The Last Days of Socrates

by Plato

  Even dialectic is conceived more as a means of legitimate persuasion than as a means of proof. In the Gorgias there is talk of ‘arguments of iron and adamant’, but it is denied that they have led to knowledge (508e–509a). In the Phaedo Socrates wants the argument to suggest to him that its conclusion is true (91a); he seeks for sound and trustworthy arguments, and for the skill in argument to be able to recognize them. The medium of language (logos), and presumably of argument in particular, is thought to provide in a sense a reflection of the truth rather than a guarantee of it (99e–100a).9 The concept of formal validity is not yet in evidence, though already the connection between dialectical and mathematical procedure is present.10

  Whatever Plato himself thought of the proof-giving powers of argument, his readers were bound to be cautious; hence the appeal to those who have trusted in unsound arguments (and regretted it) not to become detesters of argument (Phaedo 89d ff.). After an age in which sophists and orators had discovered the art of arguing convincingly for all sorts of conclusions, and often for contradictory ones, it is possible that many of Plato’s readers viewed argument more as a tool of deception than as a source of truth. Others still would have mistrusted their ability to recognize a good argument. So argument could not be Plato’s only tool of persuasion. Sometimes he will use character as a catalyst to belief, exposing flaws of character in those who expound the views which he rejects, and showing Socrates to have the kind of qualities which are both trusted by the reader and somehow consonant with the line that he takes. The credibility of the argument and the credibility of its promoter were inextricably related.

  Another important device is myth. Myth appeals to the reader’s cultural identity and to deep-seated beliefs and feelings. We might view these feelings as culturally conditioned; Plato would have seen many of them as dim traces of innate knowledge. Myths may be placed at the end of such works as the Gorgias and Phaedo in order to induce some spark within us to give its sub-rational assent to the argument’s conclusions. Lesser myths, like simpler imagery and metaphor, subtly condition our reading and assist in eliciting a positive response from us.

  Often, of course, Plato is more concerned to discourage certain beliefs than to promote any particular ones himself. The elenchus will then be an important tool, as will satire. The exposure of the beliefs of the interlocutor will be accompanied by his exposure as an incomplete moral being.

  THE GROUP EUTHYPHRO–APOLOGY–CRITO–PHAEDO

  Early in the first century ad Thrasyllus, who was not only the astrologer of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, but also a polymath and devoted follower of Plato and Pythagoras, accepting that Plato had arranged his works in groups like the tragic playwrights, argued that these were groups of four. As the first of these groups he postulated the ‘tetralogy’ Euthyphro–Apology– Crito–Phaedo. The rationale was simple enough: the works all had a dramatic setting at around the time of Socrates’ trial and death, and they all contributed to a paradigm of how the philosopher should live and die.11 All manuscripts of Plato stem from exemplars which employed Thrasyllus’s order, and thus there has been a strong tendency to keep these works together even today. Certainly they provide a satisfying sequence, and combine to shed considerable light on the circumstances surrounding Socrates’ death – or Plato’s view of those circumstances.

  The Euthyphro depicts a professedly worried Socrates about to face a preliminary hearing of the impiety charges against him – and consequently most anxious to discover at last what piety really is. The Apology shows Socrates speaking in court, not merely when defending himself, but also when proposing a possible punishment after conviction and when responding to the news that the jury have voted for his death. The Crito shows Socrates in prison, responding to an eleventh-hour plea by Crito that he should let his friends arrange his escape. The Phaedo shows him conversing with his friends on his last day, arguing for the immortality of the soul, and attempting to reassure them about his fate.

  In spite of the fact that they make an attractive sequence, modern theory would resist the suggestion that Plato composed these works as such, or even that he published them as such. It is usual, in the English-speaking world at least, to regard the Euthyphro, Apology and Crito as early works of Plato, written within a decade or so of Socrates’ death, and the Phaedo as belonging to his ‘middle period’ (a decade or so later), when Plato had reached his peak as a literary artist and was already putting his own distinctive doctrines into the mouth of Socrates. This chronology is less secure than is often pretended, but one ought not to believe that the works necessarily constitute a compositional unit.

