Julie McKinsey
Honors Paper 2
Plato’s Portrayal of Socrates
Socrates, a man recognized by many as the ‘Father of Western Philosophy,’ was a philosopher whose method succeeded depending upon the specific interlocutor. He did not conform to a specific philosophy, but rather created his own which combined some of the ideas of those who came before him and his idea of multiple unities within the cosmos. Socrates drew inspiration from the myth-makers, the physicoi, and the sophists. Socrates’ philosophy, however, only worked for those who felt the same way about unity and multiplicity. First, I will analyze the myth-makers’ belief that the Earth came from a single source of the divine, and Socrates’ belief of one divine entity. Then, I will discuss the physicoi and their beliefs of the origins of the cosmos and how it contradicts Socrates’ belief of multiple unities. I will also analyze the differences between the sophists’ and Socrates’ opinions on education. Finally, I will discuss how Socrates’ philosophy only worked for those who accepted it and desired to search for the absolute truth.
The myth-makers Hesiod and Homer created origin stories of the cosmos and of the gods. Hesiod and Homer were both very passive in their descriptions of the gods and the origin of the cosmos (Hyland 44). The cosmos, they said, were an act of the gods, the gods being a unity of multiple beings. Socrates, on the other hand, rejected the many Greek gods but did believe in one divine being that is more than we can comprehend. In The Republic, Socrates stated that we cannot say that God caused anything bad. He also said that Homer and Hesiod provided false representations of the gods and their works should be censored (Plato 377d). Homer and Hesiod believed not only in multiple gods but also that they were capable of both good and evil, and Socrates believed only in one purely good God. This relates to unity and multiplicity because the myth-makers believed in multiple gods who could do multiple things, whereas Socrates believed in one god who could do one thing only – good.
The physicoi concerned themselves with the origin of the cosmos, more specifically, the Milesians developed hypotheses for the origin of the cosmos through physical elements. First, I will discuss Thales’ belief of the origins of the cosmos. Thales believed that everything “is either water in one form or another or that everything comes from water” (Hyland 10). It is possible that he got this idea from the fact that without water, life could not exist, or the belief that the earth rests on water. This statement is Thales’ logos, he used his senses to discern what he thought was the form of the earth. Thales believed that water was that which everything on the earth has in common. In Tragic Age of the Greeks, Nietzsche says that Thales’ idea that “all things are one” is what made him the first Greek philosopher (Nietzsche 39). Thales was able to unify the multiplicity of the earth, going beyond religion and science, and into the new world of philosophy. This idea was mythical, but since water is physical in nature, it made the cosmos easier to comprehend.
The main difference between Socrates and Thales is that Thales believed that all things were one, but Socrates believed that all things were made of many ‘ones.’ Although Thales and Socrates disagree in that one can create the whole, Socrates did adopt his method of thinking in unities. Socrates also devoted himself to finding the form of the cosmos, which is just what Thales tried to do.
Anaximander was the second of the Milesians, and he was taught by Thales. Anaximander agreed with Thales in that there was a single thing that created everything, but he believed this thing was the indefinite. He believed that the form of the cosmos was not an element “but some other nature which is indefinite, out of which come to be all the heavens and the worlds in them” (Simplicius 12B1+A9). In a way, Anaximander contradicted himself with his belief of form. He said that the unity of cosmos lies within the indefinite, but the indefinite is undefined so calling it a form is of no help in understanding the nature of the universe’s unification.
Socrates is similar to Anaximander because he searches for an abstract form of the cosmos, however, Socrates would say that the form of the cosmos should be something that is able to be defined. Again, Socrates believed that there were multiple unities that were the form of the universe and Anaximander only believed in the one indefinite. This belief of Socrates’ directly contradicts those of the Milesians who believed that the universe came from one single thing.
