Socrate
I know that I know nothing.
Socrate (v. 470 – 399 av. J.-C., Athens) : socratic philosophy. Socrates spends his life questioning Athenians about what they think they know: courage, justice, piety. He finds that almost nobody really knows, and sees this as his mission. On AskPhilosophy: 5 reconstructed arguments, 5 quotes checked word for word against the original texts, and 3 common beliefs examined; every text carries an authenticity badge (written by the author, posthumous, student notes, reported, apocryphal).
The Socratic problem: what did Socrates really think?
Socrates wrote nothing. Everything we know about him comes from witnesses who do not say the same thing. Plato, his disciple, stages him in his dialogues, but also makes him voice Plato's own ideas. Xenophon, another disciple, shows him as a practical, pious adviser, much less subtle. Aristotle, born fifteen years after his death, never knew him: what he says probably comes from Plato and his circle, and he credits him with two innovations (inductive reasoning and the search for universal definitions). Diogenes Laertius, six centuries later, gathers anecdotes. Aristophanes, in The Clouds (423 BC), draws a comic caricature. Even Diogenes Laertius notes that Plato lends Socrates subjects that Socrates rejected. So we cannot read "Socrates": we read Socrates according to Plato, to Xenophon, to Aristotle. Where the three overlap (acknowledged ignorance, virtue as knowledge, care for the soul), specialists hold it to be the most solid. On the rest, they disagree.
Why he matters
Socrates changed the subject of philosophy: from nature and the cosmos, it turned to human life, the good and justice. He also invented a style, the patient questioning that tests certainties. The philosophers of Antiquity (Plato, but also the Cynics, Cyrenaics and Stoics) all claim him. His death, sentenced by Athenian democracy for impiety and corrupting the young, made him the figure of the thinker who prefers truth to life.
How to read him here
Each quotation carries a badge saying who speaks, and the witness's name. "Transmitted by others" marks Socrates' words as reported by Plato, Xenophon or Diogenes Laertius; "Text by another author" marks Aristotle, who speaks about him in order to discuss him, and the authors we quote for comparison. Texts and translations are those of our corpora (Greek from the Perseus editions, with French and English translations whose edition is shown on each excerpt). Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle have their own entries or corpora: here we cite them only as witnesses.
His positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe says he serves the god: the Delphic oracle and a divine order give him his mission, and an inner voice (the "daimonic sign") stops him before wrong actions. But what this god is, he does not say: it is not a doctrine, it is obedience. Diogenes Laertius notes that he spoke of Providence "even according to Xenophon".
Aristotle credits him with induction (starting from cases to look for a definition) and universal definitions: a method of reason, not of observation. In Plato, Socrates goes further and speaks of knowledge we recover within ourselves by recollection; historians cannot tell whether that comes from him or from Plato.
He declares himself ignorant about the beautiful, the good, the just, and about what follows death. But this is not total doubt: he claims to know that it is wrong to do wrong and to disobey one who is wiser. Scepticism about great knowledge, not about everything.
In the Apology he considers two possibilities for death: nothingness or the soul's journey to another place, without deciding. The soul separate from the body and immortal is the thesis of the Phaedo, where Plato probably speaks for himself. The historical Socrates took no position, as far as our sources show.
He does not raise the question of free will. His thesis (no one does wrong knowing it is wrong) makes choice depend on the judgement about the good: one always does what one thinks best. Aristotle sees in it a denial of weakness of will.
For each virtue he seeks a definition valid for all, which assumes that the just and the good are not matters of opinion. Yet he does not say what grounds them: his dialogues of enquiry often end without an answer.
He submits everything to rational examination, including what others hold sacred. But he obeys the oracle and his inner voice without examining them in the same way. Two authorities sit side by side in him, without his having ranked them.
Life has a meaning: caring for one's soul, that is, seeking each day to know what is good. The greatest good for man is to examine oneself with others; without it, he says, life is not worth living. This meaning is discovered, not invented.
All people desire the good and nobody wishes to be miserable: evil comes from ignorance, not from a wickedness of nature. Hence the hope that people can be corrected by teaching. Aristotle judges this view contrary to the facts.
He stays away from active politics, because his inner voice holds him back, and he thinks one does not survive there if one honestly opposes the crowd. Yet according to Xenophon he holds that ruling belongs to those who know, not to those chosen by lot or by the crowd: a criticism of Athenian democracy, but also a trust in knowledge rather than force. With no written work, it is hard to go further.
An ethics of character: virtue is knowledge of the good, and this knowledge makes one good and happy. According to Xenophon, he said that justice and every virtue is wisdom; Diogenes Laertius (late) sums it up as "one good, knowledge". Aristotle reproaches him for making every virtue a form of practical wisdom, while granting him one point: no virtue without practical wisdom.