socrates speech

In 399 B.C, the Athenian government sentenced to death its most famous philosopher. This is a highly relevant historical event because it shows that threats to the freedom of speech can come from democracies as well as totalitarian regimes. The "trial" of Socrates was a fraud from day one because there was no concrete proof that he did anything to make Athens less safe.

Socrates was offered a pardon by Athens if he would give up teaching philosophy.  He refused.   He believed he had a moral responsibility to tell the truth.   He openly stated a belief in God and declared his confidence in a system of divine justice before and after death.

Socrates warned Athens that their actions would have grim results.   His words would be prophetic.   By demanding his death Athenian democracy helped set in motion a process that led to the collapse of its own system.  Soon, democracy would cease to exist as a major factor in Greece, and Athens would be swept away forever as a major state by Macedon.

Since the time of Socrates democracies have shown themselves to be capable of all sorts of crimes.   We are not going to try judge political systems as who has committed the most crimes.   However, what happened in Athens in 399 is a warning about the fallibility of all systems.  The mindless optimism that led to America's disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 has no relation to the real world of history.   There is no "divine right" of democracy.   Evil has many faces.  

America's "founding fathers" were students of classical world.   They studied the suicide of democracy in Athens.  People like Washington, Jefferson and Adams would be horrified by the imperial delusions of people like George W. Bush and Woodrow Wilson.  They understood that democracy only exists by the assumption of civil responsibilities by the people.   The mad, imperial delusions of Pericles wrecked Athens forever.   There are lessons to be learned from history.

The subtitles of this text are put in by us.

And so he proposes death as the penalty. And what shall I propose on my part, O men of Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what is my due? What return shall be made to the man who has never had the wit to be idle during his whole life; but has been careless of what the many care for—wealth, and family interests, and military offices, and speaking in the assembly, and magistracies, and plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live, I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good privately to every one of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the state before he looks to the interests of the state; and that this should be the order which he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such an one? Doubtless some good thing, O men of Athens, if he has his reward; and the good should be of a kind suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, and who desires leisure that he may instruct you? There can be no reward so fitting as maintenance in the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For I am in want, and he has enough; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you the reality. And if I am to estimate the penalty fairly, I should say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the just return.

Perhaps you think that I am braving you in what I am saying now, as in what I said before about the tears and prayers. But this is not so. I speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged any one, although I cannot convince you—the time has been too short; if there were a law at Athens, as there is in other cities, that a capital cause should not be decided in one day, then I believe that I should have convinced you. But I cannot in a moment refute great slanders; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged another, I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should I? because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil? Shall I say imprisonment? And why should I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year—of the Eleven? Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid? There is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, for money I have none, and cannot pay. And if I say exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life, if I am so irrational as to expect that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you will have no more of them, others are likely to endure me. No indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to city, ever changing my place of exile, and always being driven out! For I am quite sure that wherever I go, there, as here, the young men will flock to me; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their request; and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes.

Some one will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that , you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me. Yet I say what is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Also, I have never been accustomed to think that I deserve to suffer any harm. Had I money I might have estimated the offence at what I was able to pay, and not have been much the worse. But I have none, and therefore I must ask you to proportion the fine to my means. Well, perhaps I could afford a mina, and therefore I propose that penalty: Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minae, and they will be the sureties. Let thirty minae be the penalty; for which sum they will be ample security to you.

Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man; for they will call me wise, even although I am not wise, when they want to reproach you. If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far from death. I am speaking now not to all of you, but only to those who have condemned me to death. And I have another thing to say to them: you think that I was convicted because I had no words of the sort which would have procured my acquittal—I mean, if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone or unsaid. Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of words—certainly not. But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to do, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I maintain, are unworthy of me. I thought at the time that I ought not to do anything common or mean when in danger: nor do I now repent of the style of my defence; I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought I or any man to use every way of escaping death. Often in battle there can be no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything.

; and I must abide by my award—let them abide by theirs. I suppose that these things may be regarded as fated,—and I think that they are well.

And now, O men who have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you; for I am about to die, and in the hour of death men are gifted with prophetic power. And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my departure punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more inconsiderate with you, and you will be more offended at them. This is the prophecy which I utter before my departure to the judges who have condemned me.

Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about the thing which has come to pass, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then a little, for we may as well talk with one another while there is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which has happened to me. O my judges—for you I may truly call judges—I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the divine faculty of which the internal oracle is the source has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error in any matter; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either when I was leaving my house in the morning, or when I was on my way to the court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech, but now in nothing I either said or did touching the matter in hand has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this silence? I will tell you. It is an intimation that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. For the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things—either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night.

But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I myself, too, shall have a wonderful interest in there meeting and conversing with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and any other ancient hero who has suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall then be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next; and I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! In another world they do not put a man to death for asking questions: assuredly not. For besides being happier than we are, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.

Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty, that . He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that the time had arrived when it was better for me to die and be released from trouble; wherefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason, also, I am not angry with my condemners, or with my accusers; they have done me no harm, although they did not mean to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

Still I have a favour to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing,—then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.

Top 10 Greatest Speeches

As the political season heats up, TIME takes a tour of history's best rhetoric

The Greek philosopher Plato, author of the Socratic dialogues.

Apology, 4th century B.C.

Facing charges of "corrupting youth," Socrates delivered this speech — as rendered by Plato — to an Athens jury. It proved unsuccessful; he was convicted by his peers, and subsequently killed himself by swallowing hemlock. But this skillful piece of rhetoric underlines the realization that has propelled philosophy ever since: that human knowledge is woefully limited.

Best Line : "The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows."

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Bibliographies

The ci poetry project, the last words of socrates at the place where he died.

2015.03.27 | By Gregory Nagy

§0. In H24H 24 §45, I quote and analyze the passage in Plato’s Phaedo 117a–118a where Socrates dies. His last words, as transmitted by Plato, are directed at all those who have followed Socrates—and who have had the unforgettable experience of engaging in dialogue with him. Calling out to one of those followers, Crito, who was a native son of the same neighborhood where Socrates was born, he says to his comrade:  don’t forget to sacrifice a rooster to Asklepios . I will quote the whole passage in a minute. But first, we need to ask: who is this Asklepios? As I explain in H24H 20 §§29–33, he was a hero whose father was the god Apollo himself, and, like his divine father, Asklepios had special powers of healing. More than that, Asklepios also had the power of bringing the dead back to life. That is why he was killed by the immortals, since mortals must stay mortal. But Asklepios, even after death, retained his power to bring the dead back to life.

§1. So, what does Socrates mean when he asks his followers, in his dying words, not to forget to sacrifice a rooster to Asklepios?

§2. On 16 March 2015, the group participating in the 2015 Harvard Spring Break travel study program visited the site where Socrates died—and where he said what he said about sacrificing a rooster to Asklepios. On the surface, this site is nothing much to write home about. All we can see at the site is the foundation stones of the State Prison where Socrates was held prisoner and where he was forced to drink the hemlock in the year 399 BCE. But I feel deeply that, just by visiting the site, our group managed to connect with a sublime experience. We were making contact with a place linked forever with the very last words of one of the greatest thinkers in world history.

§3. I now quote my own translation of Plato’s Phaedo 117a–118a, which situates these last words of Socrates:

“Go,” said he [= Socrates], “and do as I say.” Crito, when he heard this, signaled with a nod to the boy servant who was standing nearby, and the servant went in, remaining for some time, and then came out with the man who was going to administer the poison [ pharmakon ]. He was carrying a cup that contained it, ground into the drink. When Socrates saw the man he said: “You, my good man, since you are experienced in these matters, should tell me what needs to be done.” The man answered: “You need to drink it, that’s all. Then walk around until you feel a heaviness | 117b in your legs. Then lie down. This way, the poison will do its thing.” While the man was saying this, he handed the cup to Socrates. And Socrates took it in a cheerful way, not flinching or getting pale or grimacing. Then looking at the man from beneath his brows, like a bull—that was the way he used to look at people—he said: “What do you say about my pouring a libation out of this cup to someone? Is it allowed or not?” The man answered: “What we grind is measured out, Socrates, as the right dose for drinking.” “I understand,” he said, | 117c “but surely it is allowed and even proper to pray to the gods so that my transfer of dwelling [ met-oikēsis ] from this world [ enthende ] to that world [ ekeîse ] should be fortunate. So, that is what I too am now praying for. Let it be this way.” And, while he was saying this, he took the cup to his lips and, quite readily and cheerfully, he drank down the whole dose. Up to this point, most of us had been able to control fairly well our urge to let our tears flow; but now when we saw him drinking the poison, and then saw him finish the drink, we could no longer hold back, and, in my case, quite against my own will, my own tears were now pouring out in a flood. So, I covered my face and had a good cry. You see, I was not crying for him, | 117d but at the thought of my own bad fortune in having lost such a comrade [ hetairos ]. Crito, even before me, found himself unable to hold back his tears: so he got up and moved away. And Apollodorus, who had been weeping all along, now started to cry in a loud voice, expressing his frustration. So, he made everyone else break down and cry—except for Socrates himself. And he said: “What are you all doing? I am so surprised at you. I had sent away the women mainly because I did not want them | 117e to lose control in this way. You see, I have heard that a man should come to his end [ teleutân ] in a way that calls for measured speaking [ euphēmeîn ]. So, you must have composure [ hēsukhiā ], and you must endure.” When we heard that, we were ashamed, and held back our tears. He meanwhile was walking around until, as he said, his legs began to get heavy, and then he lay on his back—that is what the man had told him to do. Then that same man who had given him the poison [ pharmakon ] took hold of him, now and then checking on his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot hard and asked him if he could feel it; and he said that he couldn’t; and then he pressed his shins, | 118a and so on, moving further up, thus demonstrating for us that he was cold and stiff. Then he [= Socrates] took hold of his own feet and legs, saying that when the poison reaches his heart, then he will be gone. He was beginning to get cold around the abdomen. Then he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said— this was the last thing he uttered— “Crito, I owe the sacrifice of a rooster to Asklepios; will you pay that debt and not neglect to do so?” “I will make it so,” said Crito, “and, tell me, is there anything else?” When Crito asked this question, no answer came back anymore from Socrates. In a short while, he stirred. Then the man uncovered his face. His eyes were set in a dead stare. Seeing this, Crito closed his mouth and his eyes. Such was the end [ teleutē ], Echecrates, of our comrade [ hetairos ]. And we may say about him that he was in his time the best [ aristos ] of all men we ever encountered—and the most intelligent [ phronimos ] and most just [ dikaios ].

So I come back to my question about the meaning of the last words of Socrates, when he says, in his dying words: don’t forget to sacrifice a rooster to Asklepios . As I begin to formulate an answer, I must repeat something that I have already highlighted. It is the fact that the hero Asklepios was believed to have special powers of healing—even the power of bringing the dead back to life. As I point out in H24H 24§46, some interpret the final instruction of Socrates to mean simply that death is a cure for life. I disagree. After sacrificing a rooster at day’s end, sacrificers will sleep the sleep of incubation and then, the morning after the sacrifice, they will wake up to hear other roosters crowing. So, the words of Socrates here are referring to rituals of overnight incubation in the hero cults of Asklepios.

§4. On 18 March 2015, the group participating in the 2015 Harvard Spring Break travel study program visited a site where such rituals of overnight incubation actually took place: the site was Epidaurus. This small city was famous for its hero cult of Asklepios. The space that was sacred to Asklepios, as our group had a chance to witness, is enormous, and the enormity is a sure sign of the intense veneration received by Asklepios as the hero who, even though he is dead, has the superhuman power to rescue you from death. The mystical logic of worshipping the dead Asklepios is that he died for humanity: he died because he had the power to bring humans back to life.

§5. So, Asklepios is the model for keeping the voice of the rooster alive. And, for Socrates, Asklepios can become the model for keeping the word alive.

§6. In H24H 24§47, I follow through on analyzing this idea of keeping the word from dying, of keeping the word alive. That living word, I argue, is dialogue. We can see it when Socrates says that the only thing worth crying about is the death of the word. I am about to quote another passage from Plato’s Phaedo , and again I will use my own translation. But before I quote the passage, here is the context: well before Socrates is forced to drink the hemlock, his followers are already mourning his impending death, and Socrates reacts to their sadness by telling them that the only thing that would be worth mourning is not his death but the death of the conversation he started with them. Calling out to one of his followers, Phaedo, Socrates tells him (Plato, Phaedo 89b):

“Tomorrow, Phaedo, you will perhaps be cutting off these beautiful locks of yours [as a sign of mourning]?” “Yes, Socrates,” I [= Phaedo] replied, “I guess I will.” He shot back: “No you will not, if you listen to me.” “So, what will I do?” I [= Phaedo] said. He replied: “Not tomorrow but today I will cut off my own hair and you too will cut off these locks of yours—if our argument [ logos ] comes to an end [ teleutân ] for us and we cannot bring it back to life again [ ana-biōsasthai ].

What matters for Socrates, as I argue in H24H 24§48, is the resurrection of the ‘argument’ or logos , which means literally ‘word’, even if death may be the necessary pharmakon or ‘poison’ for leaving the everyday life and for entering the everlasting cycle of resurrecting the word.

§7. In the 2015 book Masterpieces of Metonymy (MoM), published both online and in print , I study in Part One a traditional custom that prevailed in Plato’s Academy at Athens for centuries after the death of Socrates. Their custom was to celebrate the birthday of Socrates on the sixth day of the month Thargelion, which by their reckoning coincided with his death day. And they celebrated by engaging in Socratic dialogue, which for them was the logos that was resurrected every time people engage in Socratic dialogue. I go on to say in MoM 1 §§146–147:

For Plato and for Plato’s Socrates, the word logos refers to the living ‘word’ of dialogue in the context of philosophical argumentation. When Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo (89b) tells his followers who are mourning his impending death that they should worry not about his death but about the death of the logos— if this logos cannot be resurrected or ‘brought back to life’ ( ana-biōsasthai )—he is speaking of the dialogic argumentation supporting the idea that the psūkhē or ‘soul’ is immortal. In this context, the logos itself is the ‘argument’.

For Plato’s Socrates, it is less important that his psūkhē or ‘soul’ must be immortal, and it is vitally more important that the logos itself must remain immortal—or, at least, that the logos must be brought back to life. And that is because the logos itself, as I say, is the ‘argument’ that comes to life in dialogic argumentation.

Here is the way I would sum up, then, what Socrates means as he speaks his last words. When the sun goes down and you check in for sacred incubation at the precinct of Asklepios, you sacrifice a rooster to this hero who, even in death, has the power to bring you back to life. As you drift off to sleep at the place of incubation, the voice of that rooster is no longer heard. He is dead, and you are asleep. But then, as the sun comes up, you wake up to the voice of a new rooster signaling that morning is here, and this voice will be for you a sign that says: the word that died has come back to life again. Asklepios has once again shown his sacred power. The word is resurrected. The conversation may now continue.

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Reverse orpheus, reverse eurydice, by rowan ricardo phillips, the song of nikaia, by rachel hadas, honoring angelia hanhardt: a brief encomium for lia from her admiring colleague greg.

