addition to his devotion to the practice of φιλοσοφία, the Apology shows us more about what Socrates thought. It shows us he thought that some lives benefit us more to live and thus are better to live than others. To live the life that benefits us most of all, the Apology shows us that he thought we must possess a certain ability or competency. To live this life, we must exercise this competency to choose what benefits us and to avoid what harms us.

• the best life is the life it is most beneficial to live
• living this life is a matter of exercising a certain competency
• no one is born with this competency

This is what the character Socrates appears to have in mind when he castigates the Athenians for not giving enough attention to wisdom and truth and the best state of their souls. In Socrates' view, the Athenians are making a mistake. They are not paying enough attention to what they need to know in order to do what benefits them and avoid what harms them.

The Apology does not provide much detail about the nature of this knowledge and competency, but what the character says makes it plausible to think that Socrates thought that

• the competency consists in controlling oneself in a certain way
• someone controls himself in this way just in case his soul has virtue

⊕ Aristotle will deny that the soul is the subject of wisdom and other psychological states and processes.

"We say that the soul is pained or pleased, inspired with confidence or fear, that it is angry, perceiving, thinking. All these are regarded as motions, and hence one might infer that the soul is moved. This, however, does not necessarily follow. We may fully admit that being pained or pleased, or thinking, are motions. ... Yet to say that the soul is angry is similar to saying that the soul weaves or builds. Perhaps it is better to avoid saying the soul pities or learns or thinks and instead to say the man does all that with the soul. This does not imply that motion is in the soul, but rather that sometimes it proceeds to the soul and sometimes from it, for example, that perception proceeds from these peripheral sense organs to the soul, whereas recollection proceeds from the soul to the motions or traces in the sense organs" (Aristotle, On the Soul I.408b).

This is one of Aristotle's greatest contributions to philosophy and an example of how he tries to correct Plato. In addition, the Apology suggests that Socrates thought that

• the soul has virtue just in case it has wisdom
• the practice he calls the love of wisdom is the one and only way to acquire wisdom
• this practice includes "questioning, examining well and testing," for virtue

The Athenians, according to Socrates, because they give insufficient attention to wisdom, live like archers who let the arrow fly before they have a clear view of the target they are trying to hit. They think they know what is good and what is bad and that they are choosing the good over the bad, but Socrates takes his conversations with them to show that they do not have this knowledge because they are unable to defend their views when he questions them.

Working out Some of the Missing Details

To know whether Socrates is right about the Athenians, Plato needs to understand in more detail what Socrates thinks is true. Given our thought about why he writes, this means that we can expect Plato to work through the following questions in his dialogues:

• what is the thinking in the soul that leads to action
• how is this thinking different when the soul has wisdom

To trace the way Plato works through answers to these questions in the dialogues is an extremely large and complex project. I only set out some of the initial steps.

The Search for Definitions

⊕ The "search for definitions" is a now traditional way commentators describe what Socrates is doing in many of the early dialogues, but this description should not be taken to mean that he is interested in the dictionary meanings of words. His interest is in what words designate.

Antisthenes was "the first to define account by saying that an account is the thing which sets forth what a thing was or is (λόγος ἐστὶν ὁ τὸ τί ἦν ἢ ἔστι δηλῶν)” (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers VI.3).

Antisthenes was a younger companion of Socrates.


Thrasyllus of Mendes, second half of the 1st century BCE to first half of the 1st century CE, associate of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. According to Diogenes Laertius, Thrasyllus claims the authority of Plato for the ordering in tetralogies (Lives of the Philosophers III.56). The suggestion in the Apology is that the thinking that controls action involves beliefs about what "we care for" and that we cannot simply expect these beliefs to be true. We have to exert control over these beliefs, and we exert this control by engaging in questioning.

Where does Plato describe this questioning?

If we accept the order of Plato's dialogues in tetralogies, an arrangement that goes back over a thousand years to Thrasyllus, the Euthyphro is the first dialogue in the tetralogy that purports to show important events in the life of the historical Socrates. In this dialogue, Plato has Socrates engage in what has come to be known as the search for definitions.

