European
Humanities 2018
Spragins
Sophie on Socrates (pp. 56-78)
Alberto Knox's Prompts for Thought:
- Wisest is she who
knows she does not know...
- True insight comes
from within.
- He who knows what is
right will do right.
Review: The Philosophy of Athens
Alberto Knox asserts that
Socrates represents a new era, geographically as well as
temporally. He was the first of the great philosophers to be born in
Athens.... From the time of Socrates Athens was the center of Greek culture.
The natural philosophers had been concerned with discovering the most basic
substance of the physical world.... In Athens the focus of philosophy turned
to the individual and his place in society. (61-62)
In other words, the new philosophical project sought an answer to the
question, "How should we lead our lives?"
When Socrates was put on trial for his life before the Jury of Five
Hundred, he was accused of being a "Sophist", of arguing that
humans were better than the gods, which he earnestly refuted. A
"Sophist" quite literally means "a wise and learned
person". Socrates called himself a "philosopher", a lover of
wisdom, and upon this fine distinction rests all the difference.(62)
The Sophists were a group of itinerant teachers from throughout the Greek
world who flocked to Athens when the city state adopted democracy as its form
of government. (63) In a democracy decision making relies on debate and
compromise rather than force. To be an effective leader, a politician must
possess the ability to see an issue from many different perspectives. He must
also possess the public speaking skills to persuade others to support his own
position. The "Sophists" taught rhetoric, the art of persuasion, to
the privileged children of Athens' richest families, and they made a very
good living at it. (Hey, great idea!)
The Sophists believed that the natural philosophers had been wasting their
time trying to answer impossible questions about the nature of the universe
and its mysterious transformations. What is the basic substance of the
universe? Is there life after death? Who knows? People should occupy their
time with considering the individual's relationship with society. For
the Sophists there was no ultimate truth. They were skeptics. They argued
that "Man was the measure of all things." It is people who decide
what is good and bad, right and wrong. Basically, the person who makes the
most persuasive case in an argument is "right". There are no
absolute norms for morality. Everything is relative. Alberto Knox points to
the example of nudity to illustrate this belief: is it un-natural (physis) to walk around naked? Or is the taboo on
nudity a social norm (nomos)?
Socrates:
Socrates rejected this way of thinking as "moral relativism". He
argued that all people possess a "divine voice", a conscience. He
believed that this voice is innate: we are born with it, and by listening to
it we can find our way to the truth. Notice that for Socrates the truth can
only be found in our own minds: no one can give you the answers; you must
find them on our own. And the process is not easy! For Socrates, the path to
the truth requires the rigorous application of reason. (He was a rationalist--
like who?) He used a teaching method called the dialectic,
which basically means that he asked his students questions which forced them
to defend their opinions with reason rather than merely asserting them. The
students quickly discovered that making a wise choice in a difficult moral
situation demanded an arduous process. We must discover the real
motivations for our actions in a particular situation.
Socrates believed that people are all born with an innate understanding of
truth (which is universal and eternal), but humans can lose track of their
voice because we are overwhelmed by our fears and desires. He believed that
people just get lost. We let the urges of our bodies rather than our
intelligence choose for us in difficult moral
situations. We let other people make decisions for us because we are afraid
of being rejected by them. Rediscovering the truth requires painful soul
searching. Our conscience, what Socrates called his 'inner voice', reminds us
when we are on the verge of doing something which is wrong, but doing the
right thing? That is harder to figure out. When the Delphic Oracle called
Socrates "the wisest man alive", he responded incredulously. How
could he who knew so little about wisdom be wise? But when he thought about
it, he had to agree because most of the 'wise people' whom he had met really
weren't so smart. They just thought they were. Only he knew how little wisdom
he or any other human possesses.
A philosopher is a thinker who recognizes how little he truly understands
about the world, even about why we make the choices that we make every day.
Socrates was the first true philosopher: he instilled in his students not
only the desire to pursue truth but also the humility to appreciate the
difficulty of the task. He also gave them the tool to find their way: reason.
And he gave them hope. He believed that the application of reason to our
decision making process can help us discover the truth, and once we do, he
believed that we cannot help but do the right thing.
Sophie on Socrates Quiz Questions:
- What is the difference
between a sophist and a philosopher?
- Define rhetoric:
- Why did the Sophists
believe that a politician needs to master rhetoric? (What is an even
more important skill?)
- Define skepticism
(as a philosophical term):
- Define moral
relativism (Why are lawyers accused of this flaw?)
- Define innate
knowledge (Why are we on our own in the pursuit of truth?)
- Define rationalism
(as a philosophical term): (What path do the other guys pursue?)
- Define dialectic:
(How many of your teachers use this technique? How many rely on "Sprago Babble"?)
- What is the flaw in Socrates'
belief that people who understand truth can do no wrong?
- Is nudity un-natural
or immodest?
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