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The Athenian ideal of free speech

• Plato’s Apology
• The impression created by Aristophanes
• The human resistance to self-reflection
• Socrates’ criticism of democracy
• Socrates’ radical reconception of piety
• The danger posed by Socrates
• Socrates versus Plato
• The legacy of Socrates

• Who was Socrates?
• What did Socrates teach?
• How do we know what Socrates thought?
• Why did Athens condemn Socrates to death?
• Why didn’t Socrates try to escape his death sentence?

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• McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia - Socrates
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Socrates
• PBS LearningMedia - Socrates and the Early Senate | The Greeks
• Ancient Origins - Socrates: The Father of Western Philosophy
• World History Encyclopedia - Biography of Socrates
• The Open University - The Life of Socrates
• Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Socrates (469–399 BC)
• Age of the Sage - Transmitting the Wisdoms of the Ages - Biography of Socrates
• Florida State College at Jacksonville Pressbooks - Philosophy in the Humanities - Socrates
• Humanities LibreTexts - The Life of Socrates
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Biography of Socrates
• Socrates - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Socrates - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

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That Socrates was prosecuted because of his religious ideas and political associations indicates how easily an ideal held dear by his fellow Athenians —the ideal of open and frank speech among citizens—could be set aside when they felt insecure. This ideal and its importance in Athens are well illustrated by the remark of the orator Demosthenes , that in Athens one is free to praise the Spartan constitution, whereas in Sparta it is only the Spartan constitution that one is allowed to praise. Were there other instances, besides the trial of Socrates, in which an Athenian was prosecuted in court because of the dangerous ideas he was alleged to have circulated? Centuries after Socrates’ death, several writers alleged that many other intellectual figures of his time—including Protagoras , Anaxagoras , Damon, Aspasia , and Diagoras—were exiled or prosecuted. Several scholars have concluded that Athens’s allegiance to the ideal of freedom of speech was deeply compromised during the last decades of the 5th century. Others have argued that much or all of the evidence for a period of persecution and harassment was invented by writers who wanted to claim, as a badge of honour for their favourite philosophers, that they, too, like the universally admired Socrates, had been persecuted by the Athenians. What can safely be said is this: the trial of Socrates is the only case in which we can be certain that an Athenian was legally prosecuted not for an overt act that directly harmed the public or some individual—such as treason, corruption, or slander—but for alleged harm indirectly caused by the expression and teaching of ideas.

According to Plato’s Apology , the vote to convict Socrates was very close: had 30 of those who voted for conviction cast their ballots differently, he would have been acquitted. (So he was convicted by a majority of 59. Assuming, as many scholars do, that the size of his jury was 501, 280 favoured conviction and 221 opposed it.) It is reasonable to speculate that many of those who opposed conviction did so partly because, however little they cared for what Socrates thought and how he lived, they cherished the freedom of speech enjoyed by all Athenians and attached more importance to this aspect of their political system than to any harm Socrates may have done in the past or might do in the future. The Athenian love of free speech allowed Socrates to cajole and criticize his fellow citizens for the whole of his long life but gave way—though just barely—when it was put under great pressure.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Socrates   (469—399 b.c.e.).

This article gives an overview of Socrates: who he was, what he thought, and his purported method.  It is both historical and philosophical.  At the same time, it contains reflections on the difficult nature of knowing anything about a person who never committed any of his ideas to the written word.  Much of what is known about Socrates comes to us from Plato, although Socrates appears in the works of other ancient writers as well as those who follow Plato in the history of philosophy.  This article recognizes that finding the original Socrates may be impossible, but it attempts to achieve a close approximation.

Table of Contents

• Birth and Early Life
• The Peloponnesian War and the Threat to Democracy
• Greek Religion and Socrates’ Impiety
• Origin of the Socratic Problem
• Aristophanes
• Presocratic Philosophy and the Sophists
• Socratic Ignorance
• Priority of the Care of the Soul
• The Unexamined Life
• Unity of Virtue; All Virtue is Knowledge
• No One Errs Knowingly/No One Errs Willingly
• All Desire is for the Good
• It is Better to Suffer an Injustice Than to Commit One
• Eudaimonism
• Ruling is An Expertise
• Socrates the Ironist
• Maieutic: Socrates the Midwife
• Dialectic: Socrates the Constructer
• The Skeptics
• The Epicureans
• The Peripatetics
• Kierkegaard
• References and Further Reading

1. Biography: Who was Socrates?

A. the historical socrates, i. birth and early life.

Socrates was born in Athens in the year 469 B.C.E. to Sophroniscus, a stonemason, and Phaenarete, a midwife.  His family was not extremely poor, but they were by no means wealthy, and Socrates could not claim that he was of noble birth like Plato.  He grew up in the political deme or district of Alopece, and when he turned 18, began to perform the typical political duties required of Athenian males.  These included compulsory military service and membership in the Assembly, the governing body responsible for determining military strategy and legislation.

In a culture that worshipped male beauty, Socrates had the misfortune of being born incredibly ugly.  Many of our ancient sources attest to his rather awkward physical appearance, and Plato more than once makes reference to it ( Theaetetus 143e, Symposium , 215a-c; also Xenophon Symposium 4.19, 5.5-7 and Aristophanes Clouds 362).  Socrates was exophthalmic, meaning that his eyes bulged out of his head and were not straight but focused sideways.  He had a snub nose, which made him resemble a pig, and many sources depict him with a potbelly.  Socrates did little to help his odd appearance, frequently wearing the same cloak and sandals throughout both the day and the evening.  Plato’s Symposium (174a) offers us one of the few accounts of his caring for his appearance.

As a young man Socrates was given an education appropriate for a person of his station.  By the middle of the 5 th century B.C.E., all Athenian males were taught to read and write. Sophroniscus, however, also took pains to give his son an advanced cultural education in poetry, music, and athletics.  In both Plato and Xenophon, we find a Socrates that is well versed in poetry, talented at music, and quite at-home in the gymnasium.  In accordance with Athenian custom, his father also taught him a trade, though Socrates did not labor at it on a daily basis.  Rather, he spent his days in the agora (the Athenian marketplace), asking questions of those who would speak with him.  While he was poor, he quickly acquired a following of rich young aristocrats—one of whom was Plato—who particularly enjoyed hearing him interrogate those that were purported to be the wisest and most influential men in the city.

Socrates was married to Xanthippe, and according to some sources, had a second wife.  Most suggest that he first married Xanthippe, and that she gave birth to his first son, Lamprocles.  He is alleged to have married his second wife, Myrto, without dowry, and she gave birth to his other two sons, Sophroniscus and Menexenus.  Various accounts attribute Sophroniscus to Xanthippe, while others even suggest that Socrates was married to both women simultaneously because of a shortage of males in Athens at the time.  In accordance with Athenian custom, Socrates was open about his physical attraction to young men, though he always subordinated his physical desire for them to his desire that they improve the condition of their souls.

Socrates fought valiantly during his time in the Athenian military.  Just before the Peloponnesian War with Sparta began in 431 B.C.E, he helped the Athenians win the battle of Potidaea (432 B.C.E.), after which he saved the life of Alcibiades, the famous Athenian general.  He also fought as one of 7,000 hoplites aside 20,000 troops at the battle of Delium (424 B.C.E.) and once more at the battle of Amphipolis (422 B.C.E.).  Both battles were defeats for Athens.

Despite his continued service to his city, many members of Athenian society perceived Socrates to be a threat to their democracy, and it is this suspicion that largely contributed to his conviction in court.  It is therefore imperative to understand the historical context in which his trial was set.

ii. Later Life and Trial

1. the peloponnesian war and the threat to democracy.

Between 431—404 B.C.E. Athens fought one of its bloodiest and most protracted conflicts with neighboring Sparta, the war that we now know as the Peloponnesian War.  Aside from the fact that Socrates fought in the conflict, it is important for an account of his life and trial because many of those with whom Socrates spent his time became either sympathetic to the Spartan cause at the very least or traitors to Athens at worst.  This is particularly the case with those from the more aristocratic Athenian families, who tended to favor the rigid and restricted hierarchy of power in Sparta instead of the more widespread democratic distribution of power and free speech to all citizens that obtained in Athens.  Plato more than once places in the mouth of his character Socrates praise for Sparta ( Protagoras 342b, Crito 53a; cf. Republic 544c in which most people think the Spartan constitution is the best).  The political regime of the Republic is marked by a small group of ruling elites that preside over the citizens of the ideal city.

There are a number of important historical moments throughout the war leading up to Socrates’ trial that figure in the perception of him as a traitor.  Seven years after the battle of Amphipolis, the Athenian navy was set to invade the island of Sicily, when a number of statues in the city called “herms”, dedicated to the god Hermes, protector of travelers, were destroyed.  Dubbed the ‘Mutilation of the Herms’ (415 B.C.E.), this event engendered not only a fear of those who might seek to undermine the democracy, but those who did not respect the gods.  In conjunction with these crimes, Athens witnessed the profanation of the Eleusinian mysteries, religious rituals that were to be conducted only in the presence of priests but that were in this case performed in private homes without official sanction or recognition of any kind.  Amongst those accused and persecuted on suspicion of involvement in the crimes were a number of Socrates’ associates, including Alcibiades, who was recalled from his position leading the expedition in Sicily.  Rather than face prosecution for the crime, Alcibiades escaped and sought asylum in Sparta.

Though Alcibiades was not the only of Socrates’ associates implicated in the sacrilegious crimes (Charmides and Critias were suspected as well), he is arguably the most important.  Socrates had by many counts been in love with Alcibiades and Plato depicts him pursuing or speaking of his love for him in many dialogues ( Symposium 213c-d, Protagoras 309a, Gorgias 481d, Alcibiades I 103a-104c, 131e-132a).  Alcibiades is typically portrayed as a wandering soul ( Alcibiades I 117c-d), not committed to any one consistent way of life or definition of justice.  Instead, he was a kind of cameleon-like flatterer that could change and mold himself in order to please crowds and win political favor ( Gorgias 482a).  In 411 B.C.E., a group of citizens opposed to the Athenian democracy led a coup against the government in hopes of establishing an oligarchy.  Though the democrats put down the coup later that year and recalled Alcibiades to lead the Athenian fleet in the Hellespont, he aided the oligarchs by securing for them an alliance with the Persian satraps.  Alcibiades therefore did not just aid the Spartan cause but allied himself with Persian interests as well.  His association with the two principal enemies of Athens reflected poorly on Socrates, and Xenophon tells us that Socrates’ repeated association with and love for Alcibiades was instrumental in the suspicion that he was a Spartan apologist.

Sparta finally defeated Athens in 404 B.C.E., just five years before Socrates’ trial and execution.  Instead of a democracy, they installed as rulers a small group of Athenians who were loyal to Spartan interests.  Known as “The Thirty” or sometimes as the “Thirty Tyrants”, they were led by Critias, a known associate of Socrates and a member of his circle.  Critias’ nephew Charmides, about whom we have a Platonic dialogue of the same name, was also a member.  Though Critias put forth a law prohibiting Socrates from conducting discussions with young men under the age of 30, Socrates’ earlier association with him—as well as his willingness to remain in Athens and endure the rule of the Thirty rather than flee—further contributed to the growing suspicion that Socrates was opposed to the democratic ideals of his city.

The Thirty ruled tyrannically—executing a number of wealthy Athenians as well as confiscating their property, arbitrarily arresting those with democratic sympathies, and exiling many others—until they were overthrown in 403 B.C.E. by a group of democratic exiles returning to the city.  Both Critias and Charmides were killed and, after a Spartan-sponsored peace accord, the democracy was restored.  The democrats proclaimed a general amnesty in the city and thereby prevented politically motivated legal prosecutions aimed at redressing the terrible losses incurred during the reign of the Thirty.  Their hope was to maintain unity during the reestablishment of their democracy.

One of Socrates’ main accusers, Anytus, was one of the democratic exiles that returned to the city to assist in the overthrow of the Thirty.  Plato’s Meno , set in the year 402 B.C.E., imagines a conversation between Socrates and Anytus in which the latter argues that any citizen of Athens can teach virtue, an especially democratic view insofar as it assumes knowledge of how to live well is not the restricted domain of the esoteric elite or privileged few.  In the discussion, Socrates argues that if one wants to know about virtue, one should consult an expert on virtue ( Meno 91b-94e).  The political turmoil of the city, rebuilding itself as a democracy after nearly thirty years of destruction and bloodshed, constituted a context in which many citizens were especially fearful of threats to their democracy that came not from the outside, but from within their own city.

While many of his fellow citizens found considerable evidence against Socrates, there was also historical evidence in addition to his military service for the case that he was not just a passive but an active supporter of the democracy.  For one thing, just as he had associates that were known oligarchs, he also had associates that were supporters of the democracy, including the metic family of Cephalus and Socrates’ friend Chaerephon, the man who reported that the oracle at Delphi had proclaimed that no man was wiser than Socrates.  Additionally, when he was ordered by the Thirty to help retrieve the democratic general Leon from the island of Salamis for execution, he refused to do so.  His refusal could be understood not as the defiance of a legitimately established government but rather his allegiance to the ideals of due process that were in effect under the previously instituted democracy.  Indeed, in Plato’s Crito , Socrates refuses to escape from prison on the grounds that he lived his whole life with an implied agreement with the laws of the democracy ( Crito 50a-54d).  Notwithstanding these facts, there was profound suspicion that Socrates was a threat to the democracy in the years after the end of the Peloponnesian War.  But because of the amnesty, Anytus and his fellow accusers Meletus and Lycon were prevented from bringing suit against Socrates on political grounds.  They opted instead for religious grounds.

2. Greek Religion and Socrates’ Impiety

Because of the amnesty the charges made against Socrates were framed in religious terms.  As recounted by Diogenes Laertius (1.5.40), the charges were stated as follows: “Socrates does criminal wrong by not recognizing the gods that the city recognizes, and furthermore by introducing new divinities; and he also does criminal wrong by corrupting the youth” (other accounts: Xenophon Memorabilia I.I.1 and Apology 11-12, Plato, Apology 24b and Euthyphro 2c-3b).  Many people understood the charge about corrupting the youth to signify that Socrates taught his subversive views to others, a claim that he adamantly denies in his defense speech by claiming that he has no wisdom to teach (Plato, Apology 20c) and that he cannot be held responsible for the actions of those that heard him speak (Plato, Apology 33a-c).

It is now customary to refer to the principal written accusation on the deposition submitted to the Athenian court as an accusation of impiety, or unholiness.  Rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices that were officially sanctioned by the city and its officials marked ancient Greek religion.  The sacred was woven into the everyday experience of citizens who demonstrated their piety by correctly observing their ancestral traditions.  Interpretation of the gods at their temples was the exclusive domain of priests appointed and recognized by the city.  The boundary and separation between the religious and the secular that we find in many countries today therefore did not obtain in Athens.  A religious crime was consequently an offense not just against the gods, but also against the city itself.

