Ancient greece socrates biography and works

In his view, for Socrates, there are two separate meanings of "knowledge": Knowledge-C and Knowledge-E C stands for "certain", and E stands for elenchus , i. Knowledge-C is something unquestionable whereas Knowledge-E is the knowledge derived from Socrates's elenchus. James H. Lesher has argued that Socrates claimed in various dialogues that one word is linked to one meaning i.

There is a widespread assumption that Socrates was an ironist, mostly based on the depiction of Socrates by Plato and Aristotle. The story begins when Socrates is meeting with Euthyphro, a man who has accused his own father of murder. When Socrates first hears the details of the story, he comments, "It is not, I think, any random person who could do this [prosecute one's father] correctly, but surely one who is already far progressed in wisdom".

When Euthyphro boasts about his understanding of divinity, Socrates responds that it is "most important that I become your student". Scholars are divided on why Socrates uses irony. According to an opinion advanced since the Hellenistic period , Socratic irony is a playful way to get the audience's attention. In Vlastos's view, Socrates's words have a double meaning, both ironic and not.

One example is when he denies having knowledge. Vlastos suggests that Socrates is being ironic when he says he has no knowledge where "knowledge" means a lower form of cognition ; while, according to another sense of "knowledge", Socrates is serious when he says he has no knowledge of ethical matters. This opinion is not shared by many other scholars.

For Socrates, the pursuit of eudaimonia motivates all human action, directly or indirectly. Some argue that Socrates thought that virtue and eudaimonia are identical. According to another view, virtue serves as a means to eudaimonia the "identical" and "sufficiency" theses, respectively. Moral intellectualism refers to the prominent role Socrates gave to knowledge.

He believed that all virtue was based on knowledge hence Socrates is characterized as a virtue intellectualist. He also believed that humans were guided by the cognitive power to comprehend what they desire, while diminishing the role of impulses a view termed motivational intellectualism. Most believe that Socrates left no space for irrational desires, although some claim that Socrates acknowledged the existence of irrational motivations, but denied they play a primary role in decision-making.

Socrates's religious nonconformity challenged the views of his times and his critique reshaped religious discourse for the coming centuries. Religion intermingled with the daily life of citizens, who performed their personal religious duties mainly with sacrifices to various gods. Socrates discusses divinity and the soul mostly in Alcibiades , Euthyphro , and Apology.

Instead, he calls for philosophy and the pursuit of knowledge to be the principal way of worshipping the gods. Socrates argued that the gods were inherently wise and just, a perception far from traditional religion at that time. Socrates questions his interlocutor about the relationship between piety and the will of a powerful god: Is something good because it is the will of this god, or is it the will of this god because it is good?

The trajectory of Socratic thought contrasts with traditional Greek theology, which took lex talionis the eye for an eye principle for granted. Socrates thought that goodness is independent from gods, and gods must themselves be pious. Socrates affirms a belief in gods in Plato's Apology , where he says to the jurors that he acknowledges gods more than his accusers.

These signs did not offer him any positive belief on moral issues; rather, they were predictions of unfavorable future events. In Xenophon's Memorabilia , Socrates constructs an argument close to the contemporary teleological intelligent-design argument. He claims that since there are many features in the universe that exhibit "signs of forethought" e.

Ancient greece socrates biography and works

This has been interpreted to mean that he either believed that a supreme deity commanded other gods, or that various gods were parts, or manifestations, of this single deity. The relationship of Socrates's religious beliefs with his strict adherence to rationalism has been subject to debate. Long suggests that it is anachronistic to suppose that Socrates believed the religious and rational realms were separate.

In several texts e. Socrates gave a brief description of this daimonion at his trial Apology 31c—d : " The reason for this is something you have heard me frequently mention in different places—namely, the fact that I experience something divine and daimonic, as Meletus has inscribed in his indictment, by way of mockery. It started in my childhood, the occurrence of a particular voice.

Whenever it occurs, it always deters me from the course of action I was intending to engage in, but it never gives me positive advice. It is this that has opposed my practicing politics, and I think its doing so has been absolutely fine. Socrates's theory of virtue states that all virtues are essentially one, since they are a form of knowledge.

Since knowledge is united, virtues are united as well. Another famous dictum—"no one errs willingly"—also derives from this theory. Socrates the elder thought that the end of life was knowledge of virtue, and he used to seek for the definition of justice, courage, and each of the parts of virtue, and this was a reasonable approach, since he thought that all virtues were sciences, and that as soon as one knew [for example] justice, he would be just Some texts suggest that Socrates had love affairs with Alcibiades and other young persons; others suggest that Socrates's friendship with young boys sought only to improve them and were not sexual.

