Socrates - A Great Thinker
Relevance of his Ideas
1. They’ve Never Been Rendered Obsolete
For starters, it’s crucial to note that, unlike many other intellectual disciplines of the ancient Greek period such as, say, ancient Greek astronomy, Socrates’ philosophies remain just as pertinent as the day they were conceived (or at least the day they were recorded by his student Plato).Socrates and his disciples’ theories are a crucial foundation of modern Western philosophical thought – all others since have basically been constructed upon them.
2. He Taught Us to Question Everything
“The highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others,” Socrates once said. His dialectic method of inquiry – breaking a subject down into a dialogue between two or more people with differing views, both mutually in search of the same truth – taught us to assume nothing and to scrutinize everything, and gave us a system by which to do it. It remains a key element of scientific study today – beginning with a hypothesis and then distilling it until a definitive conclusion is reached.
3. He Taught Us That Life is Worthless Without Happiness
Socrates asked – what’s the point in battleships and city walls, unless the people building them and protected by them are happy?
If we aren’t in pursuit of happiness and understanding in our daily lives, then we’re basically akin to ants toiling at an ant-hill. Sure, we go about our practical tasks instinctually. But we also need to step back and develop an awareness of the world, and form a conscious relationship with our existence.
Socrates asked – what’s the point in battleships and city walls, unless the people building them and protected by them are happy? The same remains true today – unless we’re mindful of spiritual well-being in our daily toil, we’re little better off than insects. As he famously put it: “The unexamined life is not a life worth living for a human being.”
Socrates asked – what’s the point in battleships and city walls, unless the people building them and protected by them are happy?
If we aren’t in pursuit of happiness and understanding in our daily lives, then we’re basically akin to ants toiling at an ant-hill. Sure, we go about our practical tasks instinctually. But we also need to step back and develop an awareness of the world, and form a conscious relationship with our existence.
Socrates asked – what’s the point in battleships and city walls, unless the people building them and protected by them are happy? The same remains true today – unless we’re mindful of spiritual well-being in our daily toil, we’re little better off than insects. As he famously put it: “The unexamined life is not a life worth living for a human being.”
Socrates believed that the universal aspiration for all men should be was virtue. However, virtue must be known before it can be desired and achieved, which requires attention and commitment. This aspiration to a higher state, ideal and disposition could only be achieved by constant self improvement, the pursuit of which was Socrates’ sole goal in life. In the Apology, Socrates proves his commitment to the virtuous improvement of Athenians by referring to his negligence of his private concerns to concentrate on his divinely bestowed task of advising in people publicly or privately to aim to virtue. As a result of his diligent performance in his duty, he was on trial charged with leading astray the youth. The fruits of his labors were many powerful enemies and his own poverty. According to Socrates, Examination of life is aspiring to improvement of the soul, absolute honesty, desire for knowledge, discernment of the known and the unknown (wisdom) and correct priority in attending to matters .
4. He Taught Us to Ask if There’s Such a Thing as a Just War
“It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong,” believed Socrates. As a soldier in the Greek army during the Peloponnesian War, one who distinguished himself several times for his bravery, Socrates saw enough of military conflict to understand first hand the suffering and devastation it caused.
His was one of the first voices in history to ponder whether there really is such a thing as a just war – a war for a cause so true it was worth bloodshed on a mass scale.
5. He Advocated True Freedom of Speech
Athens was one of the first polities in the world to allow freedom of speech –all from lowly shoemakers and merchants to rich nobles were allowed to address the Athenian Assembly. Yet they had to speak with aidos – “a sense of shame, a ‘knowing-your-placeness’” as Hughes describes it in The Hemlock Cup.
Socrates rebelled against this convention, by developing a system of true free-speech through his dialogue. Athens was uneasy was this, but he spoke his mind anyway (and ultimately paid the price for it). He was way ahead of his time in standing-up for the free expression of ideas – something that remains a cornerstone of democratic society today.
