CH. 3 Socrates: An Examined Life

Question 1

OBJECTIVES

Answer 1

SOCRATIC METHOD:

• Know what the Socratic method is and how it can be used to expose errors in ethical thinking.
• REDUCTIO ad ABSURDUM explain how this kind of argument is used in Socratic dialogues.
• Be able to create a Socratic dialogue that demonstrates the inadequacies of a moral concept.

KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE:

• Explain the differences between Socrates’ approach to philosophical discourse and that of the Sophists.
• How Socrates views the connection between knowledge and virtue.
• Know why Socrates says that nothing can harm a good man and that an unexamined life is not worth living.

SOCRATES’ TRIAL AND DEATH:

• Summarize the arguments Socrates made to the Athenian jury and be able to evaluate them.
• Relate Socrates’ explanation of why he is called wise and has “such an evil fame.”

Question 2

An Examined Life

Answer 2

AN EXAMINED LIFE:

• Socrates devised no grand systems of metaphysics, epistemology, or logic as Plato and Aristotle did, but his influence on these two intellectual giants was profound.
• He has helped make philosophy relevant to the daily lives of ordinary people.
• At a time when most philosophy was directed at (metaphysical) cosmological speculations (à la Thales, Parmenides, and others), Socrates turned to critically examining people’s basic concepts, core beliefs, and moral thinking.

Question 3

The Philosophical Gadfly

Answer 3

THE PHILOSOPHICAL GADFLY:

Socrates (c. 469–399 BCE) – Except for his preoccupation with philosophy, his life was outwardly commonplace—the son of a stonemason or sculptor, a married man, and the father of three sons.

• Does Socrates believe that his dialectic can lead toward truth —or does he believe as the Sophists do that truth is relative?
  
  • ​Socrates believed that truth is absolute. He was a critic of the Sophists and their relativism.
• To Socrates, this kind of self-examination is essential to living a good life. Nothing, he says, is more important than the care of one’s soul (the inner person), and the only way to nurture it is through philosophical reflection – through a search for truth.

Question 4

Socratic Method

Answer 4

SOCRATIC METHOD​ – Question-and-answer dialogue in which propositions are methodically scrutinized to uncover the truth.

• It uses the formats from chapter one to ensure that the arguments of those he approaches are logical and without conflict.
  
  • If they are not logical or they conflict with one another, then the Socratic Method points out these inconsistencies and leads the person to the conclusion that they are either mistaken, lying, or simply ignorant.
    
    • Either way, the revelation of these inconsistencies was a blessing in the eyes of Socrates because they revealed ignorance in others and put them one step closer to the ultimate goal – truth.

The method typically goes like this:

1. Someone poses a question about the meaning of a concept.
2. Socrates’ companion gives an initial answer.
3. Socrates raises questions about the answer, proving that the answer is inadequate.
4. To avoid the problems inherent in this answer, the companion offers a second answer.
5. Steps (3) and (4) are repeated a number of times, ultimately revealing that the companion does not know what he thought he knew.

• False answers are eliminated
• Opinions are improved
• Perhaps the truth is a little closer than before.
• REDUCTO ad ABSURDUM – The basic idea that, if you assume a set of statements, and you can derive absurd or false statements from it, then you know that at least one of the original statements must be rejected.
• EX: Socrates uses this concept along with his question-and-answer approach (the Socratic Method) to show that Thrasymachus’ definition of justice is wrong.
  
  • Socrates shows that Thrasymachus’ idea of justice leads to a logical contradiction and is therefore false.

MORALITY AND THE GODS – Socrates also shows that there is a conflict between the ideas that morality (Peity) is determined by the god’s love for an action/thought and the idea that the gods love particular actions/ideas because they are moral.

• Which is it?
  
  • Are things moral BECAUSE the gods love them?
  • Or do the gods love them BECAUSE they are moral?
    
    • And if the gods disagree on the love of a particular action, can it be moral?
• “Does God command them because they are right? To choose the first option is to say that God makes morality. To choose the second is to say that morality exists independently of God’s will and even he must obey it.
  
  • “For many modern theists, the second option is far more palatable than the first, for the first one seems to imply that morality is completely arbitrary.”
• “The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.”
• “Any state of action or passion implies previous action or passion. It does not become because it is becoming, but it is in a state of becoming because it becomes; neither does it suffer because it is in a state of suffering, but it is in a state of suffering because it suffers.”
• “The state of being loved follows the act of being loved.”

Question 5

Knowledge and Ignorance

Answer 5

KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE:

• Why does Socrates persist in asking questions that often annoy or embarrass his interlocutors (other members of the conversation)?
  
  • This method allows the other person to come to their own conclusions.
  • They annoy because they reveal ignorance, hypocrisy, and deception, something no one enjoys having done to them, regardless of the intention.
  • In Socrates’ mind, they should be grateful because the process leads them one step closer to the truth and an “examined self”.
    
    • But apparently, not everyone wants those things.

