Socrates Essay, Research Paper

The life of the Greek philosopher Socrates (469-399 BC) marks such a critical

point in Western thought that standard histories divide Greek philosophy into

pre-Socratic and post-Socratic periods. Socrates left no writings of his own,

and his work has inspired almost as many different interpretations as there have

been interpreters. He remains one of the most important and one of the most

enigmatic figures in Western philosophy. As a young man Socrates became

fascinated with the new scientific ideas that Anaxagoras and the latter’s

associate Archelaus had introduced to Athens. He seems for a time to have been

the leader of an Athenian research circle–which would explain why the first

appearance of Socrates in literature is as a villainous, atheistic scientist in

The Clouds of Aristophanes. Young Socrates also knew the Sophists and listened

to their debates and ceremonial orations. Socrates and the Sophists Neither

science nor Sophistry, however, could answer a new philosophic question that

struck him. The earlier Greek thinkers had been concerned almost wholly with

physics and cosmology until the Sophists suggested that what should be done

instead was to teach young men skills to satisfy their natural self-interest.

Instead, Socrates wondered: "What is a ’self’?" Although "Know

Thyself!" was one of three sayings carved on the Temple of Apollo at

Delphi, the directive proved difficult to carry out. The so-called scientific

views of the time, particularly that of atomism, defined the self as a physical

organ that responded to environmental pressure. Socrates felt, however, that the

Sophists, for all their talk of self-interest, had little curiosity about the

status of a self; they assumed that it was merely an isolated center constantly

greedy for more pleasure, prestige, and power. The Sophists further thought that

the values that people advocated were all conventional, varying from one culture

to another, and that no one would ever act against his or her own interest,

regardless of how many people talked as though they would. This complex of ideas

offered little to explain human nature and excellence. Socrates’ Later Life and

Thought Socrates, setting about his search for the self, was convinced of the

importance of his quest. Until educators and teachers knew what human excellence

was, he thought, they were engaging in false pretenses by claiming that they

knew how to improve students or societies. Socrates believed that objective

patterns, or "forms," exist that define human excellence, that these

are neither culturally relative nor subjective, and that philosophic inquiry

could discover them. In the period after Athenian defeat in the Peloponnesian

War, however, the political leaders did not want to be awakened; uncritical

patriotism seemed to them what they and Athens needed. In an attempt to frighten

Socrates away, they threatened to bring him to trial for "impiety and

corrupting the youth of Athens." Socrates stayed and stood trial. In his

Apology, Plato reconstructs his speech to the jury in defense of his beliefs. He

was convicted and executed in 399 BC.