The Gadfly

At last, we come to one of the most pivotal thinkers in the history of Western Civilization; a man who, ironically, claimed vast ignorance of just about everything, and who spent his time ostensibly asking questions of other people to try to learn what might actually qualify as truth.

We don’t actually know all that much about Socrates, the son of the stonemason Sophroniscus and midwife Phaenarete, because he never wrote down anything, himself. Most of what we know comes from the works of writers who lived at the same time as Socrates, as well as the works of his protégé, Plato, and other philosophers.

According to those who knew him and lived during the same time, Socrates was born in 469 BCE, before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE. Sophroniscus was apparently a member of the Antiochis Tribe, one of the oldest in Athens, but as a craftsman enjoyed no more than a decently middle-class existence.

Apparently, though, Sophroniscus valued education and made sure that Socrates got the best one he could afford – one much better than most of the other middle-class kids. That means Socrates spent his childhood not only in the company of the children of other craftsmen, but also the sons of some of Athens’ wealthier families.

At some point as a young man, Socrates made the acquaintance of Aspasia of Miletus, the paramour of Pericles. Apparently, he remained in contact with the family, and later witnessed the disease that killed Pericles and so many other Athenians.

Socrates claimed to have learned rhetoric – the proper use of language and grammar – from Aspasia, and that she also introduced him to some of the ideas of Thales and others who focused on examination of the natural world. All of those who wrote about Socrates agreed that he viewed women with considerably more respect than was usual in Athenian society.

The war with Sparta began after Socrates’ thirtieth birthday, although matters had been growing tense for some time, and his contemporaries all agreed he served valiantly in at least three major battles as a heavy infantry hoplite in the Athenian phalanx. He apparently had spent a fair amount of time in the gymnasium as a young man, in addition to his mandatory two years of infantry training, and that meant Socrates – the son of a stonemason – started the war as a strong, well-educated soldier with a good head on his shoulders.

Unfortunately, he was also incredibly ugly, with a strong, hairy body and bulging eyes focused outwards that gave him great peripheral vision but made his face hard to look at. Contemporaries said Socrates looked more like a satyr than a human being, and that mattered a lot in Greece, where the standards of beauty appeared in the idealized forms of the statues of the gods.

After he completed his active service during the 27-year war, the now middle-aged Socrates also started to seriously annoy people by asking all sorts of troubling questions. At some point, someone asked the Oracle at Delphi to name the wisest man in all of Greece, and it responded with the name of Socrates, saying that he knew the depths of his own ignorance.

While that story may seem the sort of apocryphal tale frequently told about semi-legendary historical figures, all of those who wrote about him (except the playwright Aristophanes, who hated Socrates with a rare and special passion) agreed the oracle had actually given such a statement. It also matched Socrates’ words about himself, in which he claimed to know nothing and needed to ask many questions of men who considered themselves wise, so as to try to learn.

In that sense, the oracle (if it actually said what the writers all claimed it did) may have recognized a syndrome identified more recently, in 1999, by two psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, at Cornell University.

Dunning and Kruger did a series of comprehensive interviews with people of all sorts, and discovered that those with low abilities and below-average intelligence frequently considered themselves more competent about nearly everything than they actually were. Essentially, as part of their incompetence, people of low abilities couldn’t even recognize their own ineptitude, nor could they accurately evaluate their own lack of capability.

This sense of “illusory superiority” among the incompetent stood in contrast with attitudes found amongst individuals who actually qualified as intelligent and capable. The competent individuals tended to display keen awareness of their own limitations, while at the same time they assumed that tasks they considered easy or routine were just as easy for everybody else.

As such, when competent individuals encounter someone of low abilities, who says or does things that seem bizarre or irrational, the capable person tends to initially doubt himself or herself, and then checks to make sure he or she hasn’t made the mistake. Only after verifying the problem lies with the other person do the capable individuals feel reassured enough to act as they see fit, and not as the incompetent individual would prefer.