In Gorgias , Socrates claims he was a dual lover of Alcibiades and philosophy, and his flirtatiousness is evident in Protagoras , Meno 76a—c and Phaedrus c—d. However, the exact nature of his relationship with Alcibiades is not clear; Socrates was known for his self-restraint, while Alcibiades admits in the Symposium that he had tried to seduce Socrates but failed.

The Socratic theory of love is mostly deduced from Lysis , where Socrates discusses love [ ] at a wrestling school in the company of Lysis and his friends. They start their dialogue by investigating parental love and how it manifests with respect to the freedom and boundaries that parents set for their children. Socrates concludes that if Lysis is utterly useless, nobody will love him—not even his parents.

While most scholars believe this text was intended to be humorous, it has also been suggested that Lysis shows Socrates held an egoistic view of love, according to which we only love people who are useful to us in some way. Socrates, who claims to know only that he does not know, makes an exception in Plato's Symposium , where he says he will tell the truth about Love, which he learned from a 'clever woman'.

Classicist Armand D'Angour has made the case that Socrates was in his youth close to Aspasia , and that Diotima , to whom Socrates attributes his understanding of love in Symposium , is based on her; [ ] however, it is also possible that Diotima really existed. While Socrates was involved in public political and cultural debates, it is hard to define his exact political philosophy.

In Plato's Gorgias , he tells Callicles : "I believe that I'm one of a few Athenians—so as not to say I'm the only one, but the only one among our contemporaries—to take up the true political craft and practice the true politics. This is because the speeches I make on each occasion do not aim at gratification but at what's best. He obeyed the rules and carried out his military duty by fighting wars abroad.

His dialogues, however, make little mention of contemporary political decisions, such as the Sicilian Expedition. Socrates spent his time conversing with citizens, among them powerful members of Athenian society, scrutinizing their beliefs and bringing the contradictions of their ideas to light. Socrates believed he was doing them a favor since, for him, politics was about shaping the moral landscape of the city through philosophy rather than electoral procedures.

While there is no clear textual evidence, one widely held theory holds that Socrates leaned towards democracy: he disobeyed the one order that the oligarchic government of the Thirty Tyrants gave him; he respected the laws and political system of Athens which were formulated by democrats ; and, according to this argument, his affinity for the ideals of democratic Athens was a reason why he did not want to escape prison and the death penalty.

On the other hand, there is some evidence that Socrates leaned towards oligarchy: most of his friends supported oligarchy, he was contemptuous of the opinion of the many and was critical of the democratic process, and Protagoras shows some anti-democratic elements. Yet another suggestion is that Socrates endorsed views in line with liberalism , a political ideology formed in the Age of Enlightenment.

This argument is mostly based on Crito and Apology , where Socrates talks about the mutually beneficial relationship between the city and its citizens. According to Socrates, citizens are morally autonomous and free to leave the city if they wish—but, by staying within the city, they also accept the laws and the city's authority over them.

Socrates's strong objection to injustice, along with his refusal to serve the Thirty Tyrants' order to arrest Leon, are suggestive of this line. As he says in Critias , "One ought never act unjustly, even to repay a wrong that has been done to oneself. Socrates's impact was immense in philosophy after his death. With the exception of the Epicureans and the Pyrrhonists , almost all philosophical currents after Socrates traced their roots to him: Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum, the Cynics, and the Stoics.

Immediate followers of Socrates were his pupils, Euclid of Megara , Aristippus , and Antisthenes , who drew differing conclusions among themselves and followed independent trajectories. According to him, virtue was all that mattered. Diogenes and the Cynics continued this line of thought. After leaving Athens and returning to his home city of Cyrene , he founded the Cyrenaic philosophical school which was based on hedonism , and endorsing living an easy life with physical pleasures.

His school passed to his grandson, bearing the same name. There is a dialogue in Xenophon's work in which Aristippus claims he wants to live without wishing to rule or be ruled by others. This view resonates with the Socratic understanding of ignorance. After Socrates's trial and death, he left Athens for the nearby town of Megara , where he founded a school, named the Megarians.

His theory was built on the pre-Socratic monism of Parmenides. Euclid continued Socrates's thought, focusing on the nature of virtue. The Stoics relied heavily on Socrates. Their moral doctrines focused on how to live a smooth life through wisdom and virtue. The Stoics assigned virtue a crucial role in attaining happiness and also prioritized the relation between goodness and ethical excellence, all of which echoed Socratic thought.

