Socrates (470-400 BCE) is a very famous yet controversial and obscure figure. Like many great thinkers of the ancient world, he did not write his own thoughts down but taught others and it was Plato (430-350 BCE) and another philosopher and historian named Xenophon who wrote about Socrates and his teachings after his death. The third source of ancient Athenian literature that speaks about Socrates is Aristophanes who wrote plays mocking Socrates and portraying him as an idealistic fool. It was believed and still is by many that Plato and Xenophon were Socrates’ students, but new scholarship has shown that this may well not have been the case. Plato was a playwright who wrote several unpopular plays before writing the dialogues between Socrates and his students that became celebrated as some of the first and central works of ancient Greek philosophy. While Plato never appears in his plays himself, he does put his own family members in roles. He has characters mention him as a young devoted follower of Socrates, but in one place it is said that Plato was sick which explains why he could not be with Socrates before his court ordered death by drinking hemlock.
As already mentioned last week before covering Heraclitus, it is often said that Plato’s dialogues such as the Republic are some of the first works of philosophy and ‘Western’ European thought, but really Plato and his student Aristotle were revered by Muslims and Christians alike and their texts survive because they were important to the Abrahamic religions, not because they started a new way of European thinking. Modern European philosophy is quite diverse in its opinions, and Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, the three celebrated Athenian thinkers, did not identify with Northern Europeans and did not believe that they were the first to be concerned with wisdom and the world. Before the rediscovery of the “presocratics” (like Thales and Heraclitus) they were even considered to be the birth of philosophy in ancient Greece by many, even though this proved also to be untrue.
It is generally accepted by scholars today that Plato’s early dialogues are one of the best sources for understanding Socrates and his ideas, but in Plato’s later dialogues Socrates is a mouthpiece for Plato’s own ideas. We will consider Socrates and his thought first, then turn to two of Plato’s most important later dialogues, the Republic and the Timaeus, to study Plato’s thought. Socrates and Plato were both influenced by Heraclitus (our subject last week), and while Socrates seemed to have been quite similar to Heraclitus, Plato’s thought changed and he began putting quite different views into Socrates’ mouth.
Consider two polar opposite views one can have of reality and the world. In the first view, everything changes constantly and all permanence is an illusion. In the second opposite view, everything remains the same and change is the illusion. Both of these views, in fact, can be found in Indian thought, particularly in Buddhism. As we saw last week, Heraclitus was a famous champion of the first view. He argued that only Being, the One and All, the cosmic fire or energy, is eternal and all other beings are temporary in spite of what our judgments tell us. Another presocratic thinker named Parmenides (who lived sometime before 500 BCE) argued for the second and opposite view. He argued that there is one unchanging reality that is eternal and all change and temporary beings are the illusion in spite of what our judgments tell us. This would mean, similar to some scientific theories today, that there is only one moment of time and it is our position and perspective within that moment that changes.
Socrates and Plato were both influenced by Heraclitus, but in his later dialogues Plato has Socrates argue for views that sound much more like Parmenides. Originally, Socrates questioned everyone to show that we know very little and it is the job of the philosopher to show this to people. He would argue with others, including famous thinkers and sages, who believed that they possessed certain truth and point out the contradictions in their reasoning. This is much like Heraclitus telling us to beware of experts and being seduced into thinking that one school of thought or perspective is simply correct but instead continue to investigate the self and world as both have no limit to their depth or the things we can learn. It is also very similar to Pyrrho and his skeptical school of thought, as well as Buddhist logic and debate, particularly Nagarjuna, one of the most famous Buddhist teachers and the central Buddhist logician.
While according to Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes Socrates did not put forward views of his own but rather attacked others to show that human beliefs are imperfect and incomplete, in Plato’s later dialogues Socrates argues that there is one unchanging reality above the temporary perceivable world and it is the job of the philosopher to seek and understand this eternal reality. Plato uses Socrates to teach his own increasingly Parmenidean view that there are unchanging and eternal forms of things in the heavens and only the educated and the persistent come to see and understand these forms.
Socrates and his Method of Questioning
We know very little about Socrates’ early life other than the details supplied in Plato’s works. He mentions several influences, including two women. He says that the witch/shaman Diotima taught him about love and how it is central to life and the cosmos. Like Buddha we studied last week and Confucius we will study next week, Socrates identified love with wisdom and objectivity. There is an interesting dynamic in human thought about whether learning and acquiring knowledge make one passionate or dispassionate, whether science for example fills our hearts with awe or stills them. The word ‘philosophy’ is often translated ‘love of wisdom’, but in fact ‘wisdom love’ could refer either to the loving of wisdom or wisdom that is also love.
