MATSEC Philosophy Module 2 - Ethics 1. The Sophists and ......Socrates and the Sophists lies. As...

NOTES ON MATSEC PHILOSOPHY: ETHICS in progress – please send comments to [email protected]

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MATSEC Philosophy – Module 2 - Ethics

1. The Sophists and Socrates

1.0.0 Context

The Sophists were teachers in ancient Greece who lived in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. At the

time there were few organised schools, and so parents who wanted an education for their children

would engage private teachers. Parents, as always, wanted their children to be educated so they

would have a good life, and this usually means wealth, success, social status, and sometimes fame,

influence, and political power. The Sophists measured their success by that of their students, and the

tradition of teachers and students continued all the way through ancient Greek philosophy through

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. In fact, Aristotle’s most successful student was Alexander the Great.

At the time, there was no clear distinction between sophists and philosophers, and people used both

words interchangeably with reference to Socrates, Protagoras and Gorgias. In fact, Socrates was

referred to as a Sophist in Aristophanes’ play The Clouds, and Plato claimed that this had led to his

death.

It was Socrates, and especially Socrates’s student Plato, who started to define philosophy as we

know it today, as opposed to the Sophists’ teachings. The main difference is that the Sophists

thought that moral truth was relative, and aimed to prepare their students for a life of wealth and

success in Athenian society. They probably came to this view because they were widely travelled and

had encountered many different conventions and moral beliefs. Socrates was aware of these

different views, however he thought moral truth was absolute and that the philosopher should aim

for it, that is should love wisdom, for its own sake (see 1.0.3 below).

Plato’s student Aristotle further divided philosophy into the schools and important teachers listed

below.

We will be studying two of the Sophists; Protagoras and Gorgias. Here they are in context:

The Physicists

o Thales (624 BCE)

o Anaximander (610 BCE)

o Anaximenes (586 BCE)

Heraclitus (535 BCE)

The Eleatics

o Parmenides (515 BCE)

o Zeno of Elea (495BCE)

The Sophists

o Protagoras (490 BCE)

o Gorgias (483 BCE)

Empedocles (494 BCE)

The Atomists

o Democritus (460 BCE)

Socrates (470 BCE)

Plato (429 BCE)

Aristotle (384 BCE)


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1.0.1 Phusis and Nomos

The Sophists distinguished clearly between phusis and nomos, and this is the source of our

distinction today between facts and values. Phusis is the Greek root of our word ‘physics’ and

Aristotle, in fact, named the very first philosophers, ‘Physicists.’ Phusis translates as ‘nature,’ and

describes that which comes about by itself, without the help of humans. The first philosophers each

tried to explain nature and its fundamental root.1

Heraclitus changed the discourse by claiming that the fundamental reality was change. ‘Nothing

endures but change’ he claimed and ‘you cannot step into a river twice.’ He likened this to fire, but

the discourse was no longer just about the physical, but strongly emphasized logos, divine reason or

order.2

Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, on the other hand, drew a series of arguments based on logic to show

that change was contradictory, and therefore an illusion. Our senses, they concluded, deceive us

into thinking that reality changes, whereas in fact, it is eternal and immutable.

That is, the first philosophers were concerned with the nature of external reality.3 They wanted to

know what the universe is, how it works, and what it’s made of.

The Sophists, on the other hand, were concerned with nomos not phusis. Nomos – literally, ‘law’ or

‘custom’ – has to do with value, and the way things should be rather than with the way they are.4 It

describes that which humans create. The Sophists, then, were concerned with human life and

societies. In particular, the Sophists and Socrates were concerned with virtue, and what it means to

live a good life.

And so the discourse in ancient Greek philosophy took a new turn with the Sophists, and especially

after Socrates. The physicists were concerned with external reality, with the universe, with matter

and the laws of nature and they were especially successful at astronomy. By concentrating on

human values and laws, Socrates (together with the Sophists) is said to have “brought philosophy

down from the heavens and placed it in cities, introduced it into families, and obliged it to examine

into life and morals, and good and evil." (Cicero 106 BCE)

1.0.2 Philosophy and Rhetoric

The Sophists taught rhetoric as well as philosophy. Rhetoric is defined as ‘the art of persuasion.’ It is

the art of using language in such a way as to influence the emotions of your listeners in order to

