He, like Jesus, wrote nothing and attracted crowds everywhere he went. He wandered through the streets of Athens followed by a coterie of budding young intellectuals who watched him question the most respected people in the city, publicly reducing their often proud ÒwisdomÓ to ignorance. Socrates claimed to have been told by an oracle that he was the wisest person in all of Athens. Incredulous, he decided to begin wandering the streets and questioning the people who were reputed to be the wisest people in Athens, just to prove the oracle wrong. What he found out was that all of the most respected people thought that they had knowledge of things that they were really ignorant of, and indeed , of all the people he met he was the wisest, simply because he acknowledged his ignorance.
Socrates, was born in Athens, Greece in 470 B.C., at a time when the city was in a Renaissance of sorts after its victory over the Persians. Sophocles and Euripides, the famous playwrights, were contemporaries of Socrates'. Socrates was said to have been a gifted sculptorwas universally acknowledged by his contemporaries as being extraordinarily ugly. One of his students, Alciabides, said that Socrates was like one of the trick statues that were sold in Athenian marketplaces: ÒThey have the exterior of a Silenus (a mythological clown), but open them up and you find inside of them the image of a god.Ó Socrates was also known for his indifference to fashion and ordinary comforts. Though he was probably apprenticed as a stonecutter or a sculptor, for most of his life he had no steady job, and lived off of a modest inheritence. He wandered around Athens unwashed, unkempt, and barefoot, in an old tattered coat, the only one which he owned.
We might well wonder how we would respond to him here at Notre Dame. If he were here, he would probably be hanging out with the people smoking outside of Lafortune, except for the fact that he wouldn't be smoking. (He was widely respected for his healthy temperance and self-control.) He was rumored to have been particularly robust, never wearing shoes, even when he had to walk on ice in the middle of winter. He was also well known for courageous exploits during his period of military service. But most of all, Socrates was known as an unbelievably captivating intellectual force.
Socrates was not the kind of teacher who gave lectures. His method, aptly named the Socratic method, was to ask many questions in such a way to draw out of his pupils knowledge which he was convinced they already had. He took them step by step through a journey of philosophical discovery. The pupil had to work just as hard as the teacher, and in the end would come up with the answer himself, albeit with the steady help of Socrates. In this vein, Socrates called himself a philosophical ÒmidwifeÓ who would bring about the birth of new ideas in others.
Socrates not only lived in accordance with his beliefs, but died for them. He acquired a mixed reputation in Athens. Many respected his intellectual power and persistence in questioning what others took for granted. However, SocratesÕ questioning caused his interlocoturs to come face to face with their own ignorance and lack of virtue, and many naturally came to resent Socrates because of this. A few events occurred which further stacked the cards against Socrates. One of his pupils betrayed Athens in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta, and many felt that the teacher shared blame for the studentÕs treachery. Then as a member of the Senate he stood alone on a matter of principle, refusing to go along with a manifest breach of AthensÕ constitution. Finally, after Sparta defeated Athens in 404 B.C., a ruthless band of collaborators which included close friends of Socrates' took rein of the city. Shortly after the downfall of this regime, Socrates' was brought to trial on the trumped up charges of not worshipping the city's gods and of corrupting the youth. Socrates was not afraid to associate with those who were in need of his influence, and these shady associations worked against him at his trial.
The chief instigator of the charges brought against Socrates, Anytus, was a man who had a personal grudge against Socrates, because Socrates had persuaded Anytus' son to leave his father's tannery business in order to devote himself full time to philosophy. It was this leaving behind of a good income in order to wander the streets with a philosophical hippie that Anytus seemed to think was a paradigm case of Òcorrupting the youth.Ó (Similar sentiments are sometimes shared today by successful parents whose children decide to become liberal arts majors!)
Though he had an opportunity to go into exile and to avoid a trial, he refused as a matter of principle, insisting that he had done nothing wrong. He stood trial and was judged guilty on a close vote. Even then he had a chance to save his own life. Athenian custom was for the prosecutor to suggest a penalty and the defense to propose a penalty, and the Senate would choose between them. If a defendant suggested a reasonably stern punishment, the Senate would often give the defendant that punishment as opposed to the more stern punishment suggested by the prosecution. The prosecution suggested the death penalty for Socrates. Socrates, however, suggested as his punishment that the City pay for free meals for him for the rest of his life and set him up in one of the plushest parts of town. Needless to say, he was sentenced to death.
He was not executed on the day of the trial, however, because a holy period for the city had begun. Thus, he had thirty days in prison awaiting his execution, and during that time he had some of his most fruitful philosophical discussions with his disciples. These discussions are recorded in Plato's dialogues The Euthyphro, The Crito, and The Phaedo. Socrates had another chance to escape death while in prison, since a number of his wealthy friends, including his disciple Plato, had bribed the prison guard, but he refused to flee. He would honor the decision of the city, to which he felt bound by a firm social contract.
Socrates did not fear death. He believed that if he were ever to achieve wisdon and pure knowledge of everything Good, it would be after death, when he passed into a realm far more real and worthy of attention than this one. He was at peace, believing that he had lived his life in good conscience. Finally, when the city's holy period ended, Socrates was forced to drink hemlock in his prison cell.