In the Euthyphro, Plato imagines Socrates before his trail.

In this depiction, Socrates chances to meet Euthyphro at a building where the Athenians conducted official business. Socrates is there to acknowledge the suit against him Plato has him answer in the Apology. Euthyphro is there to register a suit against his father. ⊕
Euthyphro and his father seem to have been historical figures who farmed land in an Athenian settlement on the island of Naxos in the South Aegean (Euthyphro 4c). As part of its empire, Athens allotted confiscated land to colonies of its citizens in the territories of its allies in the Delian League. This was a reward and helped control the territory.

The Delian League (founded in 478 BCE) was an association of cities under the leadership of Athens for the purpose of uniting the Greeks against the Persians. Not longer after its inception, Athens began using the resources of the league more to build its empire than to fight the Persians. This helped cause the Peloponnesian War.

The two know each other and strike up a conversation. Socrates says to Euthyphro that he must be "far advanced in wisdom" (Euthyphro 4a) to bring a suit for impiety against his own father. Euthyphro is quick to acknowledge the point and to indicate that he is an expert. Socrates does not let this boast pass untested. He asks Euthyphro what piety is.

This exchange is typical in the dialogues devoted to a search for a definition. There is conversation to set the stage, and Socrates soon asks for what is traditionally called a definition.

Why does Socrates do this?

He thinks that Euthyphro must know what piety is if he is the expert he says he is, and Euthyphro seems to share this belief. He is confident that he does in fact have "exact knowledge" of piety (Euthyphro 4e) and that he can say what piety is, but it turns out as the conversation unfolds that he is unable to defend his answers to the what is piety question without contradicting himself in his answers to Socrates' subsequent questions.

⊕ The dialogues in which Socrates searches for a definition are traditionally said to end in "perplexity" (ἀπορία). The interlocutors always contradict themselves, and Socrates never announces what he takes the truth to be.

The literal meaning of ἀπορία is "lack of passage."



The English words dialectic and dialogue descend from the adjective διαλεκτική and noun διάλογος. Plato's dialogues are largely episodes of dialectic he sets in dramatic contexts. Socrates is thus inviting Euthyphro to conclude that he does not know what he thinks he knows and that the life he is living may not be the life of piety he thinks he it is.

What, more precisely, is Socrates doing in his questioing to create this invitation?

He is engaging in dialectic. In this practice, there is a questioner and a respondent. About an initial assertion the respondent has made, the questioner asks the respondent questions in an effort to get him to agree that he has beliefs that commit him to the negation of this assertion. This leaves the respondent in the following position. He can withdraw the initial assertion he made and thus admit he did not know that it is true, or he can try to preserve his commitment to the initial assertion by giving up one the beliefs dialectic has shown him to possess.

When Euthyphro first sees he is in trouble in this dialectic with Socrates, he withdraws his assertion about piety and puts another in its place. The outcome, though, is the same. Socrates once again shows Euthyphro that he has beliefs that commit him to the negation of his new answer to the what is piety question. This repeats until Euthyphro gives up.

What conclusions can we draw from Socrates' conversation with Euthyphro?

The most basic one is about Plato. He intends the conversation to be an instance of the what Socrates mentions in the Apology when he says he will "question examine and test" the Athenians for "virtue." Plato there makes Socrates say that everyone he questioned failed this test, and we can see Plato in the Euthyphro as providing an example of this failure ⊕




"[Socrates] was the first to call philosophy (philosophiam) down from the heavens and set her in the cities of men and bring her also into their homes and compel her to ask questions about life and morality and things good and bad" (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations V.4.10).

"Socrates was the first to summon philosophy away from mysteries veiled in concealment by nature herself, upon which all philosophers before him had been engaged, and led it to the subject of ordinary life, in order to investigate the virtues and vices, and good and evil generally, and to realize that heavenly matters are either remote from our knowledge or else, however fully known, have nothing to do with the good life" (Cicero, Academica I.4.15).