Socrates and his contemporaries lived in a polytheistic society, a society in which the gods did not create the world but were themselves created.  Socrates would have been brought up with the stories of the gods recounted in Hesiod and Homer, in which the gods were not omniscient, omnibenevolent, or eternal, but rather power-hungry super-creatures that regularly intervened in the affairs of human beings.  One thinks for example of Aphrodite saving Paris from death at the hands of Menelaus (Homer, Iliad 3.369-382) or Zeus sending Apollo to rescue the corpse of Sarpedon after his death in battle (Homer, Iliad 16.667-684).  Human beings were to fear the gods, sacrifice to them, and honor them with festivals and prayers.

Socrates instead seemed to have a conception of the divine as always benevolent, truthful, authoritative, and wise.  For him, divinity always operated in accordance with the standards of rationality.  This conception of divinity, however, dispenses with the traditional conception of prayer and sacrifice as motivated by hopes for material payoff.  Socrates’ theory of the divine seemed to make the most important rituals and sacrifices in the city entirely useless, for if the gods are all good, they will benefit human beings regardless of whether or not human beings make offerings to them.  Jurors at his trial might have thought that, without the expectation of material reward or protection from the gods, Socrates was disconnecting religion from its practical roots and its connection with the civic identity of the city.

While Socrates was critical of blind acceptance of the gods and the myths we find in Hesiod and Homer, this in itself was not unheard of in Athens at the time.  Solon, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Euripides had all spoken against the capriciousness and excesses of the gods without incurring penalty.  It is possible to make the case that Socrates’ jurors might not have indicted him solely on questioning the gods or even of interrogating the true meaning of piety.  Indeed, there was no legal definition of piety in Athens at the time, and jurors were therefore in a similar situation to the one in which we find Socrates in Plato’s Euthyphro , that is, in need of an inquiry into what the nature of piety truly is.  What seems to have concerned the jurors was not only Socrates’ challenge to the traditional interpretation of the gods of the city, but his seeming allegiance to an entirely novel divine being, unfamiliar to anyone in the city.

This new divine being is what is known as Socrates’ daimon.   Though it has become customary to think of a daimon as a spirit or quasi-divinity (for example, Symposium 202e-203a), in ancient Greek religion it was not solely a specific class of divine being but rather a mode of activity, a force that drives a person when no particular divine agent can be named (Burkett, 180).  Socrates claimed to have heard a sign or voice from his days as a child that accompanied him and forbid him to pursue certain courses of action (Plato, Apology 31c-d, 40a-b, Euthydemus 272e-273a, Euthyphro 3b, Phaedrus 242b, Theages 128-131a, Theaetetus 150c-151b, Rep 496c; Xenophon, Apology 12, Memorabilia 1.1.3-5).  Xenophon adds that the sign also issued positive commands ( Memorablia 1.1.4, 4.3.12, 4.8.1, Apology 12).  This sign was accessible only to Socrates, private and internal to his own mind.  Whether Socrates received moral knowledge of any sort from the sign is a matter of scholarly debate, but beyond doubt is the strangeness of Socrates’ insistence that he took private instructions from a deity that was unlicensed by the city.  For all the jurors knew, the deity could have been hostile to Athenian interests.  Socrates’ daimon was therefore extremely influential in his indictment on the charge of worshipping new gods unknown to the city (Plato, Euthyphro 3b, Xenophon, Memorabilia I.1.2).

Whereas in Plato’s Apology Socrates makes no attempt to reconcile his divine sign with traditional views of piety, Xenophon’s Socrates argues that just as there are those who rely on birdcalls and receive guidance from voices, so he too is influenced by his daimon.  However, Socrates had no officially sanctioned religious role in the city.  As such, his attempt to assimilate himself to a seer or necromancer appointed by the city to interpret divine signs actually may have undermined his innocence, rather than help to establish it.  His insistence that he had direct, personal access to the divine made him appear guilty to enough jurors that he was sentenced to death.

b. The Socratic Problem: the Philosophical Socrates

The Socratic problem is the problem faced by historians of philosophy when attempting to reconstruct the ideas of the original Socrates as distinct from his literary representations.  While we know many of the historical details of Socrates’ life and the circumstances surrounding his trial, Socrates’ identity as a philosopher is much more difficult to establish.  Because he wrote nothing, what we know of his ideas and methods comes to us mainly from his contemporaries and disciples.

There were a number of Socrates’ followers who wrote conversations in which he appears.  These works are what are known as the logoi sokratikoi , or Socratic accounts.  Aside from Plato and Xenophon, most of these dialogues have not survived.  What we know of them comes to us from other sources.  For example, very little survives from the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom Xenophon reports as one of Socrates’ leading disciples.  Indeed, from polemics written by the rhetor Isocrates, some scholars have concluded that he was the most prominent Socratic in Athens for the first decade following Socrates’ death.  Diogenes Laertius (6.10-13) attributes to Antisthenes a number of views that we recognize as Socratic, including that virtue is sufficient for happiness, the wise man is self-sufficient, only the virtuous are noble, the virtuous are friends, and good things are morally fine and bad things are base.

Aeschines of Sphettus wrote seven dialogues, all of which have been lost.  It is possible for us to reconstruct the plots of two of them: the Alcibiades —in which Socrates shames Alcibiades into admitting he needs Socrates’ help to be virtuous—and the Aspasia —in which Socrates recommends the famous wife of Pericles as a teacher for the son of Callias.  Aeschines’ dialogues focus on Socrates’ ability to help his interlocutor acquire self-knowledge and better himself.

Phaedo of Elis wrote two dialogues.  His central use of Socrates is to show that philosophy can improve anyone regardless of his social class or natural talents.  Euclides of Megara wrote six dialogues, about which we know only their titles.  Diogenes Laertius reports that he held that the good is one, that insight and prudence are different names for the good, and that what is opposed to the good does not exist.  All three are Socratic themes.  Lastly, Aristippus of Cyrene wrote no Socratic dialogues but is alleged to have written a work entitled To Socrates .

The two Socratics on whom most of our philosophical understanding of Socrates depends are Plato and Xenophon.  Scholars also rely on the works of the comic playwright Aristophanes and Plato’s most famous student, Aristotle.

i. Origin of the Socratic Problem

The Socratic problem first became pronounced in the early 19 th century with the influential work of Friedrich Schleiermacher.  Until this point, scholars had largely turned to Xenophon to identify what the historical Socrates thought.  Schleiermacher argued that Xenophon was not a philosopher but rather a simple citizen-soldier, and that his Socrates was so dull and philosophically uninteresting that, reading Xenophon alone, it would be difficult to understand the reputation accorded Socrates by so many of his contemporaries and nearly all the schools of philosophy that followed him.  The better portrait of Socrates, Schleiermacher claimed, comes to us from Plato.

Though many scholars have since jettisoned Xenophon as a legitimate source for representing the philosophical views of the historical Socrates, they remain divided over the reliability of the other three sources.  For one thing, Aristophanes was a comic playwright, and therefore took considerable poetic license when scripting his characters.  Aristotle, born 15 years after Socrates’ death, hears about Socrates primarily from Plato. Plato himself wrote dialogues or philosophical dramas, and thus cannot be understood to be presenting his readers with exact replicas or transcriptions of conversations that Socrates actually had.  Furthermore, many scholars think that Plato’s so-called middle and late dialogues do not present the views of the historical Socrates.

We therefore see the difficult nature of the Socratic problem: because we don’t seem to have any consistently reliable sources, finding the true Socrates or the original Socrates proves to be an impossible task.  What we are left with, instead, is a composite picture assembled from various literary and philosophical components that give us what we might think of as Socratic themes or motifs.

ii. Aristophanes

Born in 450 B.C.E., Aristophanes wrote a number of comic plays intended to satirize and caricature many of his fellow Athenians.  His Clouds (423 B.C.E.) was so instrumental in parodying Socrates and painting him as a dangerous intellectual capable of corrupting the entire city that Socrates felt compelled in his trial defense to allude to the bad reputation he acquired as a result of the play (Plato, Apology 18a-b, 19c).  Aristophanes was much closer in age to Socrates than Plato and Xenophon, and as such is the only one of our sources exposed to Socrates in his younger years.

In the play, Socrates is the head of a phrontistêrion, a school of learning where students are taught the nature of the heavens and how to win court cases.  Socrates appears in a swing high above the stage, purportedly to better study the heavens.  His patron deities, the clouds, represent his interest in meteorology and may also symbolize the lofty nature of reasoning that may take either side of an argument.  The main plot of the play centers on an indebted man called Strepsiades, whose son Phidippides ends up in the school to learn how to help his father avoid paying off his debts.  By the end of the play, Phidippides has beaten his father, arguing that it is perfectly reasonable to do so on the grounds that, just as it is acceptable for a father to spank his son for his own good, so it is acceptable for a son to hit a father for his own good.  In addition to the theme that Socrates corrupts the youth, we therefore also find in the Clouds the origin of the rumor that Socrates makes the stronger argument the weaker and the weaker argument the stronger.  Indeed, the play features a personification of the Stronger Argument—which represents traditional education and values—attacked by the Weaker Argument—which advocates a life of pleasure.

While the Clouds is Aristophanes’ most famous and comprehensive attack on Socrates, Socrates appears in other of his comedies as well.  In the Birds (414 B.C.E.), Aristophanes coins a Greek verb based on Socrates’ name to insinuate that Socrates was truly a Spartan sympathizer (1280-83).  Young men who were found “Socratizing” were expressing their admiration of Sparta and its customs.  And in the Frogs (405), the Chorus claims that it is not refined to keep company with Socrates, who ignores the poets and wastes time with ‘frivolous words’ and ‘pompous word-scraping’ (1491-1499).

Aristophanes’ Socrates is a kind of variegated caricature of trends and new ideas emerging in Athens that he believed were threatening to the city.  We find a number of such themes prevalent in Presocratic philosophy and the teachings of the Sophists, including those about natural science, mathematics, social science, ethics, political philosophy, and the art of words.  Amongst other things, Aristophanes was troubled by the displacement of the divine through scientific explanations of the world and the undermining of traditional morality and custom by explanations of cultural life that appealed to nature instead of the gods.  Additionally, he was reticent about teaching skill in disputation, for fear that a clever speaker could just as easily argue for the truth as argue against it.  These issues constitute what is sometimes called the “new learning” developing in 5 th century B.C.E. Athens, for which the Aristophanic Socrates is the iconic symbol.

iii. Xenophon

Born in the same decade as Plato (425 B.C.E.), Xenophon lived in the political deme of Erchia.  Though he knew Socrates he would not have had as much contact with him as Plato did.  He was not present in the courtroom on the day of Socrates’ trial, but rather heard an account of it later on from Hermogenes, a member of Socrates’ circle.  His depiction of Socrates is found principally in four works: Apology —in which Socrates gives a defense of his life before his jurors— Memorabilia —in which Xenophon himself explicates the charges against Socrates and tries to defend him— Symposium —a conversation between Socrates and his friends at a drinking party—and Oeconomicus —a Socratic discourse on estate management.  Socrates also appears in Xenophon’s Hellenica and Anabasis .

Xenophon’s reputation as a source on the life and ideas of Socrates is one on which scholars do not always agree.  Largely thought to be a significant source of information about Socrates before the 19 th century, for most of the 20 th century Xenophon’s ability to depict Socrates as a philosopher was largely called into question.  Following Schleiermacher, many argued that Xenophon himself was either a bad philosopher who did not understand Socrates, or not a philosopher at all, more concerned with practical, everyday matters like economics.  However, recent scholarship has sought to challenge this interpretation, arguing that it assumes an understanding of philosophy as an exclusively speculative and critical endeavor that does not attend to the ancient conception of philosophy as a comprehensive way of life.

While Plato will likely always remain the principal source on Socrates and Socratic themes, Xenophon’s Socrates is distinct in philosophically interesting ways.  He emphasizes the values of self-mastery ( enkrateia ), endurance of physical pain ( karteria ), and self-sufficiency ( autarkeia ).  For Xenophon’s Socrates, self-mastery or moderation is the foundation of virtue ( Memorabilia, 1.5.4).  Whereas in Plato’s Apology the oracle tells Chaerephon that no one is wiser than Socrates, in Xenophon’s Apology Socrates claims that the oracle told Chaerephon that “no man was more free than I, more just, and more moderate” (Xenophon, Apology , 14).

Part of Socrates’ freedom consists in his freedom from want, precisely because he has mastered himself.  As opposed to Plato’s Socrates, Xenophon’s Socrates is not poor, not because he has much, but because he needs little.  Oeconomicus 11.3 for instance shows Socrates displeased with those who think him poor.  One can be rich even with very little on the condition that one has limited his needs, for wealth is just the excess of what one has over what one requires.  Socrates is rich because what he has is sufficient for what he needs ( Memorabilia 1.2.1, 1.3.5, 4.2.38-9).

We also find Xenophon attributing to Socrates a proof of the existence of God.  The argument holds that human beings are the product of an intelligent design, and we therefore should conclude that there is a God who is the maker ( dēmiourgos ) or designer of all things ( Memorabilia 1.4.2-7).  God creates a systematically ordered universe and governs it in the way our minds govern our bodies ( Memorabilia 1.4.1-19, 4.3.1-18).  While Plato’s Timaeus tells the story of a dēmiourgos creating the world, it is Timaeus, not Socrates, who tells the story.  Indeed, Socrates speaks only sparingly at the beginning of the dialogue, and most scholars do not count as Socratic the cosmological arguments therein.

Plato was Socrates’ most famous disciple, and the majority of what most people know about Socrates is known about Plato’s Socrates.  Plato was born to one of the wealthiest and politically influential families in Athens in 427 B.C.E., the son of Ariston and Perictione. His brothers were Glaucon and Adeimantus, who are Socrates’ principal interlocutors for the majority of the Republic .   Though Socrates is not present in every Platonic dialogue, he is in the majority of them, often acting as the main interlocutor who drives the conversation.

The attempt to extract Socratic views from Plato’s texts is itself a notoriously difficult problem, bound up with questions about the order in which Plato composed his dialogues, one’s methodological approach to reading them, and whether or not Socrates, or anyone else for that matter, speaks for Plato.  Readers interested in the details of this debate should consult “ Plato .”  Generally speaking, the predominant view of Plato’s Socrates in the English-speaking world from the middle to the end of the 20 th century was simply that he was Plato’s mouthpiece.  In other words, anything Socrates says in the dialogues is what Plato thought at the time he wrote the dialogue.  This view, put forth by the famous Plato scholar Gregory Vlastos, has been challenged in recent years, with some scholars arguing that Plato has no mouthpiece in the dialogues (see Cooper xxi-xxiii).  While we can attribute to Plato certain doctrines that are consistent throughout his corpus, there is no reason to think that Socrates, or any other speaker, always and consistently espouses these doctrines.

