An Interpretation of Socrates

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Aegeus consults the Pythia. Attic red-figure kylix (c. 430 BCE), the Kodros painter. Berlin F 2538.⁣

A kylix is a drinking cup. Socrates is a historical figure and a character in Plato's dialogues.

Plato uses the character to understand the historical figure. He tries to work out for himself and posterity what Socrates thought about human beings and the good life.

Socrates, as Plato understands him, is a φιλόσοφος or "lover of wisdom."

He castigates the Athenians for caring more about money and reputation than about "wisdom and truth and the best state of their souls." He says to them, if "some one of you disputes this, and says he does care, [I will] 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).

We saw this questioning in the search for definitions and have thought some about how to understand it, but there is more work to do to see what is going on.

Socrates Asks Questions

Socrates questions his interlocutors about about right and wrong and related matters. In the Euthyphro, the question is what piety is. In the Laches, it is what courage is.

In their answers to his questions, Socrates's interlocutors contradict themselves. He wants to continue, but they do not care as much about wisdom. They find some excuse to return to caring about money and the other things they have made the point of their lives.

⊕ The time we spend thinking about a question depends on its importance to us, and Socrates thinks that no question is more important than what the good life is.

Socrates tells Gorgias that "no bad for a man is as great as false belief about the things we are discussing right now" (Gorgias 458a). Socrates tells Polus that "the matters in dispute between us are not at all insignificant ones" because they are about "recognizing or failing to recognize who is happy and who is not" (Gorgias 472c). "For you see," Socrates says to Callicles, "our discussion is about this, and there is nothing even a man of little intelligence would take more seriously: how to live one's life" (Gorgias 500c).


"You know Chaerephon, I fancy. He was my comrade from a youth and the comrade of your democratic party, and shared in the recent exile and came back with you. And you know the kind of man he was, how impetuous in whatever he undertook. Well, once he went to Delphi and made so bold as to ask the oracle this question; and, gentlemen, don't make a disturbance at what I say; for he asked if there were anyone wiser than I. Now the Pythia replied that there was no one wiser. And about these things his brother here will bear you witness, since Chaerephon is dead. But see why I say these things; for I am going to tell you whence the prejudice against me has arisen" (Apology 20e).

Delphi (about a hundred miles north west of Athens) was the home of the Temple of Apollo. The Pythia is the priestess who serves as oracle for Apollo.

"If you put me to death, you will not easily find another, who, to use a rather absurd figure, attaches himself to the city [of Athens] as a gadfly to a horse, which, though large and well bred, is sluggish on account of his size and needs to be aroused by stinging. I think the god fastened me upon the city in some such capacity, and I go about arousing, and urging and reproaching each one of you, constantly alighting upon you everywhere the whole day long. Such another is not likely to come to you; but if you take my advice, you will spare me. But you, perhaps, might be angry, like people awakened from a nap, and might slap me, as Anytus advises, and easily kill me; then you would pass the rest of your lives in slumber, unless the god, in his care for you, should send someone else to sting you. And that I am, as I say, a kind of gift from the god, you might understand from this; for I have neglected my own affairs and have been enduring the neglect of my concerns all these years, but I am always busy in your interest, coming to each one of you individually like a father or an elder brother and urging you to care for virtue" (Apology 30e).

"Perhaps someone might say, Socrates, can you not go away from us and live quietly, without talking? Now this is the hardest thing to make some of you believe. For if I say that such conduct would be disobedience to the god and that therefore I cannot keep quiet, you will think I am jesting and will not believe me; and if again I say that to talk every day about virtue and the other things about which you hear me talking and examining myself and others is the greatest good to man, and that the unexamined life is not to be lived by a human being (ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ), you will believe me still less. This is as I say, gentlemen, but it is not easy to convince you" (Apology 37e). For why he engages in this questioning again and again, Socrates gives more than one answer. ⊕

In the Apology, he explains that Chaerephon (a childhood friend and follower) asked the priestess at Delphi whether anyone was wiser than Socrates (20e). The priestess said the god's answer was that no one was than Socrates, and Socrates had trouble understanding this. Socrates did not regard himself as wise but also thought the god could not be wrong. So, to investigate the meaning of the god's answer, he examined those he met.

No one had the wisdom they believed they had, but Socrates continued because he thought piety required him to show that there was no counterexample to what the priestess told Chaerephon. In fulfilling his duty in this way, Socrates describes himself as a "gift" the god has sent the Athenians (Apology 30e). He questions them in dialectic to make them realize they do not know what they think they know, and this helps them eliminate the inconsistency in their beliefs that prevents them from living in accord with the virtues of character.

Beliefs that Cannot be Abandoned

Euthyphro is an example as someone Socrates questions in his duty to the god.

If he were to stay in the dialectic and continue to abandon the answers Socrates refutes, the suggestion is that eventually he will see the correct answer to the what is piety question.

This, in turn, suggests that Euthyphro must have the correct answer fixed in his mind in a way questioning cannot dislodge. His problem is that he has acquired false beliefs about what piety is, and these beliefs it easy for him to do something he thinks is pious when in fact it is not.

Now we can see that Plato faces a question he needs to answer.

Given that he is trying to understand what Socrates thought, he will need to explain how Euthyphro has beliefs fixed in his mind that questioning cannot force him to abandon.

The Focus on Definitions

Plato also faces another and even more immediate question.

Socrates seems to try to get Euthyphro to see that piety is what is appropriate, or fitting, with respect the gods (12e) and that prosecuting his father may not have this property.

Socrates, in the Gorgias, seems to repeat this thought about what piety is.

"[W]hen [someone] does what is fitting (τὰ προσήκοντα πράττοι) as regards men, his actions will be just, and as regards the gods, his actions will be pious (Gorgias 507a).