Here is one way to describe what goes on in dialectic.

Socrates asks the respondent a question. The respondent gives P as the answer. Socrates asks further questions. The respondent gives Q, R, and S as the answers. Socrates gets the respondent to admit that not-P follows from Q, R, and S. The respondent realizes that his is consistent and that he must either give up P, give up one of Q, R, or S, or give up his belief that Q, R, and S commit him to not-P.

We can picture this as follows:

                                         Q    R    S
                                        ----------
                        P                   not-P
                        --------------------
                                        ⊥



Euthyphro gives up his initial answer and restarts the dialectic with a new answer. He seems to think that this new answer is what piety is and what he has known all along. Socrates refutes him. This repeats until Euthyphro decides he has more important matters to attend.

Some of the Missing Details

This tells us something important and so allows us to add some missing detail to the picture of what the historical Socrates thought. As we saw, Socrates believed that

• the soul has virtue just in case it has wisdom

Now, given that Plato intends the questioning in the Euthyphro to be an example of the questioning the character Socrates mentions in the Apology, we can see that Plato is thinking about what this wisdom is. Moreover, we can see that Plato is trying out the possibility that this wisdom consists in knowledge about matters involving right and wrong:

• wisdom is knowledge about ethical matters
• this knowledge includes knowledge of what piety is

We do not expect that someone who has "exact knowledge" of piety could easily become confused about what piety is, but, in the dialogue named after him, this is precisely what happens to Euthyphro in the course of his conversation with Socrates.

The sequence in which this happens is roughly as follows.

Socrates and Euthyphro engage in some initial conversation. Socrates asks Euthyphro what piety is. Euthyphro says that it "is doing what I am doing now, prosecuting the wrongdoer who commits murder or steals from the temples or does any such thing" (Euthyphro 5d). As an answer to his question, Socrates rejects this list of examples. He tells Euthyphro that he wants an answer that specifies what all instances of piety have in common and all instances of impiety lack. Euthyphro tries to give the kind answer Socrates wants. Socrates asks Euthyphro more questions. Euthyphro answers them. Socrates asks whether these answers contradict his answer to the what is piety question. Euthyphro admits they do, withdraws his definition, and tries again. After several failed attempts, although Socrates wants to continue, Euthyphro says that he is "in a hurry" and that it is time for [him] to go" (Euthyphro 15e).

⊕ We saw one conclusion Plato seems to intend the reader to draw from this portrayal.

Are there other conclusions Plato intends the reader to draw?

Here is probably the most salient one.

By asking Euthrypho questions that force him into inconsistency, Socates is helping Euthyphro abandon his false beliefs about piety so that he can to live the life he thinks he is living. ⊕
It seems clear also that Plato is suggesting that Socrates' focus on definitions was unusual. Socrates has to explain to Euthyphro the kind of answer he is to give.

Plato, if this is right, is working with the thought that

• false beliefs about ethical matters prevent us from possessing wisdom
• eliminating inconsistency in belief eliminates these false beliefs
• dialectic is the test for inconsistency in belief about ethical matters

⊕ In this, Plato is showing how Socrates is part of the philosophical tradition that emerged in the Presocratic Period and that had emphasized the importance of reason for knowledge.

Socrates challenges the assumption that experience in situations human beings encounter as they live their lives is what gives them the competency they need to make their lives good. He thought that they need to exercise reason in dialectic to acquire this competency.

We know too, although not from the Euthyphro, that Socrates lived his life in an unusually ascetic way. This shows that Socrates thought that to acquire the competency we need to make our lives good, the love of wisdom he practiced consists in more than the kind of questioning and the exercise of reason in dialectic Plato protrays in the Euthyphro and elsewhere.

We will think more about Socrates' asceticism in a subsequent lecture when we think about a view in the middle dialogues commentators call Plato's Theory of Recollection.

Virtue and the Virtues of Character

The Laches adds more detail to the picture of what the historical Socrates thought.

