1. Socrates: The Athenian Philosopher
2. Military Service and Intellectual Influences
3. Accusations and Trial
4. Death and Legacy
5. Philosophical Method and Impact
6. Emergence of Abstract Thought
7. Dialectical Method

Socrates: The Athenian Philosopher

Early Life and Education

Socrates (c. 470/469-399 BCE), a renowned Athenian philosopher, was born to Sophroniscus, a sculptor or stoneworker, and Phaenarete. His father was likely a well-off citizen, as evidenced by Socrates' military service as a heavily armored warrior (hoplites). However, Socrates himself neglected his wealth and became extremely impoverished by the end of his life.

Socrates never wrote anything and taught solely by oral means. Our knowledge of him stems from various sources, including the comic plays of Aristophanes, which provide contemporary and satirical depictions, and the idealized portraits in Plato's and Xenophon's writings. Aristotle's accounts also seem to draw heavily from Plato.

Military Service and Intellectual Influences

At the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War when he was 37, Socrates was familiar with the circle of intellectuals surrounding Pericles, including the musician Damon, the scientist Archelaus, the sophist Protagoras, and the brilliant Aspasia. He is said to have had contact with the philosopher Anaxagoras, though he later expressed dissatisfaction with his writings. Socrates learned dialectics from Zeno of Elea and later attended lectures by the sophist Prodicus and engaged in debates with Gorgias, Thrasymachus, and Antiphon.

Socrates distinguished himself in military campaigns at Potidaea (432 BCE), Delium (424 BCE), and Amphipolis (422 BCE). A major turning point in his intellectual development came when the Delphic oracle declared him the "wisest of all men" (as recounted in Plato's Apology). Reflecting on this statement and his conviction that he "knows only that he knows nothing," Socrates concluded that this awareness of ignorance made him the wisest, as others were not even aware of this.

Accusations and Trial

By 423 BCE, Socrates had become a prominent enough figure to be satirized by two Athenian comic playwrights, Aristophanes and Amipsias. He largely avoided politics but counted Theramenes, Charmides, Critias, and Alcibiades among his acquaintances. The former three became leaders of the Thirty Tyrants who overthrew Athenian democracy, while Alcibiades' political opportunism led to his betrayal of Athens. These associations may have contributed to Socrates' later prosecution.

In 406, Socrates unsuccessfully opposed the hysterical and illegal condemnation of the generals responsible for the naval victory at the Battle of Arginusae Islands. In 404, he defied the Thirty Tyrants by refusing to assist in the arrest of Leon of Salamis, whom they had proscribed.

In his later years, Socrates married Xanthippe, who bore him three sons (possibly his second marriage). His poverty, frugality, and exceptional physical appearance became proverbial. In 399, he was indicted on charges of "impiety" and "corrupting the youth" and was convicted by a narrow majority. When Socrates refused to admit guilt or beg for mercy in lieu of death, the sentence was imposed by a wider margin.

Death and Legacy

Socrates spent a month in prison before he was forced to drink hemlock, completing his sentence. Plato's Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, which recount Socrates' trial, imprisonment, and execution, immortalize his unwavering courage and dedication to principle.

Philosophical Method and Impact

Socrates' methods of teaching remain enigmatic. The accusations against him are often blamed on the degeneration of democracy, but the regime restored in Athens in 403 was quite humane and moderate, adhering to the principles of political amnesty. The most serious charge appears to be the "corruption of youth," but its precise meaning remains unclear. The dialogue Crito discusses the charge of "subversion of the laws," which suggests that his influence on young people was seen as undermining the very fabric of society.

Traditionally, young men graduating from school received their "higher education" from older men through oral instruction and the imitation of role models, acquiring the virtues of a mature citizen (Greek "aretê"). The execution of state affairs was also handed down within political elites from one generation to the next. However, these functions were being transferred outside the family circle to a different institution (eventually formalized after Socrates' death), exemplified by Plato's Academy.

The intellectual group to which Socrates belonged played a key role in this process, introducing the concept of "professional" education to Athens from Ionia and Western Greece. Socrates, operating in Athens, bore the brunt of this transition. In 423, two comedians, Ameipsias (Conn, the comedy is lost) and Aristophanes (Clouds), caricatured him as the leader of a novel school that promoted youthful rebellion and filial disobedience. By 399, this image of Socrates had crystallized into the charge of "corrupting the youth."

Socrates' dialogues consistently question whether virtue can be imparted by fathers and elders to the young or whether it must be learned through a special type of education.

Emergence of Abstract Thought

The cultural crisis of the era further illuminates the power of Socratic dialectics. Its seemingly destructive potential, which so captivated Greeks for generations, can be understood in terms of a fundamental shift in human communication during Socrates' time. Athens was in the final stages of a transition from an oral to a literate society. This, in turn, affected language and initiated changes in the forms of human consciousness. The transition can be characterized as a movement from poetry to prose, from images to abstractions, and from intuitive skills to rational operations.

The abstract concept appeared as a novel and exhilarating discovery, and Socrates was its herald. In Aristophanes' Clouds, he is mocked as an abstract thinker (phrontistes), a seeker of "thoughts" (phrontides), who runs a "thinkery" (phrontisterion) and worships concepts suspended in the sky like clouds. "Thoughts" were comic because they were thoughts. Socrates' words, in Aristophanes' parody, are also novel "speech," an abstract jargon that gives form to ideas.

The preoccupation with ideas satirized by Aristophanes appears in Socrates' students as the search for definitions of abstract concepts like "the good" and "the just," and as the development of precise language to articulate conceptual knowledge in contrast to concrete experience.

Dialectical Method

The core principle of Socrates' method, as reported by Aristotle, is the paradox, "Virtue is knowledge," or more accurately, "Human virtue is a state of mind." Socrates insisted on systematic intellectual training for the young but refused to accept payment for his services, avoiding the taint of being a professional teacher of wisdom, a sophist (a label his accusers tried to attach to him).

Socrates recognized the fundamental direction of the age more clearly than any contemporary: that 1) the degree of abstraction to which thought aspires must be absolute and perfect, dialectically purified as "the idea itself," and that 2) the necessary power of mind for accomplishing this task exists within human beings. This power is the psuchê.

Cognition begins when the psuchê feels an attraction ("eros") to another psuchê and "mates" with it through "logos" (speech), generating a sequence of thoughts that are then purified through dialectical methods. Socrates' theory, expressed in terms of erotic symbolism, was embodied in his own person, which may account for his enduring fame.

Philosophy