⊕ This suggests Socrates thinks that the reference class is all that differs in the definitions of the virtues of character. In the case of piety, the reference class is the gods. In the case of justice, it is human beings. Justice is what is fitting with respect to human beings, courage is what is fitting in situations that can inspire fear in those who lack wisdom, and so on.

If this is right, the definitions provide no real guidance for what to do in particular situations. It is not enough for Euthyphro to know that piety is what is fitting with respect to the gods. He needs to know what is fiting for him to do in the situation involving his father.

Because the real challenge seems to be to know what is and is not fitting, Plato needs to understand why Socrates did not make this the focus of his questioning.

The Beginning of an Understanding

In the Meno and the Phaedo, Plato makes Socrates give an explanation for why human beings have beliefs they cannot abandon. I set out this explanation in a subsequent lecture when I discuss the view traditionally referred to as Plato's Theory of Recollection.

It is possible now, though, to get a clearer understanding of Socrates' focus on definitions.

⊕ In the Laches, Nicias tells Socrates that Laches has not been taking the right approach in "defining courage" (Laches 194c). He has been looking to examples of courage to see what courage is, that it is staying at one's post to face the enemy (Laches 190e). Nicias suggests that rather than something someone does, courage is a kind of "wisdom" (Laches 194d).

Socrates encourages this suggestion and the further thought that wisdom is knowledge of what is good and what is bad in the circumstances one faces. ⊕   "Now do you think, Nicias, there could be anything wanting to the virtue of a man who knew all good things, and all about their production in the present, the future, and the past, and all about bad things likewise? Do you suppose that such a man could be lacking in temperance, or justice, and holiness, when he alone has the gift of taking due precaution, in his dealings with gods and men, as regards what is to be dreaded and what is not, and of procuring good things, owing to his knowledge of the right behaviour towards them?
  I think, Socrates, there is something in what you say" (Laches 199d).

  "Well now, the cause of cowards being cowardly, do you call this cowardice or courage?
  Cowardice, I call it.
  And were they not found to be cowards through ignorance of what is dreadful?
  Certainly.
  And so they are cowards because of that ignorance?
  Yes.
  And the cause of their being cowards is admitted by you to be cowardice?
  Yes.
  Then ignorance of what is dreadful and not dreadful will be cowardice?
  Yes.
  But surely courage, is the opposite of cowardice.
  Yes.
  Then the wisdom that knows what is and what is not dreadful is opposed to the ignorance of these things?
  Yes.
  And the ignorance of them is cowardice?
  Yes.
  So the wisdom (σοφία) that knows what is and what is not dreadful is courage, being opposed to the ignorance of these things? Why is it, Protagoras, that you neither affirm nor deny what I ask you?
  Finish it by yourself, Socrates" (Protagoras 360c ). He seems to think that someone who knows what courage is knows that what is and is not fitting in circumstances that call for courage is the very same thing as what is good and what is bad in those circumstances.

This tell us that our prior list of what Socrates thought was incomplete. In part, it was that

• the soul has virtue just in case it has wisdom
• this wisdom is knowledge about ethical matters

To this characterization, it is necessary to add that

• knowledge about ethical matters is knowledge of good and bad
• Socratic Intellectualism is true (desires are beliefs about good and bad)

When Socrates "tests" his interlocutors for virtue in their souls by questioning them about what the virtues of character are, what he ultimately wants to help them know is what is good and what is bad in the various circumstances a human being faces as he lives his life.

Socrates' interlocutors are confused about this because they are confused about the definitions of the virtues of character. Because examples play such a large role in learning what these virtues are, they think such things as that staying at one's post to face the enemy is good and running is bad because they think this is what courage and cowardice are.

Socrates' interlocutors must abandon these false beliefs about what the virtues of character are if they are going to live their lives in accordance with these virtue. Otherwise, they are inadvertently going to do what is bad because they wrongly believe they are doing what is good. Once, however, they know what is good and what is bad, they have and live in accord with the virtues of character because their desires are a function of their knowledge.

This shows that Socrates focuses on eliminating confusion about the definitions of the virtues of character because this is a first step in a much bigger project. He is pushing toward knowledge of what is good and what is bad. This provides the control we need to live the life it most benefits us to live, and the first step is eliminating our confusion about the definitions.

If Plato reaches this understanding of Socrates, then we can expect him in subsequent dialogues to consider whether Socratic intellectualism is true and to focus less on the definitions of the virtues of character and more on what in fact is good and what is bad.

This in fact is exactly what happens in the middle dialogues we will consider.

The Influence of Socrates

Plato, as we will see, continues to use the character Socrates in these middle dialogues, but he does not always use him in a way the early dialogues might lead us to expect. ⊕ Socrates' father seems to have been a stone-mason, and Socrates seems to have worked in this trade (Diogenes Laaertius, Lives of the Philosophers II.5). The young would be in the shops around the agora, and Socrates would visit these shops (Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.2.1). One of these shops seems to have been the workshop of Simon the shoemaker (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers II.13).

In the Republic, one of the questions under discussion is one we have seen Socrates try to answer: how the soul functions and what its virtue is. Now, however, Plato uses the character to give answers to these questions the historical Socrates did not give.

This development in Plato marks the first in what would be an important and continuing line of thought in Ancient philosophy. We can understand much of the way philosophy unfolds in the Period of Schools as an ongoing attempt to keep what was right in Socrates and to supplement it with truths he would have seen if the city of Athens had not cut his life short.

This is why historians traditionally see the first half of Ancient Philosophy (the time from 585 BCE to 100 BCE) as consisting in the Presocratic Period and the Period of Schools. What unites the philosophers in the Period of Schools is not just that they were members of schools. They, in different ways, were all working out a line of thought that began with Socrates.