In this dialogue, which also shows Socrates in the search for a definition, the characters Lysimachus and Melesias seek advice from Socrates about the education of their sons. ⊕
The dramatic date of the Laches is between 424 and 418 BCE. In this period, Athens was engaged in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) they would eventually lose. Laches praises Socrates' courage at the battle of Delium (Laches 181a), where the Athenians were routed by the Boeotians (who were allied with Sparta) in 424 BCE. (Socrates was also at the earlier battle of Potidaea (Symposium 219e, 221a). Nicias negotiated a treaty in 421 BCE that held for about a year and a half. In 418 BCE, the Athenians and Spartans again faced each other at the battle Mantinea. Laches was killed there in the Athenian defeat.

Aristides was an Athenian general remembered with respect for his role in the Persian Wars (499-449 BCE), in which the Greeks were ultimately victorious.

Herodotus says that Aristides was the "best and most honorable man in Athens" (Histories VIII.79.1).

Thucydides was an Athenian general who represented the conservative and aristocratic Athens against Pericles. In this political confrontation, Thucydides was the loser and was expelled from the city for ten years.

Aristophanes mentions Thucydides as someone famously defeated in oratory (Acharnians 703, Wasps 947).


Socrates raises the question of education in the Apology too.

"I happened to meet a man who has spent more on sophists than all the rest, Callias, the son of Hipponicus. So I asked him—for he has two sons—if your sons were colts or calves, we should be able to hire an overseer who would make them good in the virtue proper to them, and he would be a horse-trainer or a husbandman. But since they are human beings, whom have you in mind to get as overseer? Who has knowledge of that kind of virtue, that of a man and a citizen? I assume you have looked into the matter, Callias, as you have two sons. Is there anyone or not" (Apology 20a).

Callias was one of the richest men in Athens. His family leased slaves to the state for use in mining silver at Laurium (on the shores of the Agean Sea in southeastern Greece, about forty miles from Athens). This silver built the fleet that allowed the Athenians to win the second Persian War.

Lysimachus and Melesias are concerned about how they should educate their sons because they themselves have not done as well in life as their famous fathers (Aristides and Thucydides). They turn to Socrates for advice in this matter, and he questions the Athenian generals Laches and Nicias about the form the education of the children should take.

To Laches, Socrates says that Lysimachus and Melesias here "are inviting us to a consultation as to the way in which virtue (ἀρετή) may be joined to their son's souls, and so make them better." In the discussion that ensues, Socrates focuses the attention on courage. It is the traditional virtue of character the Athenian generals should understand.

We saw earlier that Socrates thought that virtue in the soul is wisdom. Now, given how Plato portrays him in the Laches, we get more information about what Socrates seems to have had in mind. He seems to have thought that wisdom and thus virtue in the soul consists in the possession of the virtues of character. His view, it seems, is that the virtues of character provide the control someone exercises over his actions when he lives the most beneficial life.

Here is the passage where Socrates tells Laches what Lysimachus and Melesias want. It is a good example of how Socrates asks questions to drive the investigation.

  "And you know, Laches, at this moment our two friends are inviting us to a consultation as to the way in which virtue may be joined to their sons' souls, and so make them better?
  Yes, indeed.
  Then our first requisite is to know what virtue is? For surely, if we had no idea at all what virtue actually is, we could not possibly consult with anyone as to how he might best acquire it?
  I certainly think not, Socrates.
  Then we say, Laches, that we know what it is.
  I suppose we must.
  And of that which we know, I presume, we can also say what it is.
  To be sure.
  Let us not, therefore, my good friend, inquire forthwith about the whole of virtue, since that may well be too much for us; but let us first see if we are sufficiently provided with knowledge about some part of it. In all likelihood this will make our inquiry easier.
  Yes, let us do as you propose, Socrates.
Then which of the parts of virtue shall we choose? Clearly, I think, that which the art of fighting in armor is supposed to promote; and that, of course, is generally supposed to be courage, is it not?
  Yes, it generally is, to be sure.
  Then let our first endeavor be to say what courage is. After that we can proceed to inquire in what way our young men may obtain it, in so far as it is to be obtained by means of pursuits and studies. Come, try and tell me, as I suggest, what is courage" (Laches 190b).