SOPHIST – A school of thought contemporary to Socrates in Athens who reasons with clever but fallacious and deceptive arguments.

• Unlike the Sophists, Socrates thought of his method as a way to pursue the truth, not as a means to win rhetorical victories.
• Unlike them, he was no relativist insisting that truth depends on who you are or where you’re from.
• The Sophists were teachers who charged a fee for their tutelage. Socrates charged nothing and denied that he taught anything, asserting instead that he merely guided people to discover wisdom within themselves.
• Unlike the Sophists, Socrates insists again and again that nothing in this life is more important than the care of the soul, the true self.
  
  • Thus Socrates asserts that “nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death” and that doing injustice is far worse than suffering injustice inflicted by others.
    
    • This view explains why he thought it better to stick to his moral principles and face execution than to give up his principles and live.

VIRTUE IS KNOWLEDGE – For Socrates, knowledge refers to both knowing what virtue is and knowing how to apply that understanding to life.

• This knowledge is self-knowledge and is comparable to the know-how possessed by expert craftsmen. They understand everything about their craft, including how to practice it. Likewise, those who know virtue in this sense will grasp it and conduct their lives by it. (To know the virtues is to have them.)
  
  • This self-knowledge will help people attain a good life and benefit their soul.
  • Socrates believed that people who have this kind of wisdom will automatically behave accordingly.
• He thinks people naturally tend to pursue the good if they know what the good is.
  
  • If they don’t pursue it, it’s because of ignorance: they don’t know anything about virtuous living.
  • So virtue comes from knowledge, lack of virtue is due to ignorance, and the welfare of the soul hangs in the balance.
• “As we think we should search for what we don’t know we’ll be better people—less fainthearted and less lazy—than if we were to think that we had no chance of discovering what we don’t know and that there’s no point in even searching for it.”
• “Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.” – and the “good life” can come only through self-examination.

SOCRATES’ FAMOUS DICTUM – “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

• It’s not worth living because it harms the soul and makes life unsatisfying. An unexamined life is likely to be a wretched life, an existence bereft of the good that moral knowledge brings.
  
  • Socrates considered it his duty to help people attain the necessary moral understanding. That is the purpose behind his dialectic.
• To Socrates, a clear sign that a person has an unhealthy soul is her exclusive pursuit of social status, wealth, power, and pleasure instead of the soul’s well-being.
• The good of the soul is achieved only through (self-examination) an uncompromising search for what’s true and real, through the wisdom to see what is most vital in life.

Question 6

Socrates in the Clouds

Answer 6

SOCRATES IN THE CLOUDS:

ARISTOPHANES – A well-known comedic playwright, championed the conservative view and wrote the play Clouds to attack what he considered the causes of social decay. He chose a likely character to embody the distressing trends: the well-known Socrates.

• CLOUDS – with its grotesque portrait of Socrates as a loony Sophist—may have contributed to the suspicions among Athenians that led to Socrates’ trial and execution.
  
  • Socrates was not only not a Sophist, but he was also a critic of theirs, an opponent of relativism, and a believer in the power of reason to search out the truth.

Question 7

Socrates’ Trial and Death

Answer 7

SOCRATES’ TRIAL AND DEATH:

• Eventually, Socrates was indicted and charged with disrespecting the gods approved by the state, acknowledging new gods, and corrupting the youth of the city.
  
  • His sentence was death or exile, and he chose death by poison rather than leave his beloved Athens.
• In his dialogue Apology, Plato (who was present at the proceedings) recounts the events of the trial, including Socrates’ address to the jurors. Socrates is portrayed as a man of brilliant intellect and unshakeable integrity who would not compromise his principles, even to escape death.
• “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.”
  
  • The Oracle of Delphi said Socrates was the wisest in Athens. Socrates did NOT see himself as wise, so he concluded that the Oracle must have meant that he was wisest because he did not assume he knew things that he in fact did not know. even as others who were widely lauded as ‘wise’ did assume they were wise.

Question 8

Plato: Apology

Answer 8

PLATO: APOLOGY:

• From Socrates’ accusers – to Sum up their words, ‘Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.’
  
  • Socrates comments, “Such is the nature of the accusation: it is just what you have yourselves seen in the comedy of Aristophanes, who has introduced a man whom he calls Socrates, going about and saying that he walks in air, and talking a deal of nonsense concerning matters of which I do not pretend to know either much or little.”
    
    • Socrates points out that the accusations are completely false and do not apply to him at all “I have nothing to do with physical speculations. Very many of those here present are witnesses to the truth of this, and to them, I appeal.”

What is the misunderstanding that Socrates says has led to his tarnished reputation? – his accusers claim that Socrates is ‘eloquent’ (in a derogatory way), a ‘know-it-all’, and a manipulator when really, he only seeks truth and admits to knowing very little.

What does Aristophanes have to do with Socrates’ reputation? – The playwright who wrote CLOUD, made Socrates appear as a conniving Sophist. And it was this misrepresentation that may have driven the perception of Socrates that led to the trial and execution.