The main interpretive obstacle for those seeking the views of Socrates from Plato is the question of the order of the dialogues.  Thrasyllus, the 1 st century (C.E.) Platonist who was the first to arrange the dialogues according to a specific paradigm, organized the dialogues into nine tetralogies, or groups of four, on the basis of the order in which he believed they should be read.  Another approach, customary for most scholars by the late 20 th century, groups the dialogues into three categories on the basis of the order in which Plato composed them.  Plato begins his career, so the narrative goes, representing his teacher Socrates in typically short conversations about ethics, virtue, and the best human life.  These are “early” dialogues.  Only subsequently does Plato develop his own philosophical views—the most famous of which is the doctrine of the Forms or Ideas—that Socrates defends.  These “middle” dialogues put forth positive doctrines that are generally thought to be Platonic and not Socratic. Finally, towards the end of his life, Plato composes dialogues in which Socrates typically either hardly features at all or is altogether absent.  These are the “late” dialogues.

There are a number of complications with this interpretive thesis, and many of them focus on the portrayal of Socrates.  Though the Gorgias is an early dialogue, Socrates concludes the dialogue with a myth that some scholars attribute to a Pythagorean influence on Plato that he would not have had during Socrates’ lifetime.  Though the Parmenides is a middle dialogue, the younger Socrates speaks only at the beginning before Parmenides alone speaks for the remainder of the dialogue.  While the Philebus is a late dialogue, Socrates is the main speaker.  Some scholars identify the Meno as an early dialogue because Socrates refutes Meno’s attempts to articulate the nature of virtue.  Others, focusing on Socrates’ use of the theory of recollection and the method of hypothesis, argue that it is a middle dialogue.  Finally, while Plato’s most famous work the Republic is a middle dialogue, some scholars make a distinction within the Republic itself.  The first book, they argue, is Socratic, because in it we find Socrates refuting Thrasymachus’ definition of justice while maintaining that he knows nothing about justice.  The rest of the dialogue they claim, with its emphasis on the division of the soul and the metaphysics of the Forms, is Platonic.

To discern a consistent Socrates in Plato is therefore a difficult task.  Instead of speaking about chronology of composition, contemporary scholars searching for views that are likely to have been associated with the historical Socrates generally focus on a group of dialogues that are united by topical similarity.  These “Socratic dialogues” feature Socrates as the principal speaker, challenging his interlocutor to elaborate on and critically examine his own views while typically not putting forth substantive claims of his own.  These dialogues—including those that some scholars think are not written by Plato and those that most scholars agree are not written by Plato but that Thrasyllus included in his collection—are as follows: Euthyphro , Apology , Crito , Alcibiades I , Alcibiades II , Hipparchus , Rival Lovers , Theages , Charmides , Laches , Lysis , Euthydemus , Protagoras , Gorgias , Meno , Greater Hippias , Lesser Hippias , Ion , Menexenus , Clitophon , Minos .  Some of the more famous positions Socrates defends in these dialogues are covered in the content section.

v. Aristotle

Aristotle was born in 384 B.C.E., 15 years after the death of Socrates.  At the age of eighteen, he went to study at Plato’s Academy, and remained there for twenty years.  Afterwards, he traveled throughout Asia and was invited by Phillip II of Macedon to tutor his son Alexander, known to history as Alexander the Great.  While Aristotle would never have had the chance to meet Socrates, we have in his writings an account of both Socrates’ method and the topics about which he had conversations.  Given the likelihood that Aristotle heard about Socrates from Plato and those at his Academy, it is not surprising that most of what he says about Socrates follows the depiction of him in the Platonic dialogues.

Aristotle related four concrete points about Socrates.  The first is that Socrates asked questions without supplying an answer of his own, because he claimed to know nothing ( De Elenchis Sophisticus 1836b6-8).  The picture of Socrates here is consistent with that of Plato’s Apology .  Second, Aristotle claims that Socrates never asked questions about nature, but concerned himself only with ethical questions.  Aristotle thus attributes to the historical Socrates both the method and topics we find in Plato’s Socratic dialogues.

Third, Aristotle claims that Socrates is the first to have employed epagōgē, a word typically rendered in English as “induction.”  This translation, however, is misleading, lest we impute to Socrates a preference for inductive reasoning as opposed to deductive reasoning.  The term better indicates that Socrates was fond or arguing via the use of analogy.  For instance, just as a doctor does not practice medicine for himself but for the best interest of his patient, so the ruler in the city takes no account of his own personal profit, but is rather interested in caring for his citizens ( Republic 342d-e).

The fourth and final claim Aristotle makes about Socrates itself has two parts.  First, Socrates was the first to ask the question, ti esti : what is it?  For example, if someone were to suggest to Socrates that our children should grow up to be courageous, he would ask, what is courage?  That is, what is the universal definition or nature that holds for all examples of courage?  Second, as distinguished from Plato, Socrates did not separate universals from their particular instantiations.  For Plato, the noetic object, the knowable thing, is the separate universal, not the particular.  Socrates simply asked the “what is it” question (on this and the previous two points, see Metaphysics I.6.987a29-b14; cf. b22-24, b27-33, and see XIII.4.1078b12-34).

2. Content: What does Socrates Think?

Given the nature of these sources, the task of recounting what Socrates thought is not an easy one.  Nonetheless, reading Plato’s Apology , it is possible to articulate a number of what scholars today typically associate with Socrates.  Plato the author has his Socrates claim that Plato was present in the courtroom for Socrates’ defense ( Apology 34a), and while this cannot mean that Plato records the defense as a word for word transcription, it is the closest thing we have to an account of what Socrates actually said at a concrete point in his life.

a. Presocratic Philosophy and the Sophists

Socrates opens his defense speech by defending himself against his older accusers ( Apology 18a), claiming they have poisoned the minds of his jurors since they were all young men.  Amongst these accusers was Aristophanes.  In addition to the claim that Socrates makes the worse argument into the stronger, there is a rumor that Socrates idles the day away talking about things in the sky and below the earth.  His reply is that he never discusses such topics ( Apology 18a-c).  Socrates is distinguishing himself here not just from the sophists and their alleged ability to invert the strength of arguments, but from those we have now come to call the Presocratic philosophers.

The Presocratics were not just those who came before Socrates, for there are some Presocratic philosophers who were his contemporaries.  The term is sometimes used to suggest that, while Socrates cared about ethics, the Presocratic philosophers did not.  This is misleading, for we have evidence that a number of Presocratics explored ethical issues.  The term is best used to refer to the group of thinkers whom Socrates did not influence and whose fundamental uniting characteristic was that they sought to explain the world in terms of its own inherent principles.  The 6 th cn. Milesian Thales, for instance, believed that the fundamental principle of all things was water.  Anaximander believed the principle was the indefinite (apeiron), and for Anaxamines it was air.  Later in Plato’s Apology (26d-e), Socrates rhetorically asks whether Meletus thinks he is prosecuting Anaxagoras, the 5 th cn. thinker who argued that the universe was originally a mixture of elements that have since been set in motion by Nous , or Mind.  Socrates suggests that he does not engage in the same sort of cosmological inquiries that were the main focus of many Presocratics.

The other group against which Socrates compares himself is the Sophists, learned men who travelled from city to city offering to teach the youth for a fee.  While he claims he thinks it an admirable thing to teach as Gorgias, Prodicus, or Hippias claim they can ( Apology 20a), he argues that he himself does not have knowledge of human excellence or virtue ( Apology 20b-c).  Though Socrates inquires after the nature of virtue, he does not claim to know it, and certainly does not ask to be paid for his conversations.

b. Socratic Themes in Plato’s Apology

I. socratic ignorance.

Plato’s Socrates moves next to explain the reason he has acquired the reputation he has and why so many citizens dislike him.  The oracle at Delphi told Socrates’ friend Chaerephon, “no one is wiser than Socrates” ( Apology 21a).  Socrates explains that he was not aware of any wisdom he had, and so set out to find someone who had wisdom in order to demonstrate that the oracle was mistaken.  He first went to the politicians but found them lacking wisdom.  He next visited the poets and found that, though they spoke in beautiful verses, they did so through divine inspiration, not because they had wisdom of any kind.  Finally, Socrates found that the craftsmen had knowledge of their own craft, but that they subsequently believed themselves to know much more than they actually did.  Socrates concluded that he was better off than his fellow citizens because, while they thought they knew something and did not, he was aware of his own ignorance.  The god who speaks through the oracle, he says, is truly wise, whereas human wisdom is worth little or nothing ( Apology 23a).

This awareness of one’s own absence of knowledge is what is known as Socratic ignorance, and it is arguably the thing for which Socrates is most famous.  Socratic ignorance is sometimes called simple ignorance, to be distinguished from the double ignorance of the citizens with whom Socrates spoke.  Simple ignorance is being aware of one’s own ignorance, whereas double ignorance is not being aware of one’s ignorance while thinking that one knows.  In showing many influential figures in Athens that they did not know what they thought they did, Socrates came to be despised in many circles.

It is worth nothing that Socrates does not claim here that he knows nothing.  He claims that he is aware of his ignorance and that whatever it is that he does know is worthless.  Socrates has a number of strong convictions about what makes for an ethical life, though he cannot articulate precisely why these convictions are true.  He believes for instance that it is never just to harm anyone, whether friend or enemy, but he does not, at least in Book I of the Republic , offer a systematic account of the nature of justice that could demonstrate why this is true.  Because of his insistence on repeated inquiry, Socrates has refined his convictions such that he can both hold particular views about justice while maintaining that he does not know the complete nature of justice.

We can see this contrast quite clearly in Socrates’ cross-examination of his accuser Meletus.  Because he is charged with corrupting the youth, Socrates inquires after who it is that helps the youth ( Apology , 24d-25a).  In the same way that we take a horse to a horse trainer to improve it, Socrates wants to know the person to whom we take a young person to educate him and improve him.  Meletus’ silence condemns him: he has never bothered to reflect on such matters, and therefore is unaware of his ignorance about matters that are the foundation of his own accusation ( Apology 25b-c).  Whether or not Socrates—or Plato for that matter—actually thinks it is possible to achieve expertise in virtue is a subject on which scholars disagree.

ii. Priority of the Care of the Soul

Throughout his defense speech ( Apology 20a-b, 24c-25c, 31b, 32d, 36c, 39d) Socrates repeatedly stresses that a human being must care for his soul more than anything else (see also Crito 46c-47d, Euthyphro 13b-c, Gorgias 520a4ff).  Socrates found that his fellow citizens cared more for wealth, reputation, and their bodies while neglecting their souls ( Apology 29d-30b).  He believed that his mission from the god was to examine his fellow citizens and persuade them that the most important good for a human being was the health of the soul. Wealth, he insisted, does not bring about human excellence or virtue, but virtue makes wealth and everything else good for human beings ( Apology 30b).

Socrates believes that his mission of caring for souls extends to the entirety of the city of Athens.  He argues that the god gave him to the city as a gift and that his mission is to help improve the city.  He thus attempts to show that he is not guilty of impiety precisely because everything he does is in response to the oracle and at the service of the god.  Socrates characterizes himself as a gadfly and the city as a sluggish horse in need of stirring up ( Apology 30e).  Without philosophical inquiry, the democracy becomes stagnant and complacent, in danger of harming itself and others.  Just as the gadfly is an irritant to the horse but rouses it to action, so Socrates supposes that his purpose is to agitate those around him so that they begin to examine themselves.  One might compare this claim with Socrates’ assertion in the Gorgias that, while his contemporaries aim at gratification, he practices the true political craft because he aims at what is best (521d-e).  Such comments, in addition to the historical evidence that we have, are Socrates’ strongest defense that he is not only not a burden to the democracy but a great asset to it.

iii. The Unexamined Life

After the jury has convicted Socrates and sentenced him to death, he makes one of the most famous proclamations in the history of philosophy.  He tells the jury that he could never keep silent, because “the unexamined life is not worth living for human beings” ( Apology 38a).  We find here Socrates’ insistence that we are all called to reflect upon what we believe, account for what we know and do not know, and generally speaking to seek out, live in accordance with, and defend those views that make for a well lived and meaningful life.

Some scholars call attention to Socrates’ emphasis on human nature here, and argue that the call to live examined lives follows from our nature as human beings.  We are naturally directed by pleasure and pain.  We are drawn to power, wealth and reputation, the sorts of values to which Athenians were drawn as well.  Socrates’ call to live examined lives is not necessarily an insistence to reject all such motivations and inclinations but rather an injunction to appraise their true worth for the human soul.  The purpose of the examined life is to reflect upon our everyday motivations and values and to subsequently inquire into what real worth, if any, they have.  If they have no value or indeed are even harmful, it is upon us to pursue those things that are truly valuable.

One can see in reading the Apology that Socrates examines the lives of his jurors during his own trial.  By asserting the primacy of the examined life after he has been convicted and sentenced to death, Socrates, the prosecuted, becomes the prosecutor, surreptitiously accusing those who convicted him of not living a life that respects their own humanity.  He tells them that by killing him they will not escape examining their lives.  To escape giving an account of one’s life is neither possible nor good, Socrates claims, but it is best to prepare oneself to be as good as possible ( Apology 39d-e).

We find here a conception of a well-lived life that differs from one that would likely be supported by many contemporary philosophers.  Today, most philosophers would argue that we must live ethical lives (though what this means is of course a matter of debate) but that it is not necessary for everyone to engage in the sort of discussions Socrates had every day, nor must one do so in order to be considered a good person.  A good person, we might say, lives a good life insofar as he does what is just, but he does not necessarily need to be consistently engaged in debates about the nature of justice or the purpose of the state.  No doubt Socrates would disagree, not just because the law might be unjust or the state might do too much or too little, but because, insofar as we are human beings, self-examination is always beneficial to us.

c. Other Socratic Positions and Arguments

In addition to the themes one finds in the Apology , the following are a number of other positions in the Platonic corpus that are typically considered Socratic.

i. Unity of Virtue; All Virtue is Knowledge

In the Protagoras (329b-333b) Socrates argues for the view that all of the virtues—justice, wisdom, courage, piety, and so forth—are one.  He provides a number of arguments for this thesis.  For example, while it is typical to think that one can be wise without being temperate, Socrates rejects this possibility on the grounds that wisdom and temperance both have the same opposite: folly.  Were they truly distinct, they would each have their own opposites.  As it stands, the identity of their opposites indicates that one cannot possess wisdom without temperance and vice versa.

This thesis is sometimes paired with another Socratic, view, that is, that virtue is a form of knowledge ( Meno 87e-89a; cf. Euthydemus 278d-282a).  Things like beauty, strength, and health benefit human beings, but can also harm them if they are not accompanied by knowledge or wisdom.  If virtue is to be beneficial it must be knowledge, since all the qualities of the soul are in themselves neither beneficial not harmful, but are only beneficial when accompanied by wisdom and harmful when accompanied by folly.

ii. No One Errs Knowingly/No One Errs Willingly

Socrates famously declares that no one errs or makes mistakes knowingly ( Protagoras 352c, 358b-b).  Here we find an example of Socrates’ intellectualism.  When a person does what is wrong, their failure to do what is right is an intellectual error, or due to their own ignorance about what is right.  If the person knew what was right, he would have done it.  Hence, it is not possible for someone simultaneously to know what is right and to do what is wrong.  If someone does what is wrong, they do so because they do not know what is right, and if they claim they have known what was right at the time when they committed the wrong, they are mistaken, for had they truly known what was right, they would have done it.

