Abstract
The Oracle of Delphi, which found the sum of human wisdom in the expression “Know thyself,” also said that there was no man wiser than Socrates, from which one might conclude that no man knew himself better than Socrates. At first glance it might seem that this inference is given the lie by Socrates’ rather impudent attempt to pit himself against the Oracle and to show its judgment of himself to be wrong by discovering through the dialectical means another man wiser than himself (Apol. 21B-D). On the other hand, in putting this judgment to the question and by searching out the nature of such wisdom and ignorance as he had, he was actually vindicating the Oracle, at least the whole of the Socratic dialogues testifies to the conviction that a life of self-examination is the means to that knowledge which is virtue and is, therefore, the just life for a man to lead.
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References
The cosmic paradigm of this Socratic figure should be recalled. At Timaeus 37C the moving universe is compared to a shrine which the gods are pleased to occupy and to move eternally in perfect harmony.
Cf. Charm. 163D et sq.; Euthy. 289A et sq.; Gorgias 460B; 504D. The doctrine is summarized in the myth of the Gorgias (524–525), where souls, standing naked before the judges of the underworld, bear upon themselves the characters inscribed by their lives.
Cf. Rep. I 351D et sq.; Laws IV, 716B. “The penalty they pay is the life they lead, answering to the pattern they resemble” Theaet. 177A, tr. Cornford.
περί έαυτόν καὶ τά έαυτοṽ … πράττειν, 443C-D; cf. Charm. 161 B.
σύμφωνον τοις λόγοις τα έργα, Laches 188D.
Prot. 352C; cf. Euthyd. 218D-E; Rep. VI 500C-D; 501D; Charm. 174B-D; Meno 88A-E; Rep. I 334D.
Compare: “When there is a coincidence of a beautiful disposition in the soul and corresponding and harmonious beauties of the same type in the bodily form—is not this the fairest spectacle for one who is capable of its contemplation?” (Rep. 402D). The opposite of this harmony is described at Rep. 601B). In Lysis 214C-D Socrates points out that a bad person is variable and not even like himself. Also cf. Phaedr. 270B; Crat. 386D-387A.
It is remarked in the Alcibiades I, “If we have that knowledge, we are like to know what pains to take over ourselves; but if we have it not, we never can” (129A).
The Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 17.
τὀ έαυτόν ποάττειν Charm. 161D; cf. 163A-164D; Rep. IV, 433 A-B.
Compare also, “when opinion leads through reason toward the best… its power is called self-restraint (σωφροσύνη)” Phaedr. 237E.
That the theme of this dialogue is the nature of the human self has been argued by Gustav E. Mueller, “Unity of the Phaedrus,” Classical Bulletin, 33, (1957), pp. 50–53; 63–65.
Socrates reports that he has heard that as you “ought not to attempt to cure eyes without head, or head without body, so you should no treat body without soul; and this was the reason why most maladies evaded the physicians of Greece—that they neglected the whole, on which they ought to spend their pains, for if this were out of order it was impossible for the part to be in order.”0 Charm., 156E, tr. Lamb; italics his, cf. Phaedr. 270B-C; Laws X 902D-903D. The same conviction is expressed mythically in Aristophanes’ speech in the Symposium.
Concluding Unscientific Postscript, tr. D. F. Swenson and Walter Lowerie, (Princeton, 1941) 183–187 and passim. Cf. H. J. Pos, “L’Existentialisme dans la perspective de l’histoire,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie, III, 9 (juillet 1949), 290–305.
Metaphysical Journal, Author’s Preface to the English Edition, tr. B. Wall (Chicago, 1952), p. xiif. By intellectualism I refer to the doctrine that being is intelligible and completely knowable by the human intellect. The intellectualistic aspects of Plato’s philosophy are capably set forth by E. A. Havelock, Preface to Plato (Harvard 1963).
Les grands thèmes moraux de la civilization occidentale, (Grenoble 1949), p. 26f.
Although Plato was often critical of the value of the effect of tragedy upon an audience, still he recognized that the form could be given another use, as is indicated by his remark in Laws VII (817B): “we ourselves, to the best of our ability, are the authors of a tragedy at once superlatively fair and good; at least, all our polity is framed as a representation of the fairest and best life, which is in reality, as we assert, the truest tragedy. Thus we are composers of the same things as yourselves, rivals of yours as artists and actors of the fairest drama which, as our hope is, true law, and it alone, is by nature competent to complete.”