Compounding the problems identified by those who suffer from the Dunning-Kruger Syndrome is the notion of “confirmation bias.” Those who experience confirmation bias have so much emotional investment in their own views and opinions they actively resist (and grow frustrated and angry about) any facts that call those views into question. Moreover, they treat as credible any information that reinforces those preconceived notions, even if the information is demonstrably false and their opinions lack rational validity.

All of this could indicate that the oracle – or at least, those who wrote about Socrates – understood some of the same human behavior that Dunning and Kruger identified, even if the old Greek guys didn’t refer to it as a syndrome with a modern name.

Socrates compounded the difficulties of his strange appearance with strange behavior – most especially, by asking questions that pointed out the flaws and inadequacies of the opinions, beliefs and traditions held by so many. The method known as the elenchus, in which Socrates asked lots of questions but provided no answers, himself, usually allowed him to demonstrate that most beliefs and values actually had little basis in reason.

Moreover, through the elenchus, Socrates frequently demonstrated that those traditional values actually caused people to behave in ethically inexcusable ways. As such, Socrates argued, the blind acceptance of tradition and “common knowledge” not only resulted in errors of thought, but also harmful actions.

In that sense, Socrates differed profoundly from the sophists of the day. The sophists earned a living (some of them quite a good one) by teaching the sons of rich families about the natural world, and as much as possible about how to gain wealth and power. To the sophists, both physus and rhetoric existed as means to the very practical end of achieving one’s goals in human society.

Socrates reportedly found this view of education profoundly wrong-headed. The Greeks of Classical Athens saw sophists as fonts of knowledge charged with filling up the minds of students, in much the same way as a pitcher fills up empty cups. The students were supposed to accept what they learned, and the parents paid for the privilege of having a sophist as a teacher.

To Socrates, this system resulted in all sorts of bad outcomes. Firstly, he knew that those with gold made the rules, and that meant the sophists (wittingly or not) almost always tailored their lessons in such a way as to keep the money flowing from the fathers. As such, they tended to avoid topics that would annoy their benefactors, even if those topics provided real insight into how the world, or how human societies, actually functioned.

Secondly, while some sophists did concern themselves with instruction in ethics, all too many shared the views of Thrasymachus, who declared that power existed as an end in itself, and the purpose of all human activity was to maximize personal freedom in the pursuit of personal pleasure. As such, Thrasymachus taught, manipulation of public perception qualified as a perfectly valid means to that end.

Even sophists of less extreme views, such as Polus, taught that it was better to commit an injustice than to suffer one, and Socrates reportedly infuriated the man by disagreeing with that view.

To Socrates, knowledge existed primarily to provide enlightenment to the mind and soul; to make better, more virtuous and ethical, human beings. To Socrates, irrational traditions, as well as wealth and power without wisdom, not only resulted in injury to others and harm to society, they also damaged one’s own mind and one’s own soul, and resulted in a pointless, unhappy life for the individual.

Socrates argued that the primary benefit of education was not a better understanding of the physical universe (and he rapidly lost interest in such inquiries), but that it allowed for insightful self-examination. The elenchus – the methodology of asking questions without settling on the “right answer” – had the greatest benefit when used on ones’ own self, to subject one’s own views and opinions and values to the discipline of reason and logic. Socrates reportedly stated that everyone should subject his or own life to such inquiries, and believed it so firmly that, to him, an unexamined life was simply not worth living.

Moreover (and this is what got him into trouble), Socrates believed that he made his greatest contribution to Athenian society not on the battlefield, but in the agora – the marketplace – where he acted as a gadfly for the entire city. He routinely subjected to the elenchus anyone who would give him the time of day. According to those who wrote about him, Socrates’ intellect was so strong that he almost always could clearly demonstrate the logical inconsistencies of the beliefs and opinions held by almost everyone, and force them to understand those inconsistencies, as well.

Once he’d done so, Socrates (despite his claims to know nothing) could almost always steer the conversation in such a way as to argue on behalf of his own views. Those came down to six basic notions:

1. Knowledge is the root of all virtue, and that all virtues – justice, wisdom, courage, piety, etc. – were simply different facets of the same core truth. In effect, all virtues existed as one single virtue, and that was knowledge. Additionally, Socrates noted that while some things seemed virtuous – beauty, strength, health, etc. – in and of themselves, they could actually result in harm to others unless guided by knowledge and wisdom (for instance, beauty could manipulate and strength could abuse).