Socrates therefore denies the possibility of akrasia, or weakness of the will.  No one errs willingly ( Protagoras 345c4-e6).  While it might seem that Socrates is equivocating between knowingly and willingly, a look at Gorgias 466a-468e helps clarify his thesis.  Tyrants and orators, Socrates tells Polus, have the least power of any member of the city because they do not do what they want.  What they do is not good or beneficial even though human beings only want what is good or beneficial.  The tyrant’s will, corrupted by ignorance, is in such a state that what follows from it will necessarily harm him.  Conversely, the will that is purified by knowledge is in such a state that what follows from it will necessarily be beneficial.

iii. All Desire is for the Good

One of the premises of the argument just mentioned is that human beings only desire the good.  When a person does something for the sake of something else, it is always the thing for the sake of which he is acting that he wants.  All bad things or intermediate things are done not for themselves but for the sake of something else that is good.  When a tyrant puts someone to death, for instance, he does this because he thinks it is beneficial in some way.  Hence his action is directed towards the good because this is what he truly wants ( Gorgias 467c-468b).

A similar version of this argument is in the Meno , 77b-78b.  Those that desire bad things do not know that they are truly bad; otherwise, they would not desire them.  They do not naturally desire what is bad but rather desire those things that they believe to be good but that are in fact bad.  They desire good things even though they lack knowledge of what is actually good.

iv. It is Better to Suffer an Injustice Than to Commit One

Socrates infuriates Polus with the argument that it is better to suffer an injustice than commit one ( Gorgias 475a-d).  Polus agrees that it is more shameful to commit an injustice, but maintains it is not worse.  The worst thing, in his view, is to suffer injustice.  Socrates argues that, if something is more shameful, it surpasses in either badness or pain or both.  Since committing an injustice is not more painful than suffering one, committing an injustice cannot surpass in pain or both pain and badness.  Committing an injustice surpasses suffering an injustice in badness; differently stated, committing an injustice is worse than suffering one.  Therefore, given the choice between the two, we should choose to suffer rather than commit an injustice.

This argument must be understood in terms of the Socratic emphasis on the care of the soul.  Committing an injustice corrupts one’s soul, and therefore committing injustice is the worst thing a person can do to himself (cf. Crito 47d-48a, Republic I 353d-354a).  If one commits injustice, Socrates goes so far as to claim that it is better to seek punishment than avoid it on the grounds that the punishment will purge or purify the soul of its corruption ( Gorgias 476d-478e).

v. Eudaimonism

The Greek word for happiness is eudaimonia , which signifies not merely feeling a certain way but being a certain way.  A different way of translating eudaimonia is well-being.  Many scholars believe that Socrates holds two related but not equivalent principles regarding eudaimonia: first, that it is rationally required that a person make his own happiness the foundational consideration for his actions, and second, that each person does in fact pursue happiness as the foundational consideration for his actions.  In relation to Socrates’ emphasis on virtue, it is not entirely clear what that means.  Virtue could be identical to happiness—in which case there is no difference between the two and if I am virtuous I am by definition happy—virtue could be a part of happiness—in which case if I am virtuous I will be happy although I could be made happier by the addition of other goods—or virtue could be instrumental for happiness—in which case if I am virtuous I might be happy (and I couldn’t be happy without virtue), but there is no guarantee that I will be happy.

There are a number of passages in the Apology that seem to indicate that the greatest good for a human being is having philosophical conversation (36b-d, 37e-38a, 40e-41c). Meno 87c-89a suggests that knowledge of the good guides the soul toward happiness (cf. Euthydemus 278e-282a).  And at Gorgias 507a-c Socrates suggests that the virtuous person, acting in accordance with wisdom, attains happiness (cf. Gorgias 478c-e: the happiest person has no badness in his soul).

vi. Ruling is An Expertise

Socrates is committed to the theme that ruling is a kind of craft or art ( technē ).  As such, it requires knowledge.  Just as a doctor brings about a desired result for his patient—health, for instance—so the ruler should bring about some desired result in his subject ( Republic 341c-d, 342c).  Medicine, insofar as it has the best interest of its patient in mind, never seeks to benefit the practitioner.  Similarly, the ruler’s job is to act not for his own benefit but for the benefit of the citizens of the political community.  This is not to say that there might not be some contingent benefit that accrues to the practitioner; the doctor, for instance, might earn a fine salary.  But this benefit is not intrinsic to the expertise of medicine as such.  One could easily conceive of a doctor that makes very little money.  One cannot, however, conceive of a doctor that does not act on behalf of his patient.  Analogously, ruling is always for the sake of the ruled citizen, and justice, contra the famous claim from Thrasymachus, is not whatever is in the interest of the ruling power ( Republic 338c-339a).

d. Socrates the Ironist

The suspicion that Socrates is an ironist can mean a number of things: on the one hand, it can indicate that Socrates is saying something with the intent to convey the opposite meaning.  Some readers for instance, including a number in the ancient world, understood Socrates’ avowal of ignorance in precisely this way.  Many have interpreted Socrates’ praise of Euthyphro, in which he claims that he can learn from him and will become his pupil, as an example of this sort of irony ( Euthyphro 5a-b).  On the other hand, the Greek word eirōneia was understood to carry with it a sense of subterfuge, rendering the sense of the word something like masking with the intent to deceive.

Additionally, there are a number of related questions about Socrates’ irony.   Is the interlocutor supposed to be aware of the irony, or is he ignorant of it?  Is it the job of the reader to discern the irony?  Is the purpose of irony rhetorical, intended to maintain Socrates’ position as the director of the conversation, or pedagogical, meant to encourage the interlocutor to learn something?  Could it be both?

Scholars disagree on the sense in which we ought to call Socrates ironic.  When Socrates asks Callicles to tell him what he means by the stronger and to go easy on him so that he might learn better, Callicles claims he is being ironic ( Gorgias 489e).  Thrasymachus accuses Socrates of being ironic insofar as he pretends he does not have an account of justice, when he is actually hiding what he truly thinks ( Republic 337a).  And though the Symposium is generally not thought to be a “Socratic” dialogue, we there find Alcibiades accusing Socrates of being ironic insofar as he acts like he is interested in him but then deny his advances ( Symposium 216e, 218d).  It is not clear which kind of irony is at work with these examples.

Aristotle defines irony as an attempt at self-deprecation ( Nicomachean Ethics 4.7, 1127b23-26).  He argues that self-deprecation is the opposite of boastfulness, and people that engage in this sort of irony do so to avoid pompousness and make their characters more attractive.  Above all, such people disclaim things that bring reputation.  On this reading, Socrates was prone to understatement.

There are some thinkers for whom Socratic irony is not just restricted to what Socrates says.  The 19 th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard held the view that Socrates himself, his character, is ironic.  The 20 th century philosopher Leo Strauss defined irony as the noble dissimulation of one’s worth.  On this reading, Socrates’ irony consisted in his refusal to display his superiority in front of his inferiors so that his message would be understood only by the privileged few.  As such, Socratic irony is intended to conceal Socrates’ true message.

3. Method: How Did Socrates Do Philosophy?

As famous as the Socratic themes are, the Socratic method is equally famous.  Socrates conducted his philosophical activity by means of question an answer, and we typically associate with him a method called the elenchus .  At the same time, Plato’s Socrates calls himself a midwife—who has no ideas of his own but helps give birth to the ideas of others—and proceeds dialectically—defined either as asking questions, embracing the practice of collection and division, or proceeding from hypotheses to first principles.

a. The Elenchus: Socrates the Refuter

A typical Socratic elenchus is a cross-examination of a particular position, proposition, or definition, in which Socrates tests what his interlocutor says and refutes it.  There is, however, great debate amongst scholars regarding not only what is being refuted but also whether or not the elenchus can prove anything.  There are questions, in other words, about the topic of the elenchus and its purpose or goal.

Socrates typically begins his elenchus with the question, “what is it”?  What is piety, he asks Euthyphro.  Euthyphro appears to give five separate definitions of piety: piety is proceeding against whomever does injustice (5d-6e), piety is what is loved by the gods (6e-7a), piety is what is loved by all the gods (9e), the godly and the pious is the part of the just that is concerned with the care of the gods (12e), and piety is the knowledge of sacrificing and praying (13d-14a).  For some commentators, what Socrates is searching for here is a definition.  Other commentators argue that Socrates is searching for more than just the definition of piety but seeks a comprehensive account of the nature of piety.  Whatever the case, Socrates refutes the answer given to him in response to the ‘what is it’ question.

Another reading of the Socratic elenchus is that Socrates is not just concerned with the reply of the interlocutor but is concerned with the interlocutor himself.  According to this view, Socrates is as much concerned with the truth or falsity of propositions as he is with the refinement of the interlocutor’s way of life.  Socrates is concerned with both epistemological and moral advances for the interlocutor and himself.  It is not propositions or replies alone that are refuted, for Socrates does not conceive of them dwelling in isolation from those that hold them.  Thus conceived, the elenchus refutes the person holding a particular view, not just the view.  For instance, Socrates shames Thrasymachus when he shows him that he cannot maintain his view that justice is ignorance and injustice is wisdom ( Republic I 350d).  The elenchus demonstrates that Thrasymachus cannot consistently maintain all his claims about the nature of justice.  This view is consistent with a view we find in Plato’s late dialogue called the Sophist , in which the Visitor from Elea, not Socrates, claims that the soul will not get any advantage from learning that it is offered to it until someone shames it by refuting it (230b-d).

ii. Purpose

In terms of goal, there are two common interpretations of the elenchus.  Both have been developed by scholars in response to what Gregory Vlastos called the problem of the Socratic elenchus.  The problem is how Socrates can claim that position W is false, when the only thing he has established is its inconsistency with other premises whose truth he has not tried to establish in the elenchus.

The first response is what is called the constructivist position.  A constructivist argues that the elenchus establishes the truth or falsity of individual answers.  The elenchus on this interpretation can and does have positive results.  Vlastos himself argued that Socrates not only established the inconsistency of the interlocutor’s beliefs by showing their inconsistency, but that Socrates’ own moral beliefs were always consistent, able to withstand the test of the elenchus.  Socrates could therefore pick out a faulty premise in his elenctic exchange with an interlocutor, and sought to replace the interlocutor’s false beliefs with his own.

The second response is called the non-constructivist position.  This position claims that Socrates does not think the elenchus can establish the truth or falsity of individual answers.  The non-constructivist argues that all the elenchus can show is the inconsistency of W with the premises X, Y, and Z.  It cannot establish that ~W is the case, or, for that matter, replace any of the premises with another, for this would require a separate argument.  The elenchus establishes the falsity of the conjunction of W, X, Y, and Z, but not the truth or falsity of any of those premises individually.  The purpose of the elenchus on this interpretation is to show the interlocutor that he is confused, and, according to some scholars, to use that confusion as a stepping stone on the way to establishing a more consistent, well-formed set of beliefs.

b. Maieutic: Socrates the Midwife

In Plato’s Theaetetus Socrates identifies himself as a midwife (150b-151b).  While the dialogue is not generally considered Socratic, it is elenctic insofar as it tests and refutes Theaetetus’ definitions of knowledge.  It also ends without a conclusive answer to its question, a characteristic it shares with a number of Socratic dialogues.

Socrates tells Theaetetus that his mother Phaenarete was a midwife (149a) and that he himself is an intellectual midwife.  Whereas the craft of midwifery (150b-151d) brings on labor pains or relieves them in order to help a woman deliver a child, Socrates does not watch over the body but over the soul, and helps his interlocutor give birth to an idea.  He then applies the elenchus to test whether or not the intellectual offspring is a phantom or a fertile truth.  Socrates stresses that both he and actual midwives are barren, and cannot give birth to their own offspring.  In spite of his own emptiness of ideas, Socrates claims to be skilled at bringing forth the ideas of others and examining them.

c. Dialectic: Socrates the Constructer

The method of dialectic is thought to be more Platonic than Socratic, though one can understand why many have associated it with Socrates himself.  For one thing, the Greek dialegesthai ordinarily means simply “to converse” or “to discuss.”  Hence when Socrates is distinguishing this sort of discussion from rhetorical exposition in the Gorgias , the contrast seems to indicate his preference for short questions and answers as opposed to longer speeches (447b-c, 448d-449c).

There are two other definitions of dialectic in the Platonic corpus.  First, in the Republic , Socrates distinguishes between dianoetic thinking, which makes use of the senses and assumes hypotheses, and dialectical thinking, which does not use the senses and goes beyond hypotheses to first principles ( Republic VII 510c-511c, 531d-535a).  Second, in the Phaedrus , Sophist, Statesman , and Philebus , dialectic is defined as a method of collection and division.  One collects things that are scattered into one kind and also divides each kind according to its species ( Phaedrus 265d-266c).

Some scholars view the elenchus and dialectic as fundamentally different methods with different goals, while others view them as consistent and reconcilable.  Some even view them as two parts of one argument procedure, in which the elenchus refutes and dialectic constructs.

4. Legacy: How Have Other Philosophers Understood Socrates?

Nearly every school of philosophy in antiquity had something positive to say about Socrates, and most of them drew their inspiration from him.  Socrates also appears in the works of many famous modern philosophers.  Immanuel Kant, the 18 th century German philosopher best known for the categorical imperative, hailed Socrates, amongst other ancient philosophers, as someone who didn’t just speculate but who lived philosophically.  One of the more famous quotes about Socrates is from John Stuart Mill, the 19 th century utilitarian philosopher who claimed that it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.  The following is but a brief survey of Socrates as he is treated in philosophical thinking that emerges after the death of Aristotle in 322 B.C.E.

a. Hellenistic Philosophy

I. the cynics.

The Cynics greatly admired Socrates, and traced their philosophical lineage back to him.  One of the first representatives of the Socratic legacy was the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope.  No genuine writings of Diogenes have survived and most of our evidence about him is anecdotal.  Nevertheless, scholars attribute a number of doctrines to him.  He sought to undermine convention as a foundation for ethical values and replace it with nature.  He understood the essence of human being to be rational, and defined happiness as freedom and self-mastery, an objective readily accessible to those who trained the body and mind.

ii. The Stoics

There is a biographical story according to which Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school and not the Zeno of Zeno’s Paradoxes, became interested in philosophy by reading and inquiring about Socrates.  The Stoics took themselves to be authentically Socratic, especially in defending the unqualified restriction of ethical goodness to ethical excellence, the conception of ethical excellence as a kind of knowledge, a life not requiring any bodily or external advantage nor ruined by any bodily disadvantage, and the necessity and sufficiency of ethical excellence for complete happiness.

Zeno is known for his characterization of the human good as a smooth flow of life.  Stoics were therefore attracted to the Socratic elenchus because it could expose inconsistencies—both social and psychological—that disrupted one’s life.  In the absence of justification for a specific action or belief, one would not be in harmony with oneself, and therefore would not live well.  On the other hand, if one held a position that survived cross-examination, such a position would be consistent and coherent.  The Socratic elenchus was thus not just an important social and psychological test, but also an epistemological one.  The Stoics held that knowledge was a coherent set of psychological attitudes, and therefore a person holding attitudes that could withstand the elenchus could be said to have knowledge.  Those with inconsistent or incoherent psychological commitments were thought to be ignorant.

