FREE ESSAY ON INTERVIEW WITH SOCRATES

INTERVIEW WITH SOCRATES

Greek philosopher and educational reformer of the fifth century B.C.; born at Athens, 469
B.C.; died there, 399 B.C. After having received the usual Athenian education in music
(which included literature), geometry, and gymnastics, he practised for a time the craft
of sculptor, working, we are told, in his father's workshop. Admonished, as he tells us,
by a divine call, he gave up his occupation in order to devote himself to the moral and
intellectual reform of his fellow citizens. He believed himself destined to become a sort
of gadfly to the Athenian State. He devoted himself to this mission with extraordinary
zeal and singleness of purpose. He never left the City of Athens except on two occasions,
one of which was the campaign of Potidea and Delium, and the other a public religious
festival. In his work as reformer he encountered, indeedhe may be said to have provoked,
the opposition of the Sophists and their influential friends. He was the most
unconventional of teachers and the least tactful. He delighted in assuming all sorts of
rough and even vulgar mannerisms, and purposely shocked the more refined sensibilities of
his fellow citizens. The opposition to him culminated in formal accusations of impiety
and subversion of the existing moral traditions. He met these accusations in a spirit of
defiance and, instead of defending himself, provoked his opponents by a speech in
presence of his judges in which he affirmed his innocence of all wrongdoing, and refused
to retract or apologize for anything that he had said or done. He was condemned to drink
the hemlock and, when the time came, met his fate with a calmness and dignity which have
earned for him a high place among those who suffered unjustly for conscience sake. He was
a man of great moral earnestness, and exemplified in his own life some of the noblest
moral virtues. At the same time he did not rise above the moral level of his
contemporaries in every respect, and Christian apologists have no difficulty in refuting
the contention that he was the equal of the Christian saints. His frequent references to
a divine voice that inspired him at critical moments in his career are, perhaps, best
explained by saying that they are simply his peculiar way of speaking about the
promptings of his own conscience. They do not necessarily imply a pathological condition
of his mind, nor a superstitous belief in the existence of a familiar demon.
Socrates was, above all things, a reformer. He was alarmed at the condition of affairs in
Athens, a condition which he was, perhaps, right in ascribing to the Sophists. They
taught that there is no objective standard of the true and false, that that is true which
seems to be true, and that that is false which seems to be false. Socrates considered
that this theoretical scepticism led inevitably to moral anarchy. If that is true which
seems to be true, then thatis good, he said, which seems to be good. Up to this tome
morality was taught not by principles scientifically determined, but by instances,
proverbs, and apothegms. He undertook, therefore, first to determine the conditions of
universally valid moral principles a science of human conduct. Self-knowledge is the
starting point, because, he believed, the greatest source of the prevalent confusion was
the failure to realize how little we know about anything, in the true sense of the word
know. The statesman, the orator, the poet, think they know much about courage; for they
talk about it as being noble, and praiseworthy, and beautiful, etc. But they are really
ignorant of it until they know what it is, in other words, until they know its
definition. The definite meaning, therefore, to be attached to the maxim know thyself is
Realize the extent of thine own ignorance.
Consequently, the Socratic method of teaching included two stages, the negative and the
positive. In the negative stage, Socrates, approaching his intended pupil in an attitude
of assumed ignorance, would begin to ask a question, apparently for his own information.
He would follow this by other questions, until his interlocutor would at last be obliged
to confess ignorance of the subject discussed. Because of the pretended deference which
Socrates payed to the superior intelligence of his pupil, this stage of the method was
called Socratic Irony. In the positive stage of the method, once the pupil had
acknowledged his ignorance, Socrates would proceed to another series of questions, each
of which would bring out some phase or aspect of the subject, so that when. at the end,
the answers were all summed up in a general statement, that statement expressed the
concept of the subject, or the definition. Knowledge through concepts, or knowledge by
definition, is the aim, therefore, of the Socratic method. The entire process was called
Hueristic, because it was a method of finding,and opposed to Eristic, which is the method
of strife, or contention. Knowledge through concepts is certain, Socrates taught, and
offers a firm foundation for the structure not only of theoretical knowledge, but also of
moral principles, and the science of human conduct, Socrates went so far as tro maintain
that all right conduct depends on clear knowledge, that not only does a definition of a
virtue aid us in acquiring that virtue, but that the definition of the virtue is the
virtue. A man who can define justice is just, and, in general, theoretical insight into
the principles of conduct is identical with moral excellence in conduct; knowledge is
virtue. Contrariwise, ignorance is vice, and no one can knowingly do wrong. These
principles are, of couse only partly true. Their formulation, however, at this time was
of tremendous importance, because it marks the beginning of an attempt to build up on
general principles a science of human conduct. 
Socrates devoted little attention to questions of physics and cosmogony. Indeed, he did
not conceal his contempt for these questions when comparing them with questions affecting
man, his nature and his destiny. He was, however, interested in the question of the
existence of God and formulated an argument from design which was afterwards known as the
Teleological Argument for the existence of God. Whatever exists for a useful purpose must
be the work of an intelligence is the major premise of Socrates' argument, and may be
said to be the major premise, explicit or implicit, of every teleological argument
formulated since his time. Socrates was profoundly convinced of the immortality of the
soul, although in his address to his judges he argues against fear of death in such a way
as apparently to offer two alternatives: Either death