Why does Socrates think he knows more than the people who claim to have wisdom?:

What does Socrates say is the reason for his “evil name”?:

• The answers to both these questions are intertwined.
• First, a friend of Socrates “asked the oracle (of Delphi) to tell him whether anyone was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser.”
  
  • Socrates disagreed, “What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great.”
• In fact, Socrates set out to meet with the people perceived as wisest by the people of Athens to show the Oracle that he was, in fact, NOT the wisest in the city.
• The first proclaimed ‘wise’ man was a politician. Socrates had this to say about the politician after the encounter, “When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me.”
  
  • “Then I went to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him. Then I went to one man after another.
  • “The poets appeared to me to be much in the same case; and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians.…
• “I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.”
• So Socrates comes to agree with the Oracle that he IS the wisest in Athens for the reason that, though neither Socrates nor the other ‘wise’ men knew anything, at least Socrates understands that he knows nothing, while the ‘wise’ men refuse to believe that. This understanding is what makes Socrates feel that he has at least some wisdom greater than theirs.
  
  • “So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him.”
• So Socrates thought he was wiser simply because he recognized his own ignorance where others did not.
  
  • ​Socrates feels he is the wisest because he is the only one who recognizes that he has no wisdom at all.
• And the reason he was his “evil name” was that he revealed the ignorance in others and they did not like that one bit.
• Why have Socrates’ accusers brought him up on these charges?
• ​​According to Socrates, [They call me a] “villainous misleader of youth!—and then if somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practice or teach? they do not know, and cannot tell; but in order that they may not appear to be at a loss, they repeat the readymade charges which are used against all philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause; for they do not like to confess that their pretense of knowledge has been detected—which is the truth; and as they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, and are drawn up in battle array and have persuasive tongues, they have filled your ears with their loud and inveterate calumnies.
• And this is the reason why my three accusers, Meletus and Anytus and Lycon, have set upon me; Meletus, who has a quarrel with me on behalf of the poets; Anytus, on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians; Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians:

What error does Socrates accuse the Athenians of committing? How is the jury likely to react to Socrates’ claim?

• Socrates accuses Athenians of being selfish, ignorant, and unwise. This likely offends the jury. “You, my friend—a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens—are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?”
• [The vote is taken and he is found guilty by 281 votes to 220.] And so he proposes death as the penalty.

Why does Socrates say that he is arguing for the Athenians’ sake?

• Socrates is trying to benefit the Athenians, for their own good, whether or not they understand it. He is trying to teach them the value of examining their life by searching for truth, “About which you hear me examining myself and others is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living.”

What is Socrates’ counterproposal regarding sentencing? How is the jury likely to react to this suggestion?:

• If he were to live, it would be as he always had. He would not change because it would be an “offense to the gods”
• [2nd vote: The jury decides for the death penalty by a vote of 360 to 141.]

According to Socrates, what is the greatest good of man? Why does he insist that the unexamined life is not worth living?:

• He believes that a “good life” and not simply a “life” is most important, and a “good life” is one that is examined – that constantly seeks truth and to understand.

Why does Socrates say that death is probably a good?:

• “I suppose that these things may be regarded as fated” (i.e. predetermined by the gods).
• Socrates sees death as a good because it reveals the villainy and “unrighteousness” of his accusers – and besides, he’s old and would die soon anyway.

In a letter from Socrates follower, “Such was the death, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, and justest, and best of all men I have ever known.”

Question 9

REVIEW NOTES

Answer 9

REVIEW NOTES:

SOCRATES – Self-controlled, down-to-earth yet propelled by high ideals and concern for the spiritual self, and plain-spoken yet intellectually brilliant.

• Nothing is more important than the care of one’s soul and that the only way to nurture it is through philosophical reflection.

SOCRATIC METHOD – A powerful procedure for applying critical thinking to many statements that may seem out of reason’s reach.

• His brand of question-and-answer dialogue, demonstrated that people who thought themselves wise were not wise at all.
• Socratic method often takes the form of reductio absurdum.

KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE:

• Socrates’ method and mission spring from his ideas about the soul and how to live a good life. He asserts that nothing in this life is more important than the care of the soul, the true self. Your soul is harmed or helped by your own actions: doing wrong damages your soul, and doing right benefits it.
• For Socrates, virtue is knowledge. He believes that to know the virtues is to have them, for people naturally tend to pursue the good if they know what the good is. If they don’t pursue it, it’s because of ignorance: they don’t know anything about virtuous living.
• To Socrates, a clear sign that a person has an unhealthy soul is her exclusive pursuit of social status, wealth, power, and pleasure instead of the soul’s well-being.
  
  • The good of the soul is achieved only through an uncompromising search for what’s true and real, through the wisdom to see what is most vital in life.

SOCRATES’ TRIAL AND DEATH:

• Socrates denied the charges against him and contended that he did not teach metaphysics and did not try to make bad arguments look good.
• He declared that he had done Athenians a service by arguing with them and turning their attention to the well-being of their souls.