1 Thales and Anaximander thought it to be an element – water and air respectively. Anaximander theorised that it was the ‘Boundless.’ Investigation of the physical continued in ancient Greece after Heraclitus, through Empedocles and the Atomists. After Galileo (1564 CE) and Newton (1643 CE), it branched off from philosophy and became known as physics, chemistry and biology – in brief, science. 2 Logos is the root of our word ‘logic’ and also the suffix ‘–logy’, as in biology, psychology etc. 3 External reality consists of everything with a physical nature; internal reality is psychological and has to do with our thoughts, desires, motivations, and so on. Ethics is, of course, concerned with our inner worlds and not so much the outer world. 4 Nomos, refers to human laws, the way things should be, whereas the way things are is governed by the laws of nature, which fall under phusis.


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persuade them to do what you want them to do – e.g. to buy a product, vote in a particular way, to

go to war, or to give you money.5

Ancient Athens was democratic, and their democracy differed from ours in that it was a direct

democracy. No law could pass until the people had voted in favour of it. Therefore rhetoric was a

useful skill to have and Protagoras was known for boasting that he could ‘make the weaker

argument seem stronger.’

Philosophy, on the other hand, translates as ‘the love of wisdom’ and Socrates began to give it a

focus on Truth, Goodness and Beauty, in the end, sacrificing his life for these ideals. Ancient

philosophy started from the premise that there is an absolute Truth about Goodness, and that this

Truth is Beautiful and worthy of love. As we shall see, for Socrates philosophy came to mean nothing

less than ‘care of one’s soul.’

Thus while rhetoric can be useful for everyday life, especially for public life, philosophy, at least in its

ancient Greek origins, aspired to something higher.6

1.0.3 Different Types of Ethics

As we’ve seen, the Sophists and Socrates had, in general, similar approaches to philosophy, in that

they concentrated on nomos rather than phusis. In this respect, they were closer to each other than

to any of the other ancient Greek schools of philosophy.

However, Socrates disagreed with the Sophists in one fundamental way. Socrates can be described

as a moral rationalist, a moral realist and a moral objectivist; his idea of Truth, and the Good, is that

it is absolute and universal. Protagoras on the other hand was a moral relativist and possibly a moral

subjectivist, while Gorgias is best described as a moral nihilist. Below, you will find definitions of all

these terms.

The discussion and these definitions pertain to what is known as ‘Meta-Ethics.’ In general, there are

three types of ethics:

1. Theoretical Ethics: addresses questions such as what kind of qualities count as virtues, how

many virtues there are, what kind of actions are right, and how to know. Within theoretical

ethics we find four broad categories:

a. Virtue ethics: focuses on virtues, the kind of person we should aspire to be. The

underlying premise is that once we become good people, the right actions will

follow necessarily. Ancient Greek Philosophers were virtue ethicist, unlike modern

ethics (Consequentialist and De-ontological) which tends focus on what kind of

actions are morally permissible, and which ones are not.

b. Consequentialist ethics: Claims that the moral worth or an action depends upon its

consequences. The most famous example, and in our syllabus, is utilitarianism,

which claims that the best course of action is whatever increases happiness as much

as possible for as many people as possible.

5 This art is still practiced by marketing firms, lawyers and politicians today. In fact, the word ‘sophist’ survives today in the word ‘sophistry.’ The Oxford English Dictionary defines this as “the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.” 6 The contrast between the worldly and the other-worldly, or between the physical and the spiritual, would continue to play out in philosophy. Socrates’s student Plato thought that the higher truths of philosophy could not be found in this physical world. In turn, Plato’s student Aristotle would place the focus back on physical reality. This contrast is represented beautifully in Raphael’s painting The School of Athens.


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c. De-ontological Ethics. Claims that the moral worth of an action lies either in the

action itself or in the intention with which it was performed. Kantianism is the most

famous example of this sort of view, and also in our syllabus.

d. Social Contract Theories. Advanced students will encounter these in Module 3

question 1 (Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau).

2. Applied Ethics: takes the conclusions of theoretical ethics, in particular, Utilitarianism and

Kantianism, and applies them to current ethical dilemmas. In our syllabus, these are:

a. IVF, surrogacy and cloning

b. Euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide.

c. Privacy and the internet.