The same complexity within the self is remarked upon in Laws I 626D-627B and its paradoxical character is again indicated, ibid. 627C-D; cf. IX 863E-864A.
“… it would be strange if there were many senses ensconced within us, as if we were so many wooden horses of Troy, and they do not all unite in one power, whether we should call it soul or something else” Theaet. 184D.
Soul is etymologized as the carrier of nature in Crat. 400A-B. It is specifically identified as the self in Alcibiades I (130C), “either man is nothing at all or if something, he turns out to be nothing else than soul.” And it is written in the Laws XII (959A) “we must believe him (the Lawgiver) when he asserts that the soul is wholly superior to the body, and that in actual life which makes each of us to be what he is is nothing else than soul.”
The variations are displayed by P. Shorey, The Unity of Plato’s Thought, (Chicago, 1903) 42ff.
See Chapter V, Section V, and Chapter VI, p. 175 et sq.
Socrates, the Man and his Thought (Doubleday, Anchor, 1955), p. 139.
Plato’s Phaedo (N.Y., 1894), p. xxxii ff.
Plato’s Phaedo (Cambridge 1955), p. 1 If.
Plato’s Phaedo (London 1955), p. 4ff. Cf. Shorey, Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 42f.
Sym. 211B-D. Also cf. Phaedo 100C; Euthyd. 300Ef; Parm. 131C et sq.; Crat. 439C-D.
W. Sellers holds that Plato’s language, not his doctrine, is at fault. “Vlastos and the Third Man” Phil. Rev. 64 (1955) 405–448; but Gregory Vlastos argues that he did hold this doctrine, “The Third Man Again,” ibid. (63) 1954 (319-349), and “Addenda to the Third Man Argument: A Reply to Professor Sellars” ibid., 438–448. Probably Plato’s intention and doctrine can best be fathomed, in this respect, if it be considered in context with other doctrines.
Standards later came to be regarded as ideal and special instances, at least in certain important instances which are discussed, cf. p. 89f, 156.
The belief that the soul was a daemon or perhaps a fallen god seems to have been taken over by Orphism. Daemons were divine air-spirits, guardians of men, and intermediaries between them and the gods. A rather special familiarity with them was attributed to Socrates (cf. Apol. 40A). The immortal soul is said to be like a daemon at Tim. 90A.
The argument for immortality in Rep. X (609D-611) likewise seems to regard the soul as life.
Perhaps we may be told to recall the concrete manner in which Pythagoreans are said to regard numbers, cf. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, chap. VII. However, Plato was clearly able to regard numbers as abstract, cf. Phaedo 97B.
Desire is specifically excluded from the soul at Phaed. 94D, and the tripartite nature of the soul is nowhere indicated. Shorey (ibid. 42), however, points out that the three types of human character, which the Pythagoreans distinguished are referred to at 68C and 82C; these are the lovers of wisdom, of honors, and of possessions; but there is no suggestion that these tendencies belong to the souls as such.
“Plato thought of the Orphic religion and his own philosophy as complementary,” W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion (London, 1935), p. 242. Cf. J. K. Feible-man, Religious Platonism (London 1959), p. 57f; J. B. McMinn, “Plato as Philosophical Theologian,” Phronesis (May 1960), and “The Fusion of the Gods,” Jounrla of Eastern Studies (Oct., 1956). It is interesting to compare the mystical theme in Plato with the Orphic belief that purification rituals and exercises led one to be “made one with god,” thenceforward called a Bacchos, cf. Jane Harrison, Prologomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Cambridge 1908), p. 500; also pp. 477, 503. Cf. Guthrie ibid. p. 238; and his The Greeks and their Gods. Some writers, it should be added, attribute no great importance to the Orphic influence upon Plato, cf., Cherniss Plato 1950–1957 p. 46f and 50f for the literature. The view developed in the present essay is independent of this question of influence.
Rep. 353C-354A; 441B; Phil. 35C-46A; Tim. 64-65A; Laws X 904A-C.
Phaedr. 246C; Phil. 34A; Tim. 69C.
This reversal is not without analogy to the denial in the Politicus of the initial identification of the good ruler as the shepherd of the people. For according to this metaphor, the ruler would be different in kind from the people, perhaps a sort of god. But in fact, the human ruler must be acknowledged to be like the people whom he governs (Pol. 274D-275C).
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© 1965 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Ballard, E.G. (1965). Socrates’ Moral Problem. In: Socratic Ignorance. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9432-7_2
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