Socrates also gives credit to Aspasia, the mistress of the general Pericles, who he says taught him rhetoric. If true, this shows that Socrates was not a common person but just like almost everyone in Plato’s dialogues an aristocrat who knew politicians and the wealthy. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle lived at a time when the glory days of Athens were in decline. Eventually, Alexander (Aristotle’s student) would conquer the city and the surrounding city-states. Socrates was a critic of Athenian society, called “the horsefly” because he believed in stinging Athens into action, and he was eventually condemned to commit suicide for corrupting the youth of the city after there was a riot.
Socrates’ career as a philosopher began when his friend Chaerephon went to the oracle of Delphi to ask if anyone was wiser than his friend Socrates. Socrates, with characteristic modesty, protests that this was a very crass question to ask of the great oracle. Notice that Socrates does believe in the oracle and in the gods. His last wish, the last thing he said before he died, was that a rooster should be sacrificed to Asclepius, the ancient Greek god of healing and mystical insight who is associated with Thoth the Egyptian god of knowledge and insight. Socrates loved irony, and it seems that he viewed his death as being cured of life and its limitations.
Religious people, including Christians and Muslims for centuries, often view Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as making way for solar monotheism already popular in Egypt and Persia in their time and seeing the gods as many human shaped anthropomorphisms of what is rather one and without and above human form. Non-religious people often view the three Athenians as moving away from religion and toward atheism and questioning traditional understandings. Interestingly, traditional polytheists in Athens in their time said the same thing and called them atheists as well, along with other increasingly monotheistic thinkers such as Heraclitus who are likely being influenced by the latest developments of Egyptian and Persian thought. It seems that if you want thinking to evolve towards your own thought, you could view it either way.
The oracle replied to Chaerephon that no one was wiser than Socrates. Upon hearing this, Socrates says, with either genuine or false modesty, he was very troubled by this because he did not believe that he was very wise at all and this would mean that humanity is quite ignorant overall. He decided that he needed to determine if what the oracle said was in fact true, and so he began to wander and debate others, seeking someone wiser than himself.
Socrates felt that he knew nothing, but as he questioned the experts of Athens he came upon a horrible discovery and paradox. The experts believed themselves to be wise and possess great knowledge, but when questioned it turned out they knew very little. Socrates knew that he himself knew nothing. Therefore, Socrates says he discovered that he was wiser than the experts because he knew that he knew nothing, while the experts knew nothing but thought that they knew a great deal. Humble and modest Socrates was aware that mortal humans know nothing, but the politicians, artists and warriors were unaware of this great equality they shared with Socrates. The ignorance of Socrates was thus the greatest wisdom in all of Athens. It is certainly true that the more one knows, the more one knows there is an endless amount to know and that we are all quite equal in knowing very little even when we know a great deal. There is another paradox here: the more one surpasses others in wisdom, becoming different, one identifies with them more, seeing the similarity.
Notice the similarity between Socrates and Heraclitus, who argued that the experts believe themselves to know a great deal but do not understand that their knowledge and perspectives are mortal and we are all mere apes to the gods. Socrates argued, like Heraclitus, that the greatest wisdom is found in questioning oneself and others. Remember that great city-states and empires had risen and fallen along with increasingly specialized experts. Philosophy questions experts and the basis of our knowledge, which humans find useful particularly in times of crisis when hard questions must be asked.
Socrates argued that one should accept one’s own ignorance and the guidance of the world through intuition. He believed that he had a spirit, a ‘daemon’ in the Greek, a word which became “demon” as Christianity replaced the polytheism and spirits with monotheism and angels. This spirit was much like what we would call a conscience, a word which means “co-seeing” or seeing along with, an intuition that one should or should not do a particular thing, something Christians identified with angels sitting on shoulders just as ancient Greeks did with spirits.
Socrates says that his daemon told him to stay out of politics. Good advice, seeing as how his death was quite political. Not only did politics get Socrates killed in spite of this, but Plato has Socrates get increasingly political in his later dialogues, particularly in the Republic where Socrates debates the best form of the city. This is another piece of evidence that Plato may not have known Socrates and is using him as a mouthpiece for his own ideas. Socrates also praised the divinity of poetry, mysticism, love and getting drunk with friends as he does at the Symposium, a dialogue about a drinking party that turns into a philosophical discussion about the nature of love.