Socrates also figures in Roman Stoicism, particularly in the works of Seneca and Epictetus.  Both men admired Socrates’ strength of character.  Seneca praises Socrates for his ability to remain consistent unto himself in the face of the threat posed by the Thirty Tyrants, and also highlights the Socratic focus on caring for oneself instead of fleeing oneself and seeking fulfillment by external means.  Epictetus, when offering advice about holding to one’s own moral laws as inviolable maxims, claims, “though you are not yet a Socrates, you ought, however, to live as one desirous of becoming a Socrates” ( Enchiridion 50).

One aspect of Socrates to which Epictetus was particularly attracted was the elenchus.  Though his understanding of the process is in some ways different from Socrates’, throughout his Discourses Epictetus repeatedly stresses the importance of recognition of one’s ignorance (2.17.1) and awareness of one’s own impotence regarding essentials (2.11.1).  He characterizes Socrates as divinely appointed to hold the elenctic position (3.21.19) and associates this role with Socrates’ protreptic expertise (2.26.4-7).  Epictetus encouraged his followers to practice the elenchus on themselves, and claims that Socrates did precisely this on account of his concern with self-examination (2.1.32-3).

iii. The Skeptics

Broadly speaking, skepticism is the view that we ought to be either suspicious of claims to epistemological truth or at least withhold judgment from affirming absolute claims to knowledge.  Amongst Pyrrhonian skeptics, Socrates appears at times like a dogmatist and at other times like a skeptic or inquirer.  On the one hand, Sextus Empiricus lists Socrates as a thinker who accepts the existence of god ( Against the Physicists , I.9.64) and then recounts the cosmological argument that Xenophon attributes to Socrates ( Against the Physicists , I.9.92-4).  On the other hand, in arguing that human being is impossible to conceive, Sextus Empiricus cites Socrates as unsure whether or not he is a human being or something else ( Outlines of Pyrrhonism 2.22).  Socrates is also said to have remained in doubt about this question ( Against the Professors 7.264).

Academic skeptics grounded their position that nothing can be known in Socrates’ admission of ignorance in the Apology (Cicero, On the Orator 3.67, Academics 1.44).  Arcesilaus, the first head of the Academy to take it toward a skeptical turn, picked up from Socrates the procedure of arguing, first asking others to give their positions and then refuting them (Cicero, On Ends 2.2, On the Orator 3.67, On the Nature of the Gods 1.11).  While the Academy would eventually move away from skepticism, Cicero, speaking on behalf of the Academy of Philo, makes the claim that Socrates should be understood as endorsing the claim that nothing, other than one’s own ignorance, could be known ( Academics 2.74).

iv. The Epicurean

The Epicureans were one of the few schools that criticized Socrates, though many scholars think that this was in part because of their animus toward their Stoic counterparts, who admired him.  In general, Socrates is depicted in Epicurean writings as a sophist, rhetorician, and skeptic who ignored natural science for the sake of ethical inquiries that concluded without answers.  Colotes criticizes Socrates’ statement in the Phaedrus (230a) that he does not know himself (Plutarch, Against Colotes 21 1119b), and Philodemus attacks Socrates’ argument in the Protagoras (319d) that virtue cannot be taught ( Rhetoric I 261, 8ff).

The Epicureans wrote a number of books against several of Plato’s Socratic dialogues, including the Lysis , Euthydemus , and Gorgias .  In the Gorgias we find Socrates suspicious of the view that pleasure is intrinsically worthy and his insistence that pleasure is not the equivalent of the good ( Gorgias 495b-499b).  In defining pleasure as freedom from disturbance ( ataraxia ) and defining this sort of pleasure as the sole good for human beings, the Epicureans shared little with the unbridled hedonism Socrates criticizes Callicles for embracing.  Indeed, in the Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus explicitly argues against pursuing this sort of pleasure (131-132).  Nonetheless, the Epicureans did equate pleasure with the good, and the view that pleasure is not the equivalent of the good could not have endeared Socrates to their sentiment.

Another reason for the Epicurean refusal to praise Socrates or make him a cornerstone of their tradition was his perceived irony.  According to Cicero, Epicurus was opposed to Socrates’ representing himself as ignorant while simultaneously praising others like Protagoras, Hippias, Prodicus, and Gorgias ( Rhetoric , Vol. II, Brutus 292).  This irony for the Epicureans was pedagogically pointless: if Socrates had something to say, he should have said it instead of hiding it.

v. The Peripatetics

Aristotle’s followers, the Peripatetics, either said little about Socrates or were pointedly vicious in their attacks.  Amongst other things, the Peripatetics accused Socrates of being a bigamist, a charge that appears to have gained so much traction that the Stoic Panaetius wrote a refutation of it (Plutarch, Aristides 335c-d).  The general peripatetic criticism of Socrates, similar in one way to the Epicureans, was that he concentrated solely on ethics, and that this was an unacceptable ideal for the philosophical life.

b. Modern Philosophy

In Socrates, Hegel found what he called the great historic turning point ( Philosophy of History , 448).  With Socrates, Hegel claims, two opposed rights came into collision: the individual consciousness and the universal law of the state.  Prior to Socrates, morality for the ancients was present but it was not present Socratically.  That is, the good was present as a universal, without its having had the form of the conviction of the individual in his consciousness (407).  Morality was present as an immediate absolute, directing the lives of citizens without their having reflected upon it and deliberated about it for themselves.  The law of the state, Hegel claims, had authority as the law of the gods, and thus had a universal validity that was recognized by all (408).

In Hegel’s view the coming of Socrates signals a shift in the relationship between the individual and morality.  The immediate now had to justify itself to the individual consciousness.  Hegel thus not only ascribes to Socrates the habit of asking questions about what one should do but also about the actions that the state has prescribed.  With Socrates, consciousness is turned back within itself and demands that the law should establish itself before consciousness, internal to it, not merely outside it (408-410).   Hegel attributes to Socrates a reflective questioning that is skeptical, which moves the individual away from unreflective obedience and into reflective inquiry about the ethical standards of one’s community.

Generally, Hegel finds in Socrates a skepticism that renders ordinary or immediate knowledge confused and insecure, in need of reflective certainty which only consciousness can bring (370).  Though he attributes to the sophists the same general skeptical comportment, in Socrates Hegel locates human subjectivity at a higher level.  With Socrates and onward we have the world raising itself to the level of conscious thought and becoming object for thought.  The question as to what Nature is gives way to the question about what Truth is, and the question about the relationship of self-conscious thought to real essence becomes the predominant philosophical issue (450-1).

ii. Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard ’s most well recognized views on Socrates are from his dissertation, The Concept of Irony With Continual Reference to Socrates .  There, he argues that Socrates is not the ethical figure that the history of philosophy has thought him to be, but rather an ironist in all that he does.  Socrates does not just speak ironically but is ironic.  Indeed, while most people have found Aristophanes’ portrayal of Socrates an obvious exaggeration and caricature, Kierkegaard goes so far as to claim that he came very close to the truth in his depiction of Socrates.  He rejects Hegel’s picture of Socrates ushering in a new era of philosophical reflection and instead argues that the limits of Socratic irony testified to the need for religious faith.  As opposed to the Hegelian view that Socratic irony was an instrument in the service of the development of self-consciousness, Kierkegaard claims that irony was Socrates’ position or comportment, and that he did not have any more than this to give.

Later in his writing career Kierkegaard comes to think that he has neglected Socrates’ significance as an ethical and religious figure.  In his final essay entitled My Task, Kierkegaard claims that his mission is a Socratic one; that is, in his task to reinvigorate a Christianity that remained the cultural norm but had, in Kierkegaard’s eyes, nearly ceased altogether to be practiced authentically, Kierkegaard conceives of himself as a kind of Christian Socrates, rousing Christians from their complacency to a conception of Christian faith as the highest, most passionate expression of individual subjectivity.  Kierkegaard therefore sees himself as a sort of Christian gadfly.  The Socratic call to become aware of one’s own ignorance finds its parallel in the Kierkegaardian call to recognize one’s own failing to truly live as a Christian.  The Socratic claim to ignorance—while Socrates is closer to knowledge than his contemporaries—is replaced by the Kierkegaard’s claim that he is not a Christian—though certainly more so than his own contemporaries.

iii. Nietzsche

Nietzsche ’s most famous account of Socrates is his scathing portrayal in The Birth of Tragedy , in which Socrates and rational thinking lead to the emergence of an age of decadence in Athens.  The delicate balance in Greek culture between the Apollonian—order, calmness, self-control, restraint—and the Dionysian—chaos, revelry, self-forgetfulness, indulgence— initially represented on stage in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, gave way to the rationalism of Euripides.  Euripides, Nietzsche argues, was only a mask for the newborn demon called Socrates (section 12).  Tragedy—and Greek culture more generally—was corrupted by “aesthetic Socratism”, whose supreme law, Nietzsche argues, was that ‘to be beautiful everything must be intelligible’.  Whereas the former sort of tragedy absorbed the spectator in the activities and sufferings of its chief characters, the emergence of Socrates heralded the onset of a new kind of tragedy in which this identification is obstructed by the spectators having to figure out the meaning and presuppositions of the characters’ suffering.

Nietzsche continues his attack on Socrates later in his career in Twilight of the Idols.   Socrates here represents the lowest class of people (section 3), and his irony consists in his being an exaggeration at the same time as he conceals himself (4).  He is the inventor of dialectic (5) which he wields mercilessly because, being an ugly plebeian, he had no other means of expressing himself (6) and therefore employed question and answer to render his opponent powerless (7).  Socrates turned dialectic into a new kind of contest (8), and because his instincts had turned against each other and were in anarchy (9), he established the rule of reason as a counter-tyrant in order not to perish (10).  Socrates’ decadence here consists in his having to fight his instincts (11).  He was thus profoundly anti-life, so much so that he wanted to die (12).

Nonetheless, while Nietzsche accuses Socrates of decadence, he nevertheless recognizes him as a powerful individual, which perhaps accounts for why we at times find in Nietzsche a hesitant admiration of Socrates.  He calls Socrates one of the very greatest instinctive forces ( The Birth of Tragedy, section 13), labels him as a “free spirit” ( Human, All Too Human I, 433) praises him as the first “philosopher of life” in his 17 th lecture on the Preplatonics, and anoints him a ‘virtuoso of life’ in his notebooks from 1875.  Additionally, contra Twilight of the Idols , in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche speaks of a death in which one’s virtue still shines, and some commentators have seen in this a celebration of the way in which Socrates died.

iv. Heidegger

Heidegger finds in Socrates a kinship with his own view that the truth of philosophy lies in a certain way of seeing things, and thus is identical with a particular kind of method.  He attributes to Socrates the view that the truth of some subject matter shows itself not in some definition that is the object or end of a process of inquiry, but in the very process of inquiry itself.  Heidegger characterizes the Socratic method as a kind of productive negation: by refuting that which stands in front of it—in Socrates’ case, an interlocutor’s definition—it discloses the positive in the very process of questioning.  Socrates is not interested in articulating propositions about piety but rather concerned with persisting in a questioning relation to it that preserves its irreducible sameness.  Behind multiple examples of pious action is Piety, and yet Piety is not something that can be spoken of.  It is that which discloses itself through the process of silent interrogation.

It is precisely in his emphasis on silence that Heidegger diverges from Socrates.  Where Socrates insisted on the give and take of question and answer, Heideggerian questioning is not necessarily an inquiry into the views of others but rather an openness to the truth that one maintains without the need to speak.  To remain in dialogue with a given phenomenon is not the same thing as conversing about it, and true dialogue is always silent.

As Heidegger’s student, Gadamer shares his fundamental view that truth and method cannot be divorced in philosophy.  At the same time, his hermeneutics leads him to argue for the importance of dialectic as conversation.  Gadamer claims that whereas philosophical dialectic presents the whole truth by superceding all its partial propositions, hermeneutics too has the task of revealing a totality of meaning in all its relations.  The distinguishing characteristic of Gadamer’s hermeneutical dialectic is that it recognizes radical finitude: we are always already in an open-ended dialogical situation.  Conversation with the interlocutor is thus not a distraction that leads us away from seeing the truth but rather is the site of truth.  It is for this reason that Gadamer claims Plato communicated his philosophy only in dialogues: it was more than just homage to Socrates, but was a reflection of his view that the word find its confirmation in another and in the agreement of another.

Gadamer also sees in the Socratic method an ethical way of being.  That is, he does not just think that Socrates converses about ethics but that repeated Socratic conversation is itself indicative of an ethical comportment.  On this account, Socrates knows the good not because he can give some final definition of it but rather because of his readiness to give an account of it.  The problem of not living an examined life is not that we might live without knowing what is ethical, but because without asking questions as Socrates does, we will not be ethical.

5. References and Further Reading

• Ahbel-Rappe, Sara, and Rachana Kamtekar (eds.), A Companion to Socrates (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
• Arrowsmith, William, Lattimore, Richmond, and Parker, Douglass (trans.), Four Plays by Aristophanes: The Clouds, The Birds, Lysistrata, The Frogs (New York: Meridian, 1994).
• Barnes, Jonathan, Complete Works of Aristotle vols. 1 & 2  (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
• Benson, Hugh H. (ed.), Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
• Brickhouse, Thomas C. & Smith, Nicholas D., Plato’s Socrates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
• Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985).
• Cooper, John M., Plato: Collected Works (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).
• Guthrie, W.K.C., Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971).
• Kahn, Charles H., Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
• Kraut, Richard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
• Morrison, Donald R., The Cambridge Companion to Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
• Rudebusch, George, Socrates (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
• Santas, Gerasimos, Socrates: Philosophy in Plato’s Early Dialogues (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979).
• Taylor, C.C.W, 1998, Socrates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
• Vlastos, Gregory, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
• Xenophon: Memorabilia. Oeconomicus. Symposium. Apologia. (Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1923).

Author Information

James M. Ambury Email: [email protected] King’s College U. S. A.

An encyclopedia of philosophy articles written by professional philosophers.