  PLATO’S SOCRATES

  Socrates was a character who took on many guises in literature, being transformed by the individual author’s perception of his character and his activity. Among scholars of ancient philosophy Socrates is often taken to be Plato’s ‘Socrates’ as he figures in those dialogues of Plato which they would label ‘Socratic’. There has not, however, been much unanimity about which dialogues ought to be so labelled. All that tends now to be agreed is that in certain middle- and late-period works, the character called Socrates becomes more of a mouthpiece for Plato’s own doctrines and less ‘Socratically’ characterized. The Phaedo is normally classed among them, even though it certainly offers a number of insights into Plato’s view of the real Socrates. Chronology is important, not because Plato forgot what his mentor and source of inspiration had been like, but (i) because his concerns developed and changed in such a way that it would have been unnatural to limit himself to examining problems from a Socratic perspective, and (ii) because the conventions of Socratic writing were shifting in such a way that it was no longer expected that one’s character ‘Socrates’ would only say what Socrates himself could have said.

  The shifting conventions are illustrated by observations at the beginning of Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates, in which it is noted that all who had (so far) written about the trial and death of Socrates had managed to capture his defiant aloofness, but that they had thereby made him look rather imprudent because they had not additionally gone into his reasons for preferring to die at this stage than to live. The unanimity of these writers was indeed an indication of historical fact in Xenophon’s eyes, but was he criticizing them for not having gone beyond Socrates’ actual words to explain that aloofness? The Socratic writer, it seems, did not merely have to say what Socrates said and did, but also had to put it in an attractive perspective. This of course is what Plato would do in the Phaedo, a work which actually contains a new defence speech, this time delivered to his own friends and explaining (in a much more philosophical manner than Xenophon) why the philosopher must welcome death (63e–69e).12

  One might detect in the Phaedo a Platonic response to the challenge of another Socratic writer, Xenophon. Likewise one might see in the Euthydemus an attack on those who present their Socratic philosophy in too ‘eristic’ a manner, striving for victory in argument at the expense of truth;13 and scholars often suspect a Platonic response to his fellow-Socratic Antisthenes in various passages. Certainly Antisthenes attacked Plato in his work Sathon, whose title is a crude, lisp-like perversion of Plato’s name. As dialogues became a polemical tool for carrying on debate between rival Socratics, the character of ‘Socrates’ must progressively have been used to present the author’s own side of Socratic philosophy;14 and the less one saw of the real Socrates in the works of rivals, the more justified one would feel in remodelling him to suit one’s own ends. There was not one Socrates in the literature, but several.15

  What I have to say here, then, concerns Plato’s Socrates, as he appears in supposedly early dialogues or in later passages which seem intended to shed light on the historical figure. Socrates’ investigations are referred to in the Apology, and Plato shows us his investigative technique in works like the Euthyphro which appear to be examining what an interlocutor either should know or would claim to know. Discussion usually arises, at first sight, from Socrates’ desire to rem
edy his own deep-seated ignorance of the subject which the other understands; we suspect, though, that his real desire is to expose the ignorance of the other and in so doing to draw attention to difficulties inherent in the subject which every would-be expert must be aware of. Sometimes, however, as in the Charmides, Lysis and Meno where his interlocutors are young men in need of guidance, his purpose in exposing ignorance is more constructive and tailored towards encouraging them to pursue philosophy. Always there is a sense in which the examination of the person’s theories constitutes an examination of their life and character, as Laches 187e–188a shows. For as we have seen, Socrates’ method of argument, the elenchus, exposes inconsistencies in the moral beliefs of the interlocutor, inconsistencies which are likely to be reflected in their lives.