Plato & his Dialogues
Plato was long assumed to be a student of Socrates simply because Plato writes as much in many of his dialogues and he is the best source on him, though if he turns him into a mere mouthpiece for very different ideas in the later dialogues he may also be the worst. As Socrates is about to die, Plato has Socrates ask where the young Plato is, to which another student replies that Plato was sick and thus could not be there at the time. Scholars now are critical of this, and think that Plato had a habit of writing himself and his family into Socrates’ circle in his dialogues. Because they are our best sources on Socrates, it is difficult to tell whether or not Plato’s older cousin Critias or Plato himself were actual students of Socrates or whether they were simply influenced by this figure who became quite famous following his trial and death.
Plato’s actual name was Aristocles, but according to the story his wrestling instructor named him Platon or ‘Broad’ because he had a wide figure and wrestling stance. This may be merely a story, because Plato was known to have a wide and thus ‘broad’ breadth of knowledge covering all subjects of ancient thought and might have acquired the nickname in this way. Plato’s father died when he was young, and his stepfather became the Athenian ambassador to the Persian royal court. Remember that Persia was a great source of ancient world cosmology at the time, and Zoroastrianism, Persia’s solar monotheism, would be a major influence on the Abrahamic religions just as Plato himself would.
Long after his attempts to become an established playwright, after his dialogues about Socrates had gathered some fame, Plato founded his Academy in 385 BCE, an open area near a sacred tree grove where he, his students and other lecturers would teach and debate matters of philosophy and cosmology. Academy in fact means ‘porch’ or ‘step’, an open area in front of a building, a fact it took scholars long to understand for they believed that the Academy must have been a building itself. Scholars made a similar error looking for the famed Library of Alexandria (an Egyptian center of ancient world cosmology, Platonism and Christianity), when in fact the library was a shelf that ran along a hall that connected two buildings, just as one would say a collection of books is a personal library. Plato writes in the Timaeus, his book on the cosmology of the world, that ancient Egypt was the birthplace of philosophy and science, which again he would have understood to be the same thing acquired through knowledge of the self and the cosmos.
To examine Plato’s thought in its later and mature form we will look at his two most influential dialogues which both come from his later period and are certainly to be read together. It is sad that the dialogue of the Timaeus is supposed to happen on the day after the dialogue of the Republic, and the Republic covers the proper order of the self and city while the Timaeus covers the cosmos and how it also works in the same way that the self and city should if ordered properly and justly, but it is difficult to find the Timaeus in print while every Intro Philosophy course covers the Republic. I made sure to give you both texts in your reader. It is much easier to believe that Plato and Aristotle invented secular scientific reasoning when you do not read the cosmology of the Timaeus. For Muslims and Christians, the Timaeus was understandably Plato’s most important work and Aristotle would be making modifications to this picture, that the world is a living being and vegetation is the body hair of the world. On campuses today, however, students read sections of the Republic that speak of the self and city and are often told that this is the birth of speaking abstractly about subject matters this way. Plato and Aristotle had much greater reverence for Egypt and Persia to believe such a thing.
In these two late dialogues, believed to have been written about 360 BCE, Socrates was no longer sharing much of the conversation with other debaters, but dominates the texts with monologues that are now Plato’s own Parmenides-like views of the unchanging form that is the hidden source of the temporary. Plato believed that Heraclitus was right about the world below, but Parmenides was right about the eternal world above, the unchanging model, form, order and cause of the ever-changing world below. Plato has Socrates argue that those who think they know the world below have mere opinions, but the one who knows the world above, the true eternal pattern of reality, has true knowledge. In this way, wisdom for Plato was not simply knowing that one knows little to nothing, but rather is acquired through the gathering of knowledge of the world and its patterns.
The Republic
In Plato’s Republic, Socrates debates with others on justice and the Good. Socrates debunks several common views, then constructs an ideal model of the city. The well ordered city is compared to the well ordered soul, three faculties that must be kept in their places. Thus, the Good is the proper order of the elements perfectly in accord with ancient cosmology. Just as the individual is a microcosm to the city, the city is a microcosm to the cosmos, and again the elements must be separated and put in their places with the highest element on top and the lowest beneath. The cosmos is ordered in its unfolding, producing the ideal order of the soul and the city.
Socrates talks to several “interlocutors” and argues against their concepts of justice.
This is Socrates acting like the original Socrates. Polemarchus argues that justice is paying debts, helping friends and harming enemies. Socrates argues that in some situations, helping friends and harming enemies are wrong. Thrasymachus argues that justice is ‘the good of the stronger’. Glaucon similarly argues that without threat of punishment, no one would do good. Socrates argues that the strong will corrupt themselves if they only act for their own interests and not for the good of the whole. Remember the politics of the time, and that many tyrants and forms of rule came and fell, had some success but also great failure. This is the substance of Book 1.
