Have you heard of Socrates?

 

Have you heard of Socrates? You might have heard other variations of his name like Suqrat (سقراط). You would have used his quotes in your assignments back in school. He is perhaps one of the most compelling masterminds ever. But Socrates never recorded anything, then how do we find tons and tons of his quotes on the internet? Actually, all we know about him is what the others have told us. Most broadly, Socrates is a figure in Plato's dialogues, where, in addition to other things, he is portrayed as short, fat, and ugly; wears grimy robes; doesn't have a job to help his better half and children; doesn't partake in Athens' political life and couldn't care less with regards to his economic wellbeing. But at the same time, it has been described that he could remain up the entire night without feeling tired, the following day, could drink anybody under the table without becoming drunk and is apparently impenetrable to warmth and cold. An all-out knockout, without a doubt. Indeed, as indicated by Plato, Socrates is apparently superhuman!

So, who was Socrates, actually?

Socrates is ostensibly the most compelling rationalist ever, well most people regard him as one of the first philosophers of the western world, but he never saw himself that way. Philosophers tend to think they know a lot about the world, he really didn't think he knew anything at all. Socrates had plenty of ideas, but he didn’t claim to actually know anything. In fact, he famously said:

“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.”

And I love this quote!

 Nonetheless, his thoughts shifted the direction of history, laid the preparation for what is today viewed as western philosophy. Socrates was brought into the world in 469 BC, and spent practically all of his life in Athens, Greece. I trust you folks have watched the popular movies 300 (2007) and 300 (2014), if you haven't, it's a magnificent action war film and elements a great deal of historical Greece figures and nations. This film will give you a useful illustration of how superb Athens was. The city was then at the center of Greece's 'Golden Age', a period of quick development and democratization.

Socrates was a soldier, then a stonecutter, before giving his life to being a philosopher, which in a real sense signifies “lover of wisdom”, and this too has a story behind it that I will discuss a little farther. However, little else is known about Socrates' childhood, or the remainder of his life, since he didn't really record anything. Truth be told, all that we know about him is through the compositions of his contemporaries, most broadly by his pupil, Plato. Plato published a series of ‘dialogues’, in which Socrates debates with government officials and residents in Athens.

In one of Plato's most popular works, the Symposium, Socrates and his questioners talk about the Nature of Love. Socrates asserted that all that he thinks about affection was educated to him by an astute lady named Diotima. As per Diotima, love is neither physical nor heavenly, and it can't be portrayed as good or beautiful. Love is but the longing for something - it is the thirst of looking for something – like individuals, items, youth, or excellence. Socrates infers that his tireless quest for thoughts makes him an admirer of information and knowledge. Obviously, it has further roots to it, and however, am not extremely sure in case you are keen on it or not I am certainly going to write on it independently and exclusively.  

When he returned to Athens after fighting in the Peloponnesian war (the war through which democracy was replaced by an oligarchy) he did quite a bit of thinking. In his time many men were considered wise but he was very skeptical of this wisdom in his life and travels. He found that many people who appear or claim to be wise are not actually very wise at all. This is a problem because when people believe a man is wise they tend to follow him which often leads to terrible consequences. If you don't question this wisdom you can never discover its flaws, then knowledge stands still like a stone instead of growing and changing like a tree. So he started asking questions and he found that when someone makes a claim that something is true the best way to test that truth is to ask a series of challenging questions.

In an attempt to uproot ignorance, which he saw as a danger to society, Socrates acted as Athen’s ‘gadfly’ (the individual constantly annoys others by criticizing them). That is, he circumvented the city pressing individuals on their beliefs, eventually uncovering that they didn't know anything. This course of gradual questioning or incremental nagging- all the more normally known as the Socratic technique - is maybe Socrates' most noteworthy contribution to the scholastic world. Though I am obviously not a law or literature student myself, the Socratic technique is used as a form of critical discussion in English and Law classes. The Socratic method and its influence led to the invention of the scientific method, which is similarly based on challenging hypotheses in an attempt to question their validity, and here my friends you can see the glimpses of the notorious:

                                        “NULLIUS IN VERBA”

And I believe in my heart you remember that from the previous article.

You see that Socrates was a bit of a troublemaker and liked to be a little mysterious. He literally forced Athenian legislators and social world-class to scrutinize their own truths, and in more than one instance, openly humiliated them. For example, if a man claims that it is virtuous to love the god Zeus, He would ask what is virtue? What is love? Are there other gods to love? If they cannot even explain what virtue is how can they say that it is virtuous to love Zeus? Similarly, if they cannot explain what love is how can we know if we are really loving Zeus? and therefore that we are virtuous. If someone making these claims cannot answer these challenges then how can they know the truth of their claim.  He was likewise an open pundit of the city's recently shaped democratic government, as he said it would at last prompt the appointment of dictators. As you can imagine, this didn’t go over well in Athens, and Socrates was very unpopular. 

Asking questions may be the best way to get to the truth but it is also a fast way to make enemies. He embarrassed quite a few very important men in Athens who saw him as kind of a professional smart aleck. When they saw that young men in the city were beginning to question like he did, he was arrested for corrupting the youth of Athens. His student Plato wrote about the trial and how Socrates tried to defend himself using the same method of questioning that he was arrested for. This just made my accusers even angrier. Eventually, when he was convicted, the court asked him what he thought his punishment should be and he said that there should be a meal in my honor every night at the sacred heart of the city where great men and Olympic champions are honored, he further said that his punishment should be a free meal at that hearth since he has opened up everyone's eyes to true wisdom. Needless to say, they didn't like that answer at all, seeing it as further proof of his insolence. I told you he was a troublemaker! 

And lastly the sad story most of you have been waiting for, In 399 BC, he was accused of dis-believing in the Athenian gods and using his ideas to corrupt the youth and was sentenced to death by poison. But Socrates didn’t resist the verdict, as it was part of the social contract he had tacitly accepted by being a citizen of Athens. Imagine being absolutely right and still getting capital punishment by those who are utterly ignorant… Alas!

Socrates’ method of relentless hair-splitting paved the way for other historical gadflies, like Martin Luther King, to be vocal critics of their own political system. But because Socrates never wrote anything down and rarely revealed his own opinions, historians have struggled to come to a consensus on even his most fundamental teachings and biographical events. Plato’s dialogues are the most comprehensive account of Socrates’ beliefs; however, some scholars suspect them to be Plato’s own ideas, relayed through his teacher. To this day, it’s still unclear whether we really know anything about Socrates at all. But we should understand that it is not that the ideas came out from Socrates or Plato but it’s the ideas themselves that are worth contemplating.

Socrates forever changed what we think of as Western philosophy. What was once an endeavor to comprehend our general surroundings is currently to a great extent an assessment of our inward inspirations and virtues. All this because he asked a few questions. Many people think that when someone asks a question or many questions like I do, they are unwise. But I think just the opposite is true,

"Wisdom is the knowledge of how little you actually know"

It is this realization that allows you to start asking questions and get to the real truth. Socrates is such a magnanimous historical personality that we divide the philosophical era into pre-Socratic and post-Socratic. And as you would have suspected by now, these are going to be the topics of our next articles, So stay tuned for more amazing topics coming your way.