  It is well known that Socrates claims not to teach, not to give instruction to the interlocutor. It is essential that the interlocutor himself should either volunteer or assent to each premise and each step in the argument. Socrates does, however, lead. There are occasions when he makes helpful suggestions which keep the argument going. There are many more when his questions introduce aspects of the problem which will have to be considered thereafter. He can be constructive, but he recognizes that the only secure construction in education is a construction freely built upon the learner’s own experience. In time the elenchus itself fades from the scene. It is not much in evidence in the Crito, and is no longer the means of investigation in the Phaedo; for in both it is Socrates’ beliefs rather than those of the interlocutors which must be justified. Still, the assent of the interlocutor to every step remains important; he must not be bullied into assent, but gradually led on to see that he too must accept the logic of Socrates’ position. Socrates emerges as extremely astute in debate, but too dedicated to his educational purposes and to his quest for the truth to become either a showman or a shifty deceiver. Though there are times when we may suspect that he is being unnecessarily contentious and altogether too reluctant to try and understand his opponent’s position, it is not Plato’s intention to depict him as petty or malicious in his questioning.

  As far as the action of the dialogues is concerned, Socrates seems to play very little part in it, other than arriving at and departing from the scene of the debate. In the action of the Euthydemus, for instance, Socrates is initially seated alone; the others take up their positions, act and react. Socrates usually argues quietly, leaving others to be provoked into actions, though he does get up to leave when debate temporarily breaks down in the Protagoras (335d). In a way, Socrates is most famed for his inaction: in the Symposium for his spell standing in a neighbouring porch (175a–b) or his failure to respond to Alcibiades’ advances (219b–d) or his immunity to wine (220a, etc.). It is the same Socrates who holds only routine offices in Athens, resists illegal measures and refuses to escape from prison. The action tends to move around him, as round the centre of an eddy.

  The figure who remains sure and unmoved amidst the turmoil of life might seem to some to be a man who has founded his life upon beliefs which are unusually secure and unassailable. The reader of the Apology will feel that Socrates is such a person at the same time as being confronted with Socrates’ own claim that the only way in which his wisdom exceeds that of others is that he recognizes the state of his ignorance. The Socrates of the putative ‘early dialogues’ (as also of the putatively late Theaetetus) is indeed a person who makes much of the yawning gaps in his own knowledge. His investigations generally arise out of his claims that he does not know the answers to seemingly everyday questions, such as ‘What is courage?’, ‘What is rhetoric?’, or ‘Can virtue be taught?’. These works tend to end either inconclusively or with some conclusion so counter-intuitive that it could convince nobody. Euthyphro would be an example of the former kind, Hippias Minor of the latter. The occasional passage where Socrates does seem to be openly propounding his doctrine, such as Protagoras 345b–c, tends to be so contentiously presented that it seems to be not so much an expression of belief as a challenge to those who would prefer not to believe. Socrates never sets himself up as an authority upon any matter relating to morality,16 nor upon any matter traditionally taught by Presocratic philosophers or by the sophists. For that matter he does not set himself up as a master of investigative technique or in the expulsion of false beliefs, for these skills are attributed to the guiding hand of Apollo or some other divine inspiration rather than to any systematic knowledge.17

  That Socrates is not an expert may be difficult for the reader of the present works to accept. Socrates seems like an expert handler of the elenchus in the Euthyphro. He seems to be telling the jury what justice and the juryman’s oath demands in the Apology, a work which also has him tell of his defiant refusal to become implicated in unconstitutional measures likely to lead to unjust deaths. He seems to be equally certain about the requirements of justice and lawfulness in the Crito. And he is about as convinced as one could be of the immortality of souls and some of the related theories in the Phaedo. This last work is less of a problem, in so far as it is acknowledged to be a middle-period work, and hence less rigorously true to the historical Socrates, but one feels that Plato is writing partly to explain the complete equanimity with which Socrates faced death (see 58e), an equanimity which was for him based upon Socrates’ deep-rooted beliefs.