Starting with Book 2, Socrates now turns into Plato. He says to those who remain and do not leave upset that he did not feel he had convincingly refuted these other views, and that perhaps they should continue to debate to figure out what justice actually is. This is the turn from Socratic questioning to Platonic forms and separate structures that should have ideal forms. Unfortunately, everyone who is critical of Socrates has left the party, and the two who stay are mindless yes men who agree enthusiastically to everything Socrates says and praises it as the most certain and good wisdom they have ever heard.
Plato, as Socrates, argues for an eternal form of the Good over the world of many temporary beings and desires. Socrates is challenged to give a positive account of justice, not just defeat opponents as Thrasymachus accuses him of doing before leaving similar to Hindu debaters accusing Jains and Buddhists of tearing down other positions rather than arguing for a consistent truth. Socrates argues that first they must construct the ideal or just city, and this will show how the ideal or just individual should be. Essentially, the just city is a threefold caste system, identical in many ways to the Hindu caste system of India. There are many similarities between metaphors and teachings of the Republic and Indian thought. While originally I believed that this was due to an Indian influence on ancient Greece, it is likelier that the cosmology and thought of Egypt and Persia, the interconnectedness of ancient cultures and the similarity of ancient cosmology are responsible.
This threefold division corresponds to the physical human being and the cosmic being. The head is fire as an element, reason, thought and consciousness in the individual, and the ruling philosopher kings in the city. The heart or chest is air as an element, spirit, breath and courage in the individual, and the police or guardians in the city. The hands and stomach is earth as an element, desire, craving and thirst in the individual, and workers, farmers and craftspeople in the city. The individual, city and cosmos form a continuum, a set of Russian dolls. Notice that authority and the good come from above, evil and chaos to be ordered from below.
Plato and Aristotle were not fans of democracy. Not only were they aristocrats and connected to royal courts like the educated often were in ancient Athens, Socrates was condemned to death by the Athenian assembly thinking and questioning too much. Unlike how it is often taught today with sections of the Republic, Plato and Aristotle thought much higher of the royal dynasties of Egypt and Persia than they did of the brief period of Athenian democracy. Like other educated Athenians, they revered King Darius of Persia, particularly because he gave Athenian nobles much freedom and rights.
All is sacrificed for the common good. There is to be no private property or partners or children, for any of the three classes. Socrates argues that the ruler who grabs for themselves will not be happy, filled with “horrid pains and pangs”, and will physically and mentally fall apart. This tyrant will never “taste true freedom or friendship”. Because this is not the order of the cosmos, it will not stick and will fall apart just like many tyrants have recently in ancient Athens. Similarly, if everyone shares everything in common, there will be greater justice and less selfishness.
The Soviet Union and America funded scholarship during the cold war that argued each was more like Athens than the other. The Soviet Union pointed out that they were much more like the Republic than America, a democracy fueled by individual consumption and private property. America pointed out that Aristotle was critical of Plato and argued there should be a balance of public and private property and Plato’s ideal city was impossible in the real world, while using the language of ‘West’ and ‘East’ to separate Russia from the ‘true’ Western tradition. I myself would like more of a balance today between the public and private, but to many this is very socialist and thus un-Western, like Soviet Russia.
Socrates argues that each person is best suited to one thing, and should be assigned this one job. If people do more than one job, they will not be able to do this one job as best as they can. He argues that we will lie to the people, tell them the ‘noble lie’ of a Phoenician story, that people were born from the earth and there are three races of people because the metals of gold, silver and bronze flow in their veins. While people will raise all children in common, they will be tested from early ages to see whether they can be athletic and educated. Those who cannot be athletic will be workers. Those who can be athletic but can’t study will be police. Those who are both athletic and educated are the philosophers, educators and rulers.
Why tell the lie, if we are striving for ideal good and justice? Because the common will not understand and grab for themselves, very much Plato’s opinion of the brief period of Athenian democracy when the rich each grabbed for themselves in the absence of a powerful and just king. Plato’s cave, which we will discuss, reinforces this point. If you tell the truth to everyone, they will not believe you and try to destroy you as they did Socrates.
Socrates argues and the interlocutors naively agree without much of a fight that if they separate out the police and train them as best as can be, and then take the philosophers out of the police and educate them as best as can be, no injustice will be possible. There is the simple belief that the order itself will generate justice throughout the whole. The police and philosophers will thus never be greedy or unjust to the people below. Plato elsewhere argues that this is how the Egyptians in Thebes did it, by elevating priests as a class. He also says to imitate Sparta as well separating out the warriors.