The Defense Speech ("Apology") of Socrates * Minor corrections in the text were made February 1, 2012. Introduction by Manuel Velasquez Note by Dr. Garrett: I have provided study questions for this version of the Defense Speech as well as the longer version. (Note added February 7, 2011) Socrates' relentless and, to some people, infuriating questioning of his fellow citizens eventually led to his death. Shortly after the scene described in Euthyphro , Meletus and others indicted Socrates and brought him to trial. In his brilliant work The Apology , Plato summarized the speech Socrates delivered in his defense. The speech is especially fascinating because it provides a summary of Socrates' life and of his devotion to philosophical questioning. Socrates is standing in court, facing the jury composed of five hundred Athenian citizens who have just heard the testimony of his accusers, who charge him with corrupting the youth of Athens and with not believing in the gods of the state: [From The Apology of Socrates, translated (and much abridged) by Manuel Velasquez (copyright 1987); for a full translation, by Benjamin Jowett, see Jowett Translation .--J.G.] I do not know, my fellow Athenians, how you were affected by my accusers whom you just heard. But they spoke so persuasively they almost made me forget who I was. Yet they hardly uttered a word of truth. But many of you are thinking, "Then what is the origin of these accusations, Socrates?" That is a fair question. Let me explain their origins— Some of you know my good friend Chaerephon. Before he died he went to Delphi and asked the religious oracle there to tell him who the wisest man in the world was. The oracle answered that there was no man wiser than Socrates. When I learned this, I asked myself, "What can the god's oracle mean?" For I knew I had no wisdom. After thinking it over for a long time, I decided that I had to find a man wiser than myself so I could go back to the god's oracle with this evidence. So I went to see a politician who was famous for his wisdom. But when I questioned him, I realized he really was not wise, although many people—he especially—thought he was. So I tried to explain to him that although he thought himself wise, he really was not. But all that happened was that he came to hate me. And so did many of his supporters who overheard us. So I left him, thinking to myself as I left that although neither of us really knew anything about what is noble and good, still I was better off. For he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows, while I neither know nor think that I know. And in this I think I have a slight advantage. Then I went to another person who had even greater pretensions to wisdom. The result was exactly the same: I made another enemy. In this way I went to one man after another and made more and more enemies. I felt bad about this and it frightened me. But I was compelled to do it because I felt that investigating god's oracle came first. I said to myself, I must go to everyone who seems to be wise so I can find out what the oracle meant. My hearers imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find lacking in others. But the truth is, Men of Athens, that only god is wise. And by his oracle he wanted to show us that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing. It is as if he was telling us, "The wisest man is the one who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing." And so I go about the world obedient to god. I search and question the wisdom of anyone who seems to be wise. And if he is not wise, then to clarify the meaning of the oracle I show him that he is not wise. My occupation completely absorbs me and I have no time for anything else. My devotion to the god has reduced me to utter poverty. There is something more. Young men of the richer classes, who do not have much to do, follow me around of their own accord. They like to hear pretenders exposed. And sometimes they imitate me by examining others themselves. They quickly discover that there are plenty of people who think they know something but who really know nothing at all. Then those people also get angry at me. "This damnable Socrates is misleading our youth!" they say. And if somebody asks them, "How? What evil things does he do or teach them?" they cannot say. But in order not to appear at a loss, these people repeat the charges used against all philosophers: that we teach obscure things up in the clouds, that we teach atheism, and that we make the worst views appear to be the best. For people do not like to admit that their pretensions to knowledge have been exposed. And that, fellow Athenians, is the origin of the prejudices against me. But some of you will ask, "Don't you regret what you did since now it might mean your death?" To these I answer, "You are mistaken. A good man should not calculate his chances of living or dying. He should only ask himself whether he is doing right or wrong—whether his inner self is that of a good man or of an evil one." And if you say to me, "Socrates, we will let you go free but only on condition that you stop your questioning," then I will reply, "Men of Athens, I honor and love you. But I must obey god rather than you, and while I have life and strength I will never stop doing philosophy." For my aim is to persuade you all, young and old alike, not to think about your lives or your properties, but first and foremost to care about your inner self. I tell you that wealth does not make you good within, but that from inner goodness comes wealth and every other benefit to man. This is my teaching, and if it corrupts youth, then I suppose I am their corrupter. Well, my fellow Athenians, you must now decide whether to acquit me or not. But whichever you do, understand that I will never change my ways, not even if I have to die many rimes. To talk daily about what makes us good, and to question myself and others, is the greatest thing man can do. For the unexamined life is not worth living. [At this point Socrates rested his case. The jury debated among themselves and then, in a split vote, they reached their final verdict.] Men of Athens, you have condemned me to death. To those of you who are my friends and who voted to acquit me let me say that death may be a good thing. Either it is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as some people say, it is merely a migration from this world to another. If it is complete unconsciousness— like a sleep undisturbed even by dreams—then death will be an unspeakable gain. And if it is a journey to anodier world where all the dead live, then it will also be a great good. For then I can continue my search into true and false knowledge: In the next world, as in this one, I can continue questioning the great people of the past to find out who is wise and who merely pretends to be. So do not be saddened by death. No evil can happen to a good man either in this life or in death. Well, the hour of departure has arrived, and we must each go our ways. I to die, and you to live. Which is better only god knows.

Closing Comment by Velasquez

Symposium | Study Guide

• Study Guide
• Discussions
• Infographic
• Key Figure Analysis
• Phaedrus's Speech
• Pausanias's Speech
• Eryximachus's Speech
• Aristophanes's Speech
• Agathon's Speech
• Socrates and Agathon
• Socrates's Speech
• Entry of Alcibiades
• Alcibiades's Speech
• Author Biography
• Things You Didn't Know
• Suggested Reading

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Symposium | Socrates's Speech | Summary

Socrates 's discourse on love is the centerpiece of the dialogue and, in part, a refutation of Agathon 's one-sided speech on the topic. Agreeing with Agathon that love is deeply connected to the ideas of goodness and beauty, Socrates nonetheless insists the connection is more complex than Agathon has suggested. In what follows, he claims to be repeating the views of the priestess Diotima , his mentor in matters of love.

According to Diotima, Socrates says, Love (the supposed deity) is neither mortal nor immortal, neither beautiful nor ugly. Love is rugged and resourceful but also a spendthrift. In his restless, ambitious, seeking quality, Diotima adds, Love has more in common with the unsatisfied lover than with the beautiful beloved. As such, his benefit to humanity arises not from his own beauty and goodness, but from the way he gets people to seek after those qualities. On a deeper level, she continues, this drive to seek out goodness and beauty represents an attempt to secure immortality for oneself, either via offspring (physical procreation) or through one's legacy as an artist, philosopher, or statesman (mental procreation). The heroes of ancient myth, Diotima asserts, were all "in love with immortality."

In the last several paragraphs of his speech, Socrates charts out a step-by-step ascent from love of physical beauty to love of beauty in its highest and most eternal forms. Again quoting Diotima, he describes the first stage in this process as love of a single physical body. This, in turn, will lead the lover to an appreciation of physical beauty of all sorts, at which point obsessing over the beauty of any one person will seem "ridiculous and petty." From there, the lover's focus must shift from physical to mental beauty—the beauty inherent in creative thinking and sound reasoning. At this point, if all goes well, the lover will be well prepared to "catch sight of something ... which in fact gives meaning to all his previous efforts." This "something" is beauty itself, pure and abstract, unattached to any person, object, or idea.

Although he claims he is merely relating the advice he received from Diotima , Socrates 's speech hearkens back to what many of the previous speakers have said. This "coincidence" is one clue suggesting that Diotima is probably a rhetorical device, rather than a real historical personage like Socrates or Aristophanes . This is the view taken by most modern scholars, but it raises additional questions: for starters, as David Halperin puts it in a noteworthy 1990 essay, "Why did Plato select a woman to initiate Socrates into the mysteries of a male, homoerotic desire?" In his article, entitled "Why is Diotima a Woman?" Halperin surveys several possible answers, including the traditional one: Plato did not want to show Socrates learning about love from "an older and wiser male ." Other explanations revolve around the existence of Diotima-like figures in literature or drama, or around the notion of procreation as a feminine activity. Ultimately, Halperin concludes, "to ask why Diotima is a woman is to pose a question that ... has no answer."

Diotima's description of Love's parentage offers a third alternative to the "common" and "celestial" origin stories recounted earlier. Unlike those two versions of Love's pedigree, which can be sourced to Homer and Hesiod respectively, Diotima's allegory appears to be an essentially original invention, with only a few echoes of earlier myths. In describing Love as the child of Plenty and Poverty, Diotima, and thus Socrates, provides an explanation for the quality of ambitious betweenness that she will attribute to Love throughout the speech. Notably, Love, as described by Diotima, is not a uniform mixture of "poor" and "rich" qualities, but is constantly vacillating between the two.

The other major ideas from Socrates's speech—love as a chasing after immortality, and love as an ascent toward pure beauty—are among the most important and influential in Plato's works. As such, each deserves a separate discussion: see "Main Ideas" for an exploration of the two concepts and their relation to the Symposium overall.

Xenophon, Apology

("Agamemnon", "Hom. Od. 9.1", "denarius")

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Apology of socrates.

1 See note on p. 494.

2 Or “divine sign.” Here, as earlier, the mere adjective is used; but in Plato 's Theages ( Plat. Theag. 128 D ff.) and Apology ( Plat. Apol. 31 D ) this admonitory something is described as a voice sent by heavenly dispensation, and is called variously “the sign” ( Plat. Apol. 41 D ), “the usual sign” ( Plat. Apol. 40 C ), “the divine sign” ( Plat. Rep. 496 C ), “the usual divine sign” ( Plat. Euthyd. 272 E , Plat. Phaedr. 242 B , Plat. Theag. 129 B ), “the sign from God” ( Plat. Apol. 40 B ), “something God-sent and divine” ( Plat. Apol. 31 D ). Plato reports Socrates ' description of this as a voice not directing his actions but serving only as a deterrent when he or his friends were contemplating doing something inadvisable.

3 A very enthusiastic follower of Socrates .

4 The blockade of Athens by the Spartans in the last year of the Peloponnesian War.

5 One of the Greek warriors at Troy ; put to death on a charge of treason trumped up by Odysseus, or by Odysseus, Diomedes, and Agamemnon.

6 One of the three plaintiffs in Socrates ' trial.

7 The tanning trade had been in the family from at least the time of the boy's grandfather.

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Symposium by Plato

Symposium by plato summary and analysis of alcibiades' entrance, the speech of alcibiades, and final dialogue.

Alcibiades ' Entrance

As Socrates ’ speech received applause, a large number of drunken persons arrived loudly in the courtyard. A very drunk Alcibiades then entered the room, demanding to see Agathon . He praised Agathon as the smartest and best looking man in town, asking if he could join the party, to which all agreed. Agathon called Alcibiades to sit by him, which the latter did. Until he was sitting between Agathon and Socrates, Alcibiades noticed the presence of the latter. Surprised, Alcibiades accuses Socrates of trapping him and of figuring out how to sit next to the most handsome man in the room, Agathon. Socrates asks Agathon for help, claiming to love Alcibiades, but accusing him of jealousy. Alcibiades says he’ll never forgive Socrates, but moves on to address the group, calling for all to drink and to conversation.

Eryximachus tells him of the speeches praising Love all had given earlier, and invites him to take a turn giving a speech. Alcibiades thinks it unfair to speak drunkenly after all the sober speeches and accuses Socrates of jealousy, saying he will not be able to praise another man. Eryximachus suggests Alcibiades gives a speech in praise of Socrates, and while Socrates thinks he will be mocked, Alcibiades agrees, saying Socrates is free to interrupt and correct him at any point.

The Speech of Alcibiades

Alcibiades begins by comparing Socrates to a statue of Silenus and the satyr Marsyas. This resemblance is not only in appearance, but also in qualities; he describes Socrates as impudent, contemptuous and vile. Marsyas lures people with his music and Socrates does so with his words. Alcibiades says everyone is “transported, completely possessed” (66) when Socrates speaks.

Socrates’ words have a strong effect on Alcibiades, unlike any other, so much so that he makes him feel trapped and as if his political career is a waste. Socrates is the only person who has made him feel shame and a desire to change and pursue good things. However, when he’s away from Socrates he aims to please the crowd. The emotions are strong enough to make Alcibiades want Socrates gone, but he knows he’ll be more miserable if he is.

Now, Alcibiades describes Socrates’ qualities. Socrates is a lover of beautiful boys, but not in terms of physical beauty, riches, or fame. He desires beauty and good things. At one point, Alcibiades thought Socrates desired him, and he was confident all he needed to do was give in to become Socrates’ beloved and learn from him. However, it did not work out that way. Alcibiades describes the various plots he attempted to get Socrates, who was supposed to be the lover, to seduce him.

Finally, he invited him to dinner, realizing he was acting like the lover and Socrates like the young boy. Socrates went to dinner with him and ended up spending the night, but nothing occurred. Alcibiades described the night as them having conversation and he telling Socrates he was “the only worthy lover” (218c) he had ever had. He revealed his feelings, and Socrates replies that it is an unfair exchange. If he really is worth all that Alcibiades said, he would get much more, while Socrates would only get the appearance of beauty. Socrates ended the conversation saying they should consider what’s best for the two of them together, making Alcibiades think he had seduced him. However, nothing happened and his efforts were rejected.

Alcibiades then felt humiliated, but felt his admiration continue for Socrates, for his character, moderation, and fortitude. He still feels trapped by wanting at least friendship from this wise and strong person. Descriptions of Socrates’ strength of mind follow, including his lack of hunger during battle, but his enjoyments nevertheless of a feast; his ability to drink, although he does not do it often; and his resistance to the cold when all he wore was a light cloak, while other soldiers had on all they could get. He also told the story of how Socrates saved his life during the battle.

Socrates is unique--there is no one past or present to compare him with, according to Alcibiades. His arguments at first seem ridiculous, but upon listening to him are irrefutable. Alcibiades claims Socrates’ arguments are necessary for “anyone who wants to become a truly good man” (222a). Alcibiades ends his speech in this way, adding that Socrates deceives all, initially acting like a lover, but turning the young beloveds into his lovers or pursuers soon.

Final Dialogue

Laughter followed Alcibiades’ speech. Socrates then accuses Alcibiades of having the ulterior motive of wanting to cause trouble between him and Agathon. Agathon agrees, noting that Alcibiades literally separated them by sitting between them on the couch. Agathon then moves to sit by Socrates and Alcibiades says Socrates always keeps others from attractive men when he’s in the room.

Soon after this, there was more noise and several guests began to leave. Aristodemus fell asleep and woke up shortly before dawn. Only Agathon, Aristophanes , and Socrates remained awake, drinking and conversing. Socrates was trying to prove to them that authors must be able to both write tragedies and comedies to be skillful. However, Aristophanes fell asleep once more as Socrates was arguing his point, and Agathon did so as well soon after. Socrates then left, with Aristodemus following him. Socrates then went on with his day as if he had slept all night.

Alcibiades’ entrance abruptly changes the mood left from Diotima ’s speech. From the most serious speech, the reader goes to a comedic entrance by Alcibiades, a common theme throughout the novel, though most abrupt here. This entrance not only shifts the mood, but also tells the reader Alcibiades’ speech must be considered separate from the other speeches. The first five speeches contradicted each other and were reconciled in Diotima’s speech, but Alcibiades speech changes the topic of the conversation from praising Eros, to praising Socrates.

While the topic changed and this speech is separate, Alcibiades’ speech unknowingly to him, illustrates the arguments Diotima made about Love by likening Socrates to Eros. This first happens by substituting Socrates for Eros as the subject. Other likenesses are outline as well. Alcibiades compares Socrates to the satyr Marsyas, who is a demi-god, making Socrates a “daimonic man,” just as Socrates had argued Love was between mortal and immortal, a spirit. Other parallels are descriptions of Socrates’ courage, justice, moderation, and piety, virtues of the “moral character” of love. He is not described as wise, but Socrates did not describe Love as wise nor ignorant either, but rather in between, as a philosopher, a lover of wisdom. Similarly, Alcibiades calls Socrates a philosopher (218b).