  There are various possible ways of attempting to reconcile Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge with his attitude of great certainty. Firstly, there is the sceptic way. The ancient sceptics, who like many others saw Socrates as a predecessor, believed that the untroubled state of mind was best achieved by avoiding coming to conclusions. Socrates could be seen as a true sceptic, and his equanimity in the face of death a result of his success. This does not help to explain his little lectures to the jury and to Crito. Then there is a chronological approach. The Apology and Crito are set at the end of Socrates’ life; also from this period are his refusals to act unconstitutionally. There is no need to suppose that he always had the convictions which he demonstrates in the last few years of his life. The very success of his examination of others may have persuaded him that he did have some of the answers himself. Yet the Socrates of the Apology does not suggest that he is abandoning his disavowal of knowledge. Even at his firmest, he still talks about what he thinks or what seems just to him (30c–d, 35b–c). Above all, the profession of ignorance is still strong in the Euthyphro. We might discount this as being the product of Socrates’ irony, but it is not the function of Socratic irony to tell direct lies. Irony would rather involve telling half-truths, toying mysteriously with the interlocutor and keeping your real meaning hidden.18 Thus the chronological approach meets with only limited success.

  Another possibility is to distinguish between senses in which Socrates does know, and senses in which he does not. For instance he may have that kind of limited knowledge which is open to mankind, but falls short of full knowledge, something traditionally reserved for the gods.19 If this is Plato’s view of Socratic knowledge, he certainly does not make it obvious. The Socratic message is that men do not have that kind of knowledge to which they as men aspire. Euthyphro would not be put out nearly so much by the thought that he might know his subject with slightly less precision than Zeus.

  The most depressing aspect of Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge is the fact that his best-known doctrine (I should prefer to call it ‘theme’) is that virtue is knowledge. The result would be that neither Socrates nor anybody else with whom he is familiar can be virtuous – unless of course knowledge of one’s own ignorance can suffice to yield virtue.20 As for others, Plato’s Socrates does not encourage the belief that any of them were virtuous in the preferred sense of the term, but Plato surely wants us to believe that Socrates was himself virtuous in some very meaningful sense.

  The burning question, of course, is the nature of knowledge itself. What is it to know? How does one test knowledge? How does one recognize it? It is because this question was so central that Plato’s main treatm
ent of it did not appear in its final form until the Theaetetus – fairly late in his career. There Socrates is ‘unproductive of wisdom’ and ‘has nothing wise’ to offer (150c), but yet he possesses the crucial skill of investigating and evaluating the ideas of others, and above all of distinguishing the true from the false (151b–d). He knows, Plato would have us believe, not just his own ignorance, but also whether others know or do not know. And with this knowledge he ought to be able to declare true or false all propositions which an interlocutor had submitted to him for testing. Can he know that a proposition p is true without knowing that p? This is by no means unthinkable. Let us pursue the consequences.

  If others can produce the rational true beliefs required as a basis for knowledge though they have no ability to test them, while Socrates has the ability to test their truth or falsity while not having the necessary true beliefs, it is clear that the process of discovery – of coming-to-know – can only take place when Socrates tests the beliefs of others. It must emerge through some dialectical exchange between Socrates and correct believers. This will explain why Plato’s devotion to Socrates’ conversational methods is greater than his devotion to what we see as Socratic doctrine. Others have some beliefs which are true, but unfortunately wallow in ignorance because they do not have the means to identify which ones; Socrates can help them, but relies upon their cooperation in providing ideas for scrutiny.

  If this assessment of Socrates’ contribution to knowledge has any merit, then it is clear why he professes his ignorance – he remains dependent on the suggestions of others; but it is likewise clear why he can be extremely confident on certain questions which he had regularly examined with the experts. The conclusions to which his investigations have consistently come, whether that a given proposition is true or that it is false, are propositions known from experience to have passed the test.21 To doubt the results of these investigations would not be to doubt his own abilities; it would rather be to doubt the generosity and good will of the divinity from whom he had received his powers and the command to use them.22 That would be a case of impiety. Socrates cannot doubt many of the findings of his quest, because he cannot doubt the prophetic gifts that propel him on that quest and assist him to undertake it. His confidence is partly a product of his alleged divine inspiration;23 he does not have the same confidence in any individual’s power to discover the truth on his own through his ordinary cognitive powers.