“It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong,” believed Socrates. As a soldier in the Greek army during the Peloponnesian War, one who distinguished himself several times for his bravery, Socrates saw enough of military conflict to understand first hand the suffering and devastation it caused.
His was one of the first voices in history to ponder whether there really is such a thing as a just war – a war for a cause so true it was worth bloodshed on a mass scale.
5. He Advocated True Freedom of Speech
Athens was one of the first polities in the world to allow freedom of speech –all from lowly shoemakers and merchants to rich nobles were allowed to address the Athenian Assembly. Yet they had to speak with aidos – “a sense of shame, a ‘knowing-your-placeness’” as Hughes describes it in The Hemlock Cup.
Socrates rebelled against this convention, by developing a system of true free-speech through his dialogue. Athens was uneasy was this, but he spoke his mind anyway (and ultimately paid the price for it). He was way ahead of his time in standing-up for the free expression of ideas – something that remains a cornerstone of democratic society today.
6. He Invented Philosophical Ethics
“What is the right way to live?” pondered Socrates. He was one of the very first philosophers in history to encourage scholars and common citizens to turn their attention from the outside world to the condition of humankind – and to ask a simple, honest and undoubtedly critical question: what is right and what is wrong? With it, he effectively created philosophical ethics – the debate between good and evil – which has shaped moral and legal codes throughout the Western world.
7. He Was a Champion of Human Virtue
Shaped probably by some of the terrible sights he witnessed on the battlefields at Potidaea, Amphipolis and Delium during his military service, Socrates developed a notion of human virtue at odds with the then-prevailing attitude of lex talionis – an eye for an eye. He believed in a mixture of temperance, justice, piety and courage – all of which led ultimately to wisdom. He had seen so much bad, he wanted to search for something good.
Socrates was a firm believer in friendship and community, and common threads between all of mankind. “Virtue,” he said, “is the most valuable of all possessions.” We can always benefit from being a bit nicer to each other.
8. He Warned Us of the Follies of Materialism
Socrates typically cut a pretty down-trodden figure when he wandered the streets of Athens – he never wore shoes, and sported the same tattered woolen cloak all year round. He was mocked for it by his contemporaries, but he didn’t care – his humble attire was a physical reflection of his belief that the pursuit of plenty could only bring mindless materialism.
He even had the gall to suggest to Athenians that they might be better themselves pursuing well-being rather than wealth – words that ring truer than ever in consumerist modern society.
9. He Taught Us the Value of Civil Disobedience
Socrates was known as the “gadfly” of the Greek state – he saw it as his responsibility to sting the government into action in areas where it could improve its conduct. He wasn’t frightened to publicly speak his mind on the subject of bad governance, no matter the cost. One illustrative quote goes: “It seems strange enough to me that a herdsman who lets his cattle decrease and go to the bad should not admit that he is a poor cowherd; but stranger still that a statesman when he causes the citizens to decrease and go to the bad, should feel no shame nor think himself a poor statesman.”
As a famous modern advocate of civil disobedience Martin Luther King put it in a letter from an Alabama Prison in 1963: “Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths… so we must see the need for non-violent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism.”
10. He Taught Us to Stand Up For What We Believe
Socrates lived and breathed his philosophies – however much they were scorned, ridiculed, laughed at or feared – and he ultimately died by them. The state swatted its gadfly, by trying him as a “corrupter of youth” and forcing him to commit suicide by poisoning himself.
He could have renounced his beliefs, and made a groveling defence during his trial – but he chose instead to stand tall to the last and accept his punishment, even turning down an opportunity to escape. There was undoubtedly a degree of recklessness and martyrdom to Socrates death, but the lesson it teaches us about standing up for what we believe in to the very end remains powerful and enduring.
“What is the right way to live?” pondered Socrates. He was one of the very first philosophers in history to encourage scholars and common citizens to turn their attention from the outside world to the condition of humankind – and to ask a simple, honest and undoubtedly critical question: what is right and what is wrong? With it, he effectively created philosophical ethics – the debate between good and evil – which has shaped moral and legal codes throughout the Western world.