2. No one does evil knowingly, or willingly makes mistakes. To Socrates, all evil actions had their root in ignorance – the lack of understanding about the proper nature of virtue. He noted that no leader ever set out to do evil things, and that the worst atrocities took place under the rule of those who genuinely thought they understood how to make the world a better place for everyone. Basically, Socrates argued that every human being wants to “do the right thing,” but that few people really knew what that meant, because if they really did understand goodness and virtue, that’s what they’d do. That meant Socrates didn’t really accept the notion that human beings could be weak-willed, and unable to exercise proper self-discipline – which probably indicates the man had such self-discipline, himself, that it was hard for him to recognize that others might struggle with impulse control or fall under the sway of their own appetites.

3. In keeping with that idea, Socrates apparently believed human beings only desired the good – they just sometimes did bad things because they thought that would help them achieve virtuous ends. That comes back around to ignorance as the root of all evil – people only desire the “bad” because they don’t realize that it is bad, or harmful, or unethical. If they did, Socrates argued, they wouldn’t act that way.

4. It’s better to suffer an injustice than it is to commit one. This is actually the easiest to grasp, I think. To Socrates, if one suffers an injustice, the moral responsibility for the deed lies with the person who commits it, and not with the person victimized. However, to commit an injustice is to cause perhaps irreparable damage to one’s own mind and soul, and then the perpetrator must live with that for the rest of his life.

5. “Live life well,” and by that, Socrates meant virtuously. A life of ethical self-discipline, honorable behavior properly understood, with respect for and honesty toward others, counted as a life well-lived. To achieve such a life required constant self-examination of the sort Socrates used on himself and others.

6. A real leader is one who masters the professional skill of statecraft. As with any other profession, Socrates argued that the politicians in any society had to acquire the knowledge of how to govern. Socrates compared rulers to doctors – a doctor had to study his craft so as to master its techniques, or he would wind up causing harm to his patients. Moreover, while doctors usually did get paid, the pay didn’t really have anything do with the medicine – rather, the medicine existed to help other people.

In keeping with that idea, a virtuous ruler exercised statecraft on behalf of everyone else – to make the city, the community, a better place for other people. As long as he did so, then it was fine for benefits to accrue to the ruler, but the moment a ruler chose to help himself instead of others, then he no longer practiced statecraft and behaved in an ethically inexcusable way that resulted in harm to the larger community.

Socrates credited most of his ideas to something he called his daimon – a voice in his head that would not let him behave in certain ways, but drove him to act ethically at all times and to ask such difficult questions of himself and others. The son of the stonemason eventually began to believe the voice had divine origins, and required him to try to help others to understand the nature of goodness and virtue.

However, all of the writers agreed that Socrates never tried to dictate the meaning of virtue – his daimon never provided any answers, only forced him to ask the questions. He tried to demonstrate a methodology by which people could think for themselves and, in so doing, achieve greater understanding. That’s why Socrates enjoyed the profound respect of most of those who knew him, why he so frequently appears as a spokesman in the philosophical works of his day, and why he holds such an exalted position in the history of western philosophy.

It’s also what got him killed.

Imagine what it must have been like to live in Athens with Socrates in the agora. At the time of Socrates’ birth, the second war against Persia had recently ended, and most of the older people in the city had fought them on either land or sea. They’d also been forced to evacuate Athens as the Persians advanced, and upon their return they found devastation. The city had taken the brunt of Persian retribution for Athenian-led victories at sea.

As a result, they created the Delian League so as to defend all of Greece, worked hard (and used League funds) to rebuild their city and make it the most beautiful in all of Greece, as well as to build a strong navy that protected every man, woman and child of Hellas from further attacks. They also created a fairly democratic society with more respect for the rights and liberties of a greater percentage of the populace than any other Greek city, and reached heights of art and commerce no other Greek city had ever before achieved.