3. Meta- Ethics: studies even more fundamental questions, e.g. what is goodness? What is

value? Is it something that exists in nature or only in our minds? Is it a property of things or

something we project onto reality? It is here that the fundamental difference between

Socrates and the Sophists lies. As mentioned above, of the following views in Meta-Ethics,

Socrates subscribed to 3, 4, 5, and 6. Protagoras, the first Sophist on our syllabus subscribed

to 1 and 2, and Gorgias, our second Sophist, subscribed to 7 and 8.

The following are different views in Meta-Ethics:

1. Moral subjectivism: Moral goodness depends on a subject’s perspective, especially on his or

her likes and dislikes, preferences, feelings, experiences and so forth. A well-known moral

subjectivist in modern times was David Hume (1711 CE).

2. Moral relativism: moral truth is dependent upon a subject’s perspective, especially in terms

of culture, i.e. historical and geographical context, and also “social, linguistic and

psychological background" (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy). Protagoras was a moral

relativist.

3. Moral rationalist: There are absolute, universal truths about morality that can be known

through reason. Immanuel Kant (1724 CE) was a moral rationalist, as was Socrates.

4. Moral realism: Moral Goodness is “grounded in the nature of things” (Oxford Dictionary of

Philosophy); value is real and exists independently of humans. Plato and Aristotle were

moral realists as well as Socrates.

5. Moral objectivism: Goodness, value and/or virtue lie in moral objects - in a soul, an action,

an intention to act, or the results of an action. Moral truths are not relative or subjective.

6. Absolute truths and universal truths are similar. Both terms refer to truths that are

applicable at all times and in all places. They are also therefore objectively true and not

relative or subjective. The term absolute means “related to the whole” and “not qualified or

diminished in any way” whereas universal means “applicable to all cases.” (Oxford English

Dictionary)

7. Moral scepticism: It is unlikely, perhaps impossible, that we can know anything about moral

Truth and Goodness.

8. Moral nihilism: There are no truths about morality; there is no such thing as Goodness.

When it comes to the Sophists, the standard view (and that outlined in MATSEC syllabus) is that they

generally held that moral truth is relative. This is, in fact, is the way Protagoras’s most important

claim – that “Man is the Measure of all Things” – has generally been interpreted. We shall see,

however, that Plato introduced an element of subjectivism in his interpretation of Protagoras.

Gorgias on the other hand was a moral nihilist, as is seen in his trilemma “nothing exists, nothing can

be known, nothing can be communicated.”


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In short, Socrates thought that absolute and universal Truth about the Good exists objectively,

independently of humans, and can be known through reason and dialectic (1.3.2). Protagoras

thought that any truths about what is right and wrong depended upon social norms and customs

(and perhaps upon individual experience) while Gorgias thought that there is no such thing as truth

at all.

1.1 Protagoras – Moral Relativism: Man is the Measure of all things

1.1.0 Plato’s Dialogues: Protagoras and Theaetetus

What we know about Protagoras comes mostly from two books by Plato – Protagoras and

Theaetetus.

Protagoras is an early dialogue, and is ‘purely Socratic’ in the sense that Plato makes Socrates

express views that are (probably) close to what the historical Socrates thought. In his later dialogues,

Socrates is used by Plato as a mouthpiece for Plato’s own views. The Theaetetus is mixed; it contains

both Socrates‘s and Plato’s views.

Protagoras is a work on virtue ethics – the type of ethics studied by ancient Greek philosophers,

including Protagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Plato wrote in dialogue form – that is, as a

conversation between Socrates and various other characters – called ‘interlocutors’ – who were

mostly based on historical philosophers and sophists. Plato probably chose this form because of the

specific way in which Socrates did philosophy, the ‘Socratic Method’ or ‘dialectic’ which we will

explore further below [1.3.2].

In brief, the Socratic Method is an interrogative process through which Socrates aims to reach

absolute truth in the form of universal definitions. It starts with what has become known as ‘Socratic

Irony’ – the professing of ignorance aimed at encouraging statements from others, which Socrates

could then show to be false. Socrates would claim not to know much about the topic being

discussed, e.g. virtue, knowledge, or justice. His interlocutors would then offer their own

understanding of such things, and through asking a series of questions, in particular, asking for

definitions, and showing that there are problems with these, Socrates helps his listeners, and us,

clear our thoughts on the matter. Often, the conclusion at the end of early dialogues is that neither

Socrates nor the interlocutor know what virtue, knowledge or justice is, and sometimes everyone

leaves unsatisfied.