Arcesilaus , who became the head of the Academy about 80 years after its founding by Plato, radically changed the Academy's doctrine to what is now known as Academic Skepticism , centered on the Socratic philosophy of ignorance. The Academic Skeptics competed with the Stoics over who was Socrates's true heir with regard to ethics. The Stoics' reply to Arcesilaus was that Socratic ignorance was part of Socratic irony they themselves disapproved the use of irony , an argument that ultimately became the dominant narrative of Socrates in later antiquity.

While Aristotle considered Socrates an important philosopher, Socrates was not a central figure in Aristotelian thought. One of Aristotle's pupils, Aristoxenus even authored a book detailing Socrates's scandals. The Epicureans were antagonistic to Socrates. The Pyrrhonists were also antagonistic to Socrates, accusing him of being a prater about ethics, who engaged in mock humility, and who sneered at and mocked people.

Socratic thought found its way to the Islamic Middle East alongside that of Aristotle and the Stoics. For Muslim scholars, Socrates was hailed and admired for combining his ethics with his lifestyle, perhaps because of the resemblance in this regard with Muhammad 's personality. In medieval times, little of Socrates's thought survived in the Christian world as a whole; however, works on Socrates from Christian scholars such as Lactantius , Eusebius and Augustine were maintained in the Byzantine Empire , where Socrates was studied under a Christian lens.

Overall, ancient Socratic philosophy, like the rest of classical literature before the Renaissance , was addressed with skepticism in the Christian world at first. During the early Italian Renaissance , two different narratives of Socrates developed. Leonardo Bruni translated many of Plato's Socratic dialogues, while his pupil Giannozzo Manetti authored a well-circulated book, a Life of Socrates.

They both presented a civic version of Socrates, according to which Socrates was a humanist and a supporter of republicanism. Socrates was known for his fortitude in battle and his fearlessness, a trait that stayed with him throughout his life. After his trial, he compared his refusal to retreat from his legal troubles to a soldier's refusal to retreat from battle when threatened with death.

Plato's Symposium provides the best details of Socrates' physical appearance. He was not the ideal of Athenian masculinity. Short and stocky, with a snub nose and bulging eyes, Socrates always seemed to appear to be staring. However, Plato pointed out that in the eyes of his students, Socrates possessed a different kind of attractiveness, not based on a physical ideal but on his brilliant debates and penetrating thought.

Socrates always emphasized the importance of the mind over the relative unimportance of the human body. Socrates believed that philosophy should achieve practical results for the greater well-being of society. He attempted to establish an ethical system based on human reason rather than theological doctrine. Socrates pointed out that human choice was motivated by the desire for happiness.

Ultimate wisdom comes from knowing oneself. The more a person knows, the greater his or her ability to reason and make choices that will bring true happiness. Socrates believed that this translated into politics with the best form of government being neither a tyranny nor a democracy. Instead, government worked best when ruled by individuals who had the greatest ability, knowledge and virtue, and possessed a complete understanding of themselves.

For Socrates, Athens was a classroom and he went about asking questions of the elite and common man alike, seeking to arrive at political and ethical truths. In fact, he claimed to be ignorant because he had no ideas, but wise because he recognized his own ignorance. He asked questions of his fellow Athenians in a dialectic method — the Socratic Method — which compelled the audience to think through a problem to a logical conclusion.

He seemed to think otherwise: people only did wrong when at the moment the perceived benefits seemed to outweigh the costs. Socrates was also deeply interested in understanding the limits of human knowledge. When he was told that the Oracle at Delphi had declared that he was the wisest man in Athens, Socrates balked until he realized that, although he knew nothing, he was unlike his fellow citizens keenly aware of his own ignorance.

Socrates avoided political involvement where he could and counted friends on all sides of the fierce power struggles following the end of the Peloponnesian War. In B. Three years later, when a tyrannical Athenian government ordered Socrates to participate in the arrest and execution of Leon of Salamis, he refused—an act of civil disobedience that Martin Luther King Jr.

The tyrants were forced from power before they could punish Socrates, but in he was indicted for failing to honor the Athenian gods and for corrupting the young. Although some historians suggest that there may have been political machinations behind the trial, he was condemned on the basis of his thought and teaching. Born in circa B. Socrates father was an Athenian stonemason and sculptor.

He clearly did not come from a noble family. Socrates too, worked as a mason for many years before he devoted his life to philosophy. Considering his poverty as evidence, it is said that both Socrates and Plato did not accept payments for teaching. He married a way younger woman, Xanthippe, with whom he had three sons with, namely, Lamprocles, Spheniscus and Menexenus.

Least considerate about his sons, Socrates has expressed his interests in the development of intellects of young boys of Athens.