In response (at least, to the Athenian point of view), the people in the cities they protected not only balked at paying their “fair share” of the defense, but also actively rebelled and sided with Athens’ traditional rivals, Sparta and Corinth. The result of this betrayal was a war that killed thousands (including the great leader, Pericles) by pestilence, 27 years of fighting that killed thousands more through violence or deprivation, victory by the enemies of Athens, destruction of the democracy in favor of a tyrannical and corrupt oligarchy, and a nasty insurrection against the 30 Tyrants that turned Athenians against one another.

After all that, if one went down to the agora, this obnoxious twit Socrates argued that the Athenians had some responsibility for all the bad things that happened because they’d treated the betrayers badly; that Sparta’s cultural cohesion had given it a discipline and strength that Athens could learn from; that the city’s leaders had purchased popular support by building temples and statues to gods that didn’t deserve worship; that sacred traditions weren’t worth the time of day; and that children had every right to question the beliefs of their parents.

On top of all that, Socrates had friends amongst the oligarchs, and even close personal relationship with traitorous opportunist, Alcibiades.

In the settlement negotiated by Sparta that brought an end to the insurrection that overthrew the 30 Tyrants, the leaders of the new Athenian democracy had to grant amnesty to everyone so as to prevent ongoing political feuds that would tear the city apart. That meant those leaders couldn’t prosecute those they perceived as political enemies, and many of them counted Socrates as among that number.

A lot of the students and supporters of Socrates (now at least 70 years old) argued that while Socrates did, indeed, have friends among the oligarchs and did have some good things to say about Spartan ethical discipline, they also noted that he had a fair number of friends amongst the democrats, too (including friends and allies of Pericles). Moreover, they noted that Socrates had stood against the oligarchs when they demanded he join a group ordered to arrest a leader of the democracy, because that violated Athenian law.

However, some of the leaders of the Athenian democracy, including one Anychus  would have none of it. To them, Socrates’ elenchus and the doubts it sowed about Athenian culture and political ethics threatened to undermine the city, itself, and they demanded his silence.

Socrates, for his part, argued that while his method did make people aware of the lapses in their ethical understanding, as well as the shortcomings of Athenian governance, he wasn’t responsible for those lapses. Moreover, Socrates argued, those people were responsible for how they used that insight, not him.

In the end, though, the democratic leaders of Athens got their way. They convicted Socrates of claiming to worship a god (his daimon) that didn’t appear in any of the scriptural poems of Hesiod or Homer, and teaching impious ideas to the youth of the city, even though he had no religious authority recognized under Athenian law. As punishment, they offered him exile (an option available to all Athenian citizens) or death.

To the satisfaction of some, and the chagrin of many, Socrates chose death. He explained his choice by saying he’d fought for Athens and lived in the city he loved his whole life. Moreover, he’d devoted most of that life to making the city a better place by helping the people of Athens gain greater understanding of the faults of their fathers so as to create virtuous and ethical lives for themselves.

Because of that, Socrates said, to choose exile (or to take advantage of the deliberately loose security in order to escape) would be hypocritical, and that he couldn’t abide. Better to choose to die in the city he loved for reasons he thought good and valid, than to flee and live his few remaining years as a coward and a hypocrite. So, he drank deeply of the hemlock used by Athens for merciful executions, and died in prison, surrounded by friends, students and admirers.

In so doing, Socrates achieved a rare immortality.

I wonder, sometimes, if those who accused and convicted Socrates realized how badly they’d screwed themselves, in the eyes of history. Reportedly, even the slave who delivered the hemlock called Socrates “the best of men.” There’s no doubt that the young philosophers he had influenced spent the rest of their lives subjecting the accusers to harshest of criticisms. The fact that so many of Socrates’ supporters came from the best families in Athens, and were thus political untouchable, would have freed them to condemn them, utterly, for the death of the first true philosopher.

Links:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/

http://www.iep.utm.edu/socrates/

http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/socrates.html

http://cognitivebiases.com/the-dunning%e2%80%93kruger-effect/

https://www.verywell.com/what-is-a-confirmation-bias-2795024