Life with the Virtues of Character

This conversation in the Laches raises an important question.

The good life is the most beneficial life for a human being to live. If there is such a life, it brings the most benefit. The benefit is how the person is when he lives this life.

In Greek, someone living a good life is said to be εὐδαίμων.

The traditional translation for this adjective is "happy." Lysimachus and Melesias want their sons to be happy, and presumably this is what we all want for ourselves. ⊕ The adjective εὐδαίμων has two parts. It is composed of εὐ (an adverb from ἀγαθός ("good")) and δαίμων (a noun that means "divine power that controls the destiny of individuals"). This etymology reflects the traditional Greek idea that human happiness depends on the the gods.

The opposite of εὐδαίμων is κακοδαίμων. This is to be "wretched, miserable, ill-fated, ill-starred, altogether bad off with respect to the divine force or forces that have influence over the lives of human beings."

"Muses of Pieria [daughters of the gods Zeus and Mnemosyne (Theogony 53)] who give glory through song, come hither, tell of Zeus your father and chant his praise. Through him mortal men are famed or unfamed, sung or unsung, as great Zeus wills. For easily he makes strong and brings the strong low; easily he humbles the proud and raises the obscure, and easily he straightens the crooked and blasts the proud,—Zeus who thunders aloft and has his dwelling most high" (Hesiod, Works and Days 1).

The Stoics will develop this thought in their philosophy. In doing this, they take themselves to follow Socrates.

"Then, Crito, let it be; and let us act in this way, since it is in this way that the god leads us" (Crito 54e).

Why, though, is it true, as the historical Socrates apparently thought, that the wisdom we need for a life in which we are happy is a matter of possessing the virtues of character?

The answer to this question is not obvious. It is natural even to suspect that the virtues of character are inconsistent with happiness because they require us to do things that are not beneficial. Being courageous, for example, can require us to die in battle.

Given this problem, we can expect Plato somewhere in the dialogues to consider

• what goes on in the most beneficial life for a human being to live
• how the virtues of character are involved in living this life

This, in fact, is exactly what we find if we continue reading. There are answers to these questions in two of Plato's middle dialogues: the Phaedo and the Republic.

Thinking about the Historical Socrates

In our look at the Apology, Euthyphro, and Laches, we have begun to see how we might reach an understanding of what Plato thought he was doing with the character Socrates.

Plato thought the historical Socrates was onto something important, and he uses the character Socrates to try to figure out what this is and what in it is true and false.

We can see too, at least as it seems to me, that thinking about Socrates is interesting. He was thinking out loud and very publicly about how to live, and the way Plato presents this thinking in his dialogues is one of the more beautiful gifts the past has given us.

Perseus Digital Library

Plato's, Apology, Euthyphro, Laches

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon

ἀγαθός, agathos, adjective, "good"
ἀμαθία, amathia, noun, "ignorance"
ἀπορέω, aporeō, verb, "to be at a loss, be in doubt, be puzzled"
ἀπορητικός, aporētikos, adjective, "capable of inducing doubt, puzzlement"

‎-τικός forms adjectives from verbal stems. See Smyth, 858.6d
ἀπορέω → ‎ἀπορητικός
πείθω (peíthō, verb, "persuade") → ‎ πειστικός (peistikós, adjective, "persuasive, capable of persuading")

⊕ Plato's early dialogues in which Socrates searches for a definition are said to be "aporetic." They end in ἀπορία.

The Pyrrhonians, later, connect ἀπορία with ἀταραξία (ataraxia, noun, "lack of disturbance, calmness").

The Pyrrhonians are outside the time period for this course, but I touch on them in last lecture. ἀπορία, aporia, noun, "lack of passage"
ἄπορος, aporos, adjective, "having no way in, out, or through"
ἀρετή, aretē, noun, "virtue," (rendered in Latin as virtus)

The opposite of ἀρετή is κακία, kakia, noun, "vice"
ἀρετή and κακία correspond to the adjectives ἀγαθός ("good") and κακός ("bad")

ἔλεγχος, noun, elenchos, "refutation"
ἐλέγχω, verb, elenchō, "cross-examine, question." This is what Socrates does.