In the same way, if you put your desires and appetites in check with your feelings, and your feelings in check with your reason, you will be a well ordered soul or individual. The appetites crave, the spirit is passionate, and the mind is reasonable. These are their jobs, the single thing they do the best, their purpose. Socrates argues that sometimes we are very thirsty, but if we know the drink is poisoned our reason puts our desire in check. Other times we may want honor but realize that it is not the smart thing to do, putting our spirit and emotions in check by our reason. This is interesting, for in the Apology Socrates argues not only that he should not be condemned to death but given free food and drink for life because he is helping Athens out, but then when this angers the assembly (as one could have reasoned), Socrates argues with his students that he must drink the poison and not escape by bribing the guards because it is the right thing to follow the law even when the law is unjust. Plato also suggests banning all art (music, poetry and theatre) that is counterproductive, which pretty much means everything that isn’t impressing the highest good and order.
The youth are to be taught that they must improve themselves for the good of the state, and that the gods never to injustice or desire. Remember that Heraclitus also thought it foolish to believe that the gods had the same problems and flaws as humans.
The Allegory of the Cave
After being questioned about lying for the purpose of the good and justice, Socrates says that this is best explained with an analogy. He describes the masses and the assent of the philosopher beyond opinion of the earthly realm to knowledge of the heavenly and eternal realm, showing why the philosopher alone should have authority. It also illustrates Plato’s placing of Parmenides above Heraclitus, the eternal and heavenly above the mortal and earthly.
Imagine that everyone is chained in a dark cave, watching shadows of puppets carried before a fire at the mouth of the cave. The people think that the shadows are reality, the real things. The one who escapes, breaking the bondage of appetites and earthly things much like Jainism and Buddhism teach, first sees that the shadows are shadows of puppets, and sees the fire that casts the shadows. This draws the seeker to the mouth of the cave. Coming out of the cave and past the small fire, the seeker is at first blinded by the sunlight, but then sees real things outside of the cave and realizes that the puppets were just poor copies of the real things casting shadows that were shaped like real things. The seeker now has knowledge and wisdom, not mere earthly opinion and belief.
The Timaeus
The Timaeus, the work of Plato which he as well as Christians and Muslims believed to the most important, is not in spell check when typed today. Aristotle refers to it more than any other text of Plato’s, and it was the most important book for philosophers and scientists of the Italian Renaissance, one of the only works of Plato that Christian Europeans kept until they got other works of Plato and Aristotle from Muslims. It is, again, sad that we have largely forgotten it while remembering to praise the ancient Greeks and Renaissance Italians for being the great sources of European culture and study. It is very clear after reading the text why both religious and non-religious people ignore the text, because both have forgotten what used to be central religious and scientific beliefs in the European tradition.
Socrates the day after the party where the ideal Republic is discussed says that he would like to talk more about the ideal state and how it corresponds to the cosmos. Then, Critas tells the story of Solon going to Egypt and that the Egyptians told him of the story of Atlantis. This is, indeed, where the story of Atlantis comes from and it is not found earlier in Egypt as Critas says. The Egyptian Priest tells Solon that the Athenians do not remember because they have just become educated and civilized, but the Egyptians know from their history records that thousands of years ago the Athenians stopped the people of Atlantis, who were threatening to take over the world. We now know that Egypt was not as many thousands of years old as Plato believed, but this does show Plato believed that they were civilized long before Athens. The story, which is now believed to have been an invention by Plato or a story told to him that he believed, is very similar to the Battle of Marathon, and the Athenians and Spartans repelling the Persians.
Timaeus now speaks of the creation of the cosmos out of the One, showing the order already described of the elements and how the individual human was created as a microcosm of the macrocosm. This implies that you put your faculties of desire, spirit and reason in their proper order to be good and healthy, which is the order of the cosmos. The One sprouts the eternal order or model of things, which includes all eternal models or archetypes of things, and the demiurge, the sky father being that is the small fire at the mouth of the cave, then produces copies of the models in the ever changing world of earth below. The whole is a living creature, with the heavens as soul and the all as reason. Timaeus, as Plato, says that human beings are a plant with their roots in the heavens. The demiurge fashions reason in soul, and soul in body in individuals. The demiurge then moves everything in a circle, bringing about the life and death in circles of earth beings from planetary orbits and starlight.
This is all done by sameness and difference. Sameness has the higher and encompassing role, difference being proportional downward. The four elements have certain shapes, which are then glued together by the fifth element, quintessence or ether. This is the cosmology of Christianity and Europe well through the middle ages, up to Newton and Leibniz, who read Islamic scholar’s commentaries on the Timaeus. The Medieval Christians had to retranslate Plato, with central interest in the cosmology of the Timaeus, from Arabic into Latin.