Although Alcibiades’ speech more focusedly describes Socrates, these parallels have been drawn throughout. Aristodemus explained Socrates’ shoeless and dusty state, and Socrates himself said he was homeless. Diotima explained Eros was son of Poverty and Resource, describing him in this same fashion. As son of Resource, Eros also works to possess beautiful and good things, in the same way Socrates performs as lover, pursuing young boys. However, Alcibiades’ frustration is the confusion he ends up feeling with their relationship, where he seems to be the pursuer and Socrates the pursued. The element of role reversal found in Diotima’s speech occurs again in the retelling of this confusing relationship for Alcibiades.

The Final Dialogue states that much laughter followed Alcibiades’ speech. A comedic speech, it illustrated Diotima’s speech, importantly likening Socrates to Eros. Once again, Plato juxtaposes tragedy and comedy. It is telling that in the early hours of the night, Socrates speaks to Agathon and Aristophanes about the importance of mastering both comedy and tragedy in writing, as they are the people most fit to hear this, and those who switched roles for the night. Ending the novel with this note rises its importance, and connects to the rest of the work. There were contrary positions in the speeches, reconciled by Socrates’ speech, reflecting the nature of the tragicomedy and the hierarchy of love.

Symposium by Plato Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Symposium by Plato is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Which of these steps is crucial when doing a close reading of nonfiction?

Are you giving me choices here?

1. How does Plato, using integrative thinking, ultimately find a way to connect erotic love, beauty and the absolute into a unified whole?

I'm familiar with the concept of integrative thinking but unsure on the details of it that would cover such a complex set of variables.

“Might makes right” is a statement that might be heard..... ?

State of Nature

Study Guide for Symposium by Plato

Symposium study guide contains a biography of Plato, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Symposium by Plato
• Symposium by Plato Summary
• Character List

Essays for Symposium by Plato

Symposium essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Symposium by Plato.

• The Impossibility of Evil Without Ignorance and the Progression Toward Good
• The Structure of Plato's Symposium
• Plato's Psychology - The Tripartite Soul
• Love and the Importance of the Speeches
• Pederasty Without Sexual Relations

E-Text of Symposium by Plato

Symposium e-text contains the full text of Symposium by Plato

• Persons of the Dialogue
• Full text of Symposium

Wikipedia Entries for Symposium by Plato

• Introduction
• Literary form
• Setting and historical context
• Principal characters

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

The philosopher Socrates encounters Phaedrus , a young student of rhetoric, outside the Athens city walls. When he learns that Phaedrus has just come from hearing Lysias , a famous orator, Socrates is interested in hearing Lysias’s speech for himself. He persuades Phaedrus, who’s carrying a copy of Lysias’s speech, to read it aloud.

Lysias’s speech is addressed to a young man, arguing that it’s better to have a sexual relationship with someone who’s not in love with you than with someone who is. A primary reason for this, according to Lysias, is that people in love aren’t in their right mind, and they act under the compulsion of madness rather than according to free choice. Lysias also tries to persuade his listener that the long-term social advantages are greater when a relationship is grounded in friendship rather than passion.

When Phaedrus sees that Socrates isn’t impressed with Lysias’s speech, he prevails upon his friend to deliver his own speech in response. Though he’s not enthusiastic about doing so, Socrates agrees and gives a speech parodying Lysias’s. Like Lysias, Socrates speaks as a man trying to persuade a younger man to sleep with him even though they’re not in love. He defines love as a form of madness that occurs when desire overpowers one’s better judgment. This madness causes lovers to deprive their beloved of good things out of jealousy, even keeping them from philosophy, that source of greatest happiness. Love eventually spends itself and fizzles out, leaving both men in a worse condition than they were before.

After Socrates finishes his speech and is about to leave, he senses a supernatural nudge warning him that his words have displeased the gods by slandering Eros, the god of love. Socrates starts over with a second speech. He completely changes tactics by arguing that it’s wrong to reject the advances of a lover on the ground of the lover’s madness. When madness is given by the gods, it is a praiseworthy thing. The very best “madness” is love.

In defense of this idea, Socrates gives an elaborate explanation of the nature of the soul. He describes the soul metaphorically as a winged chariot driven by two horses , one noble and one filled with lowly desires. Souls that can control their “horses” attain the summit of heaven and glimpse eternal realities, but most are dragged back toward earth by the lowly horse. Those who can remember their soul’s glimpse of eternal beauty in an earlier existence are constantly oriented heavenward, making average people assume they’re mad.

Socrates goes on to explain that the philosophically inclined soul will work hard to restrain his “bad” horse through self-control and remembrance of heavenly beauty. With lots of practice, the lowly horse is eventually subdued, and the lover enjoys a passionate relationship with his beloved, but it’s focused on the beauties of philosophy, not on sex. Only this kind of relationship orients someone’s soul heavenward; thus, there are greater benefits in a relationship with one who’s in love with you than with someone who isn’t.

Socrates and Phaedrus then discuss rhetoric and the difference between good and bad speaking, since Phaedrus admits that Socrates’s second speech is superior to Lysias’s speech, but he can’t explain why. Socrates begins by establishing that rhetoric must be concerned with the truth, not just with what appears to be persuasive. Next, he explains that, if rhetoric is a “leading of the soul by means of speech,” then it’s important for a speaker to understand the nature of the soul.

Together they examine Lysias’s speech and discuss Lysias’s failure to properly define his subject from the beginning. Socrates explains that precise definition is important and is connected to the philosophical practice of dialectic —of clarifying a topic through step-by-step inquiry. He shows how he carefully divided up the topic of “madness” in his own speech in order to lead his audience through his argument that love is a desirable form of madness. He also argues for the indispensability of the soul to the practice of rhetoric; no one who has merely mastered rhetorical skills can claim to be an expert in the art of rhetoric unless he knows how to apply rhetorical remedies to specific souls in specific contexts.

Finally, Socrates and Phaedrus discuss the propriety of writing speeches. Writing is a relatively new and ambivalent technology in Socrates’s eyes—it promotes the appearance of wisdom while undercutting the reality of it. This is because writing is silent and lifeless, unable to respond to inquiry or challenge. Philosophical dialectic is superior, because it’s adapted to each specific soul and, through interaction, guides that soul toward wisdom.

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Table of contents, why john milton’s free speech pamphlet ‘areopagitica’ still matters.

Milton’s reasoning against pre-publication censorship remains powerful and persuasive nearly 400 years later.

Renowned English author and revolutionary  John Milton is most famous for writing the epic poem “Paradise Lost” — the Genesis story aimed at “justifying the ways of God to men.” But if you’re a fan of free speech, Milton’s most important work for you may be “Areopagitica,” a short polemical pamphlet he wrote 23 years earlier, which argued “For the Liberty of unlicensed printing.”

Written in 1644,  “Areopagitica” was a work of its own tumultuous political moment. The British Parliament had just overthrown and beheaded the king of England,  Charles I . They judged him tyrannical for, among other things, refusing to let Parliament check his power over English governance. Adding to this, fights over religious truth — and related fights over the proper role of the church in government and daily life — simmered across Europe since Johann Gutenburg invented the printing press. The resulting proliferation of printed media — broadsides, pamphlets, books — allowed people to read on a scale that simply hadn’t been economically or technically possible. 

A renowned poet from a young age, Milton shifted gears during the middle of his career, turning his pen toward political pamphleteering and arguing over the structure of government and religion. In “Areopagitica,” written at 36, he presented a plea to his own faction: the forces that had overthrown Charles I and now wanted to change the law so that all books published must be “licensed” first by the government. 

Milton argued that Parliament was acting like the tyrant king they’d just overthrown, and aimed to persuade its members that they made a grave error against their own best natures — and against reason itself.

So what does Milton say in this work? How did it come to be understood as one of the foundations of our modern understanding of free expression? In this explainer, we’ll examine Milton’s free speech arguments in “Areopagitica,” his contradictory advocacy for post-publication censorship, and why his advocacy and reasoning still (mostly) matter today.

Milton’s arguments for free expression

Milton designed “Areopagitica” as both a polemic aimed at persuading specific people and a general exploration of the issues around freedom of the press. In it, Milton makes several separate but parallel points, and tries to argue not merely by his own reasoning but also by the reasoning of the people he is trying to persuade.

For example, the title, “Areopagitica,” is an allusion to the  Areopagus — the hill in Athens named for the god Ares. As Milton’s audiences at the time would have understood from their schooling on classical antiquity, it was on this hill that there once stood a court that handled important public business. This included the business of censorship, similar to what the British Parliament of Milton’s time had recently legislated.

The difference, however, was that ancient Greek pre-publication censorship was actually much less onerous than what England was now doing, and Milton made that point clear in “Areopagitica.” He also described how in ancient Rome at the time of Cicero or Catullus — poets and politicians Milton knew members of Parliament venerated — censorship was less stringent than Parliament’s current licensing law demanded.

John Stuart Mill’s enduring arguments for free speech

Issue pages.

Nearly two centuries after writing ‘On Liberty’, Mill remains one of the forefathers of free expression. Here’s why.

Flattering the good taste of members of Parliament, Milton rattles off references to famously irreverent and edgy schools of philosophy that were nonetheless tolerated by the censors of the time. In ancient Athens, he points out, “we do not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic impudence uttered, was ever questioned by the laws.” Milton also notes that in ancient Rome, the censors were relatively permissive too. And it is only because of this permissiveness that these philosophical treasures could be known and appreciated by the people of Milton’s time.

To drive it home — and to further scandalize his intended audience — Milton emphasizes that the rules imposed by Parliament’s licensing law are similar to the dreaded index of banned works upheld by the Roman Catholic Church. Given that the Church was the enemy of liberty-loving Protestant England, Milton’s comparison seemed to ask by implication: Did these modern Englishmen really want to be like the Catholics? Does all their licensing make their societies better, with less trouble?

As he puts it: “If the amendment of manners be aimed at, look into Italy and Spain, whether those places be one scruple the better, the honester, the wiser, the chaster, since all the inquisitional rigor that hath been executed upon books.”

According to Milton, the licensing law was downright un-English — which, to Englishmen of the time, was a scathing criticism.

Milton’s contradictory beliefs about book bans

Throughout “Areopagitica,” Milton repeatedly draws the distinction between what he called “licensing,” or pre-publication censorship, and “censorship,” which occurs after a book has already been printed and distributed. It is the former that he rails against in “Areopagitica.” The latter was something Milton didn’t have much disagreement with. In fact, Milton would later become the Secretary for Foreign Tongues for the government — a job which included  actually doing state censorship .

A few years after writing Areopagitica, Milton would serve as the censor for the Mercurius Politicus, a proto-newspaper aligned with Parliament and published until the beheaded king’s son was restored to the throne in 1660. 

It gets worse, too. By 1649, Milton’s role in government even involved the pre-publication censorship of books — the very thing he previously argued against in “Areopagitica”!

This is an intellectual twist that makes Milton a much more complex historical icon in the history of free speech, and there are competing opinions on what to conclude from Milton’s contradictions. Some Milton scholars argue that in his government position he actually  undermined censorship by doing his job poorly — though records make that hard to prove.

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are

Others, of course, put it down to something much simpler: the human capacity for hypocrisy. FIRE senior fellow  Jacob Mchangama , author of “ Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media ,” even coined a term for Milton’s supposed fickleness on censorship: “Milton’s Curse,” defined as the tendency for advocates against censorship to be selective about how they apply their free speech principles.

Nonetheless, even if Milton’s actual actions do not live up to the free speech principles we might like today, he must still be understood as having contributed a great deal to pro-free speech discourse. He took an early stand in articulating the ideas behind why censorship was an offense to freedom and reason — and he did so in works that commanded tremendous influence, both in his own time and in our own.

That influence comes down to what nobody can knock Milton for: The sheer force and quality of his writing. For instance, his discussion of the value of books plucks at the heartstrings in a way that might leave even the most enthusiastic book-banner queasy:

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sewn up and down, may spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s Image; but he who destroys a good Book, kills reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye.

Perhaps most importantly, Milton’s appeal to the reader is grounded on one fundamental thing: his immovable belief in individual reason.

Milton as a proponent of reason

In what is perhaps the most radical argument in “Areopagitica,” Milton argues that by banning books before they have a chance to circulate, the state attempts to tell people what to think. As a result, the people can’t really think at all.

“A man may be a heretic in the truth,” he writes “and if he believes things only because his Pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason.”

Milton believed that without actually hearing out the arguments in question, neither a person nor society can figure out what they truly believe. If they merely believe what they are told without considering the alternatives deeply, then they don’t truly believe it. 

And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. 

So, he argues, Parliament — and the readers of his pamphlet — should trust their own convictions. They should have confidence that their arguments can win out even when people can read and hear opposing viewpoints. Or as Milton put it:

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortall garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.

Here, among all the arguments against the licensing law Milton wanted repealed, we have the very essence of his general argument for a free press: Trust people, you chickens.

Without allowing people to consider potentially wicked ideas, untruths, and whatever else is out there, they will never figure out for themselves what ideas are deserving of merit in the first place. A system of pre-publication censorship only makes sense if we already have all the answers — and we don’t. Never have. Never will. Since finding the answers is a never-ending process, we should not designate it to the state, a cleric, or any expert class. The best we can do is to circulate ideas and texts and fight it out amongst ourselves.

Or as Milton put it nearly 275 years before Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. coined the “ marketplace of ideas ” argument for free speech:

And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter. Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.

Of course, even Milton seemed incapable of trusting people very much. After all, it is not difficult to see Milton’s reasoning against pre-publication censorship applying just as well to censorship after the fact — which is why his logical dissonance is so difficult to reconcile.

Regardless, the arguments transcend the man, and their impact reverberates in free speech discourse to this day.

Why ‘Areopagitica’ still matters

Areopagitica is not just a historical curiosity — something a college course on the history of English literature or political thought might include. It is so much more than that. It is one of the foundational documents of the Enlightenment and, more broadly, western liberalism, and it has endured as such for nearly 400 years.

No doubt if FIRE existed in 1644 England, we would have supported Milton’s view that the 1643 licensing law ought to be repealed. We would also have repudiated his advocacy for post-publication censorship. It’s no different to FIRE’s approach today, where many public figures and politicians are inconsistent, at best, when it comes to free speech. Milton was an imperfect advocate, but without “Areopagitica,” there may never have been an intellectual tradition of free speech to uphold today. At the very least, without Milton that tradition would be a much poorer one.

Ultimately, the reason why lovers of free expression ought to care about “Areopagitica” is deeper and more general than any one law or any one writer. It’s that for hundreds of years, societies have faced crises of trust framed as crises of truth. In his famous pamphlet, Milton was the strongest advocate — and one of the earliest — for the position that when questions about what is true and what is valuable arise, the least imperfect final authority is the individual’s own conscience and reason.

By Nick Clairmont (Last updated: 6/18/2024)

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