δαίμων, daimōn, noun, "the divine force or forces that influences what happens to human beings"

διαλεκτική, adjective, dialektikē, "dialectic"
διάλογος, dialogos, noun, "dialogue"

εὐδαιμονία, eudaimonia, noun, "happiness"
εὐδαίμων, (εὐ (adverb of adjective ἀγαθός ("good")) +‎ δαίμων), eudaimōn, adjective, "happy"

The adjective εὐδαίμων appears for the first time in Hesiod. The concluding sentence in Works and Days is "[t]he man who is happy and blest (εὐδαίμων τε καὶ ὄλβιος) knows all these things and does his work without offending the deathless gods, who discerns the omens of birds and avoids transgression" (Hesiod, Works and Days 826). The implication is that if a man follows what Hesiod says about work and omens and does not commits acts of transgression that invite punishment from the δαίμονες, he will be "blest" with a life as free as possible from trouble and worry. (The heroes on the "Isles of the Blest" are ὄλβιοι because they are free from care (Hesiod, Works and Days 170).)

⊕ "They are called δαίμονες dwelling on the earth, and are kindly, delivering from harm, and guardians of mortal men. They roam everywhere over the earth, clothed in mist and keep watch on judgements and cruel deeds, givers of wealth; for this royal right also they received" (Works and Days 110).

"Those who ... keep their souls free from all wrongdoing, follow Zeus's road to the end, to the tower of Cronus, where ocean breezes blow around the island of the blessed" (Pindar Olympian Ode 2.65). "Neither famine nor disaster haunt men who deal in right judgement (ἰθυδίκῃσι). ... But for those who practice violence and cruel deeds far-seeing Zeus, the son of Cronus, ordains a punishment. ... The deathless gods are near among men; and mark all those who oppress their fellows with crooked judgements.... You princes, mark well this punishment, you also, for upon the bounteous earth Zeus has immortals, watchers of mortal men, and these keep watch on judgements and deeds of wrong as they roam, clothed in mist, all over the earth. ... Fishes and beasts and winged fowls should devour one another, for right (δίκη) is not in them; but to mankind Zeus gave right, which is by far the best. For whoever knows the right and is ready to speak it, far-seeing Zeus gives him prosperity" (Works and Days 230).

εὐθύφρων, euthyphrōn, adjective, "right-minded" (from εὐθῠ́ς ("straight, direct") +‎ φρων ("mind"))
Euthyphro (Εὐθύφρων) is Socrates' interlocutor in Plato's Euthyphro.

⊕ ἠθικός, ēthikos, adjective (from the noun ἦθος), "ethical"
ἦθος, ēthos, noun, "custom," (rendered into Latin as mos)

"The character of man is his δαίμων (ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων)" (Heraclitus, DK B 22 119).

"... called in Greek ἦθος, while we usually term that part of philosophy manners, but the suitable course is to add to the Latin language by giving this subject the name of moral philosophy (moralem [philosophiam])" (Cicero, On fate I.1).

"[T]he term 'moral' is commonly used as synonymous with 'ethical' (moralis being the Latin translation of ἠθικός)..." (Henry Sidwick, Outlines of the History of Ethics for English Readers, 5th edition, 1902, 11).

φιλοσοφία, philosophia, noun, "love of wisdom"
φιλόσοφος, philosophos, noun, "lover of wisdom"
σοφία, sophia, noun, "wisdom"
φρόνησις, phronēsis, noun, "sensibleness"
ψυχή, psychē, noun, "soul"

Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary

moralis, adjective (Cicero introduced), "of or belonging to manners or morals, moral"
mos, noun, "manner, custom, way," mores, plural of mos, "customs, manners, morals"
virtus, noun, "virtue"

Internet Archive:
Henry Sidwick, Outlines of the History of Ethics for English Readers