Heraclitus was another philosopher under the category of the physicoi who believed that “there was a single divine law of the universe…logos, which rules and guides the cosmos” (Hyland 29). Heraclitus differed from the Milesians in that his ‘single stuff’ which created the cosmos was not physical in nature but was conceptual. Socrates would agree with Heraclitus because the logos is the single thing that guides the division of multiplicity into separate unities, and Socrates was devoted in his search to understanding logos. He did not spend his time trying to understand that which is physical in nature but wanted to understand things beyond the heavens. Another philosopher similar to Heraclitus was Parmenides who believed that “Such, unchanging, is that for which as a whole the name is ‘to be’” (Plato 180e). Parmenides believed that the unchanging was that which was at the time, and that this was the form of the universe. He is similar to Heraclitus, and therefore Socrates, because both logos and being are unchanging abstract concepts.
The sophists, teachers of philosophy and rhetoric, had very different opinions and beliefs than Socrates did. Sophists preached that an education in rhetoric was imperative and that it was the key to success in the polis. Socrates, on the other hand, believed that education should be for the betterment of the person and of the soul. Although Socrates and the sophists both valued education, their methods of teaching and purposes for receiving an education were very different. Plato’s writings compare Socrates, a true lover of wisdom, with the sophists, who were “mere expert technician[s] who please crowds rather than search seriously for the truth” (Hyland 145). The sophists drew broad generalizations from popular opinions and proposed fallacious arguments while Socrates used deductive reasoning and logic in his propositions. In a sophist education, the goal was not to learn the absolute truth, but to improve one’s status in the polis, for those with an education received more power. A Socratic education focused instead on the search for absolute truth and improving the soul of the student.
Sophist and Socratic educations relate to unity and multiplicity because the sophists created their ‘truth’ based upon what the masses believed whereas Socrates was searching for the absolute truth, proven by accounts, and prepared his students to do the same. It is said that sophist wisdom was greater than human, and that Socrates’ wisdom was properly human because it dealt with definitions (class notes). I disagree with this notion that Socrates’ wisdom was only properly human. While it is true that his wisdom did fit this description, it was also more than properly human because the definitions after which he sought were of the overall form that connects the cosmos, and the cosmos are greater than human. Socrates was in search of the answers to that which we could not put into words, to that which we could not see. A sophist education was related to mainly rhetoric, to words and fallacies that are visible, whereas Socrates taught how to search for abstracts, such as virtue and justice, and how to make a strong logos. Socrates searched for how the pieces of the world make the whole by dividing them based upon their form.
Socrates’ philosophy was not accepted by all, as we see in Meno. While discussing the origin of virtue with Meno, Socrates pushed him to give one true definition of virtue. Meno, however, only provided examples and different definitions of virtue depending on the situation. After describing what virtue was for a man and for a woman, Meno said that “the virtue of a child, whether male or female, is different again, and so is that of an elderly man if you want that, or if you want that of a free man or a slave” (Plato 71e). While Meno provided multiple examples of virtue, Socrates was looking for the one true form of virtue that unifies them all and said, “Even if they are many and various, all of them have one and the same form which makes them virtues…” (Plato 72c). In the end of the dialogue, Meno was unable to identify the unity of the multiplicity and he and Socrates decided that virtue was solely a gift from the gods.
Meno and Socrates were unable to complete their philosophical search for the true and unifying form of virtue not only because Meno did not know what he did not know, but also because he was unaccepting of Socrates’ attempt to unite the multiple definitions under one true form of virtue. Meno is the quintessence of why Socrates’ philosophical beliefs did not work for everyone, for some people were unable to divide the overwhelming multiplicity of the cosmos into separate categories based upon their forms.
Socrates does not fit into one of the groups of philosophers who came before him, instead, he created his own group of philosophers called the Socratics. Although he had lots of differences in opinion with the myth-makers, the physicoi, and the sophists, he drew inspiration from their ideas while developing his own philosophy. Socrates was in search of the absolute truth and believed that the cosmos was a collection of different unities that separated the multiplicity of the world by their forms. This philosophy, however, was not accepted by all and in his dialogues, many interlocutors refuted his arguments because they were unable to understand the true form and unity of the concept at hand. Although his methods did not work for everyone, Socrates is still a very well-known philosopher and he is well deserving of his title as the ‘Father of Western Philosophy.’