1.1.1 Protagoras’s views on the virtues

Plato’s Protagoras discusses the following questions:

1. Can virtue be taught?

2. Are there many virtues or just one?

We read that the historical Protagoras seems to have thought that wisdom is “prudence in public

and private affairs” a clear statement of his moral relativism. His most famous claim, the Mensura,

which we will encounter below, suggests that there is no such thing as absolute moral truth; that

each man measures out his own reality. The emphasis on prudence which we find here clarifies that

Protagoras is a relativist, rather than merely subjectivist or a nihilist like Gorgias.

That is, although according to Protagoras’s view, moral truth is not absolute, and nobody is wrong in

their beliefs, since these beliefs depend on the person’s upbringing and experience. Still, there are

some beliefs that are beneficial and others that are harmful to the person who holds them.


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Protagoras advised his students to follow the conventions of the place they happened to find

themselves in. In other words, according to his view in Plato’s Protagoras, although there are no

absolute truths, and everybody is right, there are some who are wiser than others and their wisdom

consists in prudence, i.e. they follow the religious and moral rules of the state, and respect the norm

for a good citizen, even if just for the sake of an easier life.

In this book, we also see how Socrates’s method, dialectic, is put to work against Protagoras’s

rhetoric. Protagoras launches into a speech about virtue and Socrates stops him, pretending to have

a short memory and claiming that he cannot remember long speeches. He asks Protagoras to answer

briefly a series of questions, and through this series of questioning and providing counter-examples,

Socrates forces Protagoras to change his mind and to claim that there is only one virtue, wisdom,

while Socrates changes his position too, and claims that virtue can be taught.

1.1.2 Socrates’s replies to Mensura

To find out more about what Socrates would have said to Protagoras, we must turn to the

Theaetetus. This is where we find the most important quotation from Protagoras which has survived

to this day. Also known as Mensura or Homo Mensura, the claim is that “Man is the measure of all

things; of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.” It seems this

was the opening verse of Protagoras’s work On Truth.

In Theaetetus, Socrates is having a discussion with Protagoras’s friend, Theodorus. Protagoras

himself does not appear in this book,7 which is a work of epistemology8 rather than ethics, and

contains some of what were probably the historical Socrates’s views on this subject. These include

the idea of the teacher or philosopher acting as a midwife [1.3.1.4] and the theories of innate ideas

and of knowledge through recollection [1.3.1.3], both important aspects of one major approach in

epistemology, that of rationalism. [1.3.1.1]

In Theaetetus Plato gives us an idea of how Socrates might have responded to the claim that “Man is

the measure of all things…”

1.1.2.0 Self-refutation

According to Plato’s interpretation of the Mensura claim, it suggests that we obtain knowledge

through sensible perception; in other words, that we get to know about the world through whatever

we see, hear, touch and so on. We feel it as warm, and therefore it is warm, for us at least. The idea

that we obtain knowledge through sense perception is the second major approach in epistemology,

which lies in direct contrast to rationalism, and is known as ‘empiricism’ [1.3.1.0].

The problem with this view is that people experience things differently from each other and even

the same person experiences things differently over the course of his or her life. According to Plato’s

interpretation of Protagoras, he solved this problem by claiming that everybody’s experience is true

for them at that time and place. So for example, if you and I are sitting in the same room and

disagree about whether it is warm or cold, both of us are right in our claims that ‘it is hot!’ or ‘it is

cold!’