7. He Was a Champion of Human Virtue
Shaped probably by some of the terrible sights he witnessed on the battlefields at Potidaea, Amphipolis and Delium during his military service, Socrates developed a notion of human virtue at odds with the then-prevailing attitude of lex talionis – an eye for an eye. He believed in a mixture of temperance, justice, piety and courage – all of which led ultimately to wisdom. He had seen so much bad, he wanted to search for something good.
Socrates was a firm believer in friendship and community, and common threads between all of mankind. “Virtue,” he said, “is the most valuable of all possessions.” We can always benefit from being a bit nicer to each other.
8. He Warned Us of the Follies of Materialism
Socrates typically cut a pretty down-trodden figure when he wandered the streets of Athens – he never wore shoes, and sported the same tattered woolen cloak all year round. He was mocked for it by his contemporaries, but he didn’t care – his humble attire was a physical reflection of his belief that the pursuit of plenty could only bring mindless materialism.
He even had the gall to suggest to Athenians that they might be better themselves pursuing well-being rather than wealth – words that ring truer than ever in consumerist modern society.
9. He Taught Us the Value of Civil Disobedience
Socrates was known as the “gadfly” of the Greek state – he saw it as his responsibility to sting the government into action in areas where it could improve its conduct. He wasn’t frightened to publicly speak his mind on the subject of bad governance, no matter the cost. One illustrative quote goes: “It seems strange enough to me that a herdsman who lets his cattle decrease and go to the bad should not admit that he is a poor cowherd; but stranger still that a statesman when he causes the citizens to decrease and go to the bad, should feel no shame nor think himself a poor statesman.”
As a famous modern advocate of civil disobedience Martin Luther King put it in a letter from an Alabama Prison in 1963: “Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths… so we must see the need for non-violent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism.”
10. He Taught Us to Stand Up For What We Believe
Socrates lived and breathed his philosophies – however much they were scorned, ridiculed, laughed at or feared – and he ultimately died by them. The state swatted its gadfly, by trying him as a “corrupter of youth” and forcing him to commit suicide by poisoning himself.
He could have renounced his beliefs, and made a groveling defence during his trial – but he chose instead to stand tall to the last and accept his punishment, even turning down an opportunity to escape. There was undoubtedly a degree of recklessness and martyrdom to Socrates death, but the lesson it teaches us about standing up for what we believe in to the very end remains powerful and enduring.
Socrates’ criticism of democracy
Socrates’ analysis of the hatred he has incurred is one part of a larger theme that he dwells on throughout his speech. Athens is a democracy, a city in which the many are the dominant power in politics, and it can therefore be expected to have all the vices of the many. Because most people hate to be tested in argument, they will always take action of some sort against those who provoke them with questions. But that is not the only accusation Socrates brings forward against his city and its politics. He tells his democratic audience that he was right to have withdrawn from political life, because a good person who fights for justice in a democracy will be killed. In his cross-examination of Meletus, he insists that only a few people can acquire the knowledge necessary for improving the young of any species, and that the many will inevitably do a poor job. He criticizes the Assembly for its illegal actions and the Athenian courts for the ease with which matters of justice are distorted by emotional pleading. Socrates implies that the very nature of democracy makes it a corrupt political system. Bitter experience has taught him that most people rest content with a superficial understanding of the most urgent human questions. When they are given great power, their shallowness inevitably leads to injustice.
If the majority of the people are too uninformed, lackadaisical, or apathetic to make the democratic process rational and effective, then they just reveal their inherent nature It is not an upper class that keeps the demos unenlightened, but it is the people's own disposition that makes them eschew enlightenment, and thus dependent on some sort of rulers. If people did not naturally have the disposition they display in a dysfunctional democracy, other people would not be able to exploit and mislead them the way they do. (Plato)
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