Socrates disagrees with this approach and criticizes it on grounds of self-refutation. If everybody is

right in their claims about their experience, if everything we perceive is true for us, then it is also

true for Socrates that the Mensura is wrong and that truth is absolute, since that is how Socrates

7 In fact we learn that Protagoras has died. 8 The study of knowledge and truth


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perceives it. In other words, if the Mensura is true, then that makes the Mensura also false. The

interlocutor, Protagoras’s friend Theodorus, replies that Protagoras would have conceded this, and

agreed that Socrates is right. That is, he accepted that his views suggested that everybody was right,

no matter what they believed.9

1.1.2.1 Knowledge is not perception

As we have seen, Plato’s interpretation of the Mensura suggests that we gain knowledge through

the senses. If we feel warm, then it is warm. Socrates’s most important disagreement with

Protagoras’s views hinges upon this point. Socrates does not think that knowledge can possibly

come from sense-perception, because sense-perception is always of things that change, whereas

that which is objectively true does not change.10

For Socrates, knowledge is unchanging, in the sense that real knowledge is of Truth that is universal

and absolute. For example, true justice, he would argue, doesn’t change across time and space, it

doesn’t depend on culture or historical context, but is the same everywhere and at all times. This is

the standard by which we can judge cultures and historical periods against each other. Since true

justice does not change, neither does knowledge of what true justice is.

Since sense-perception only shows us the physical world of change, it cannot lead to real knowledge.

This understanding of knowledge and truth as eternal and unchanging underlies Socrates’s method

of dialectic, which we met above, and which aims at the search for universal definitions, e.g. of

Justice. We will explore this in more detail below [1.3.1 and 1.3.2].

If knowledge is not the same thing as perception, then what does Socrates think that knowledge is?

In the Theaetetus, Plato has Socrates discuss a well-known definition of knowledge – which would

later be formulated as ‘knowledge is justified, true belief.’ Plato did not use these words, but rather

“true judgement with an account.”

Real knowledge does not come from perception; according to this view, it is not something we see,

hear or feel, but rather something we believe. Knowledge is not just any belief, however. It is a

judgement we make, such as ‘it’s hot’ or ‘1 +1 =2’, that is true. On top of that, for an opinion or

belief of ours to count as knowledge, it is not enough that it happens to be true, but we must also be

able to explain why it is true. That is, we must be able to provide an account, or justification – a

‘proof’ we might say in maths. The word that Plato uses is logos.

Plato has Socrates consider this view of knowledge, and in the end, he finds several problems with it.

Unsurprisingly, Socrates concludes that he does not know what knowledge is.11

9 However, as we have seen [1.1.1], Protagoras also thought that, although no one can be wrong in their beliefs, those who follow local conventions are wiser. 10 The problem of change, or of being and becoming, had been known since the very beginning of ancient Greek philosophy, with the Eleatics and Heraclitus. As Heraclitus had claimed, you cannot step into the same river twice because everything changes all the time. Yet somehow, we see things also remaining the same. Although we are aware of its flow, we perceive a river to be the same one it was yesterday. Thus there seems to be a contradiction between being the same thing across time, and being something that changes, and this had lead the Eleatics to deny the reality of change. The issue is that in some ways things change, and in other ways they stay the same. Defining precisely what it is that stays the same – the substance or essence as Aristotle would later say – and how it is that things change, became a major task of philosophy. 11 However, the definition of knowledge as justified, true belief continued to play an important role in epistemology until Edmund Gettier (1927 - ) showed there are several problematic cases, and counterexamples.


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1.2 Gorgias – Moral Nihilism: Moral Truth is Fiction

1.2.0 On Rhetoric

Gorgias is widely reputed to have founded the school of Sophists, and credited with developing

rhetoric as a more formal art. He was of Sicilian origins and came to Athens on a political mission. He

stayed on as a teacher, after having displayed his skills as an orator12 by arguing successfully against

a commonly-held opinion of the time; that Helen was to blame for the Battle of Troy.

It will be recalled that the distinction between the Sophists and the Philosophers, and between

rhetoric and dialectic was only made clear later, by Plato. Gorgias himself used the word logos to

refer to his art, and in contrast to the definition of rhetoric given above (1.0.2) he rejected the

appeal to emotions (see logic fallacies), appealing instead to reason (logos).

Plato wrote a book called Gorgias, however here we learn more about what Plato thought, than

what Gorgias did. In it, Socrates claims that “all rhetoric is … a kind of flattery… that is

contemptible.” Rhetoric aims at pleasure not the Good, it is designed to influence people rather than

educate them. We will say more about Socrates’s views on education and below (1.3.1).

1.2.1 The Trilemma - Nothing exists, nothing can be known, nothing can be communicated

For the purposes of our syllabus, it is important to understand Gorgias as a moral nihilist, who

thought that moral truth is a fiction. His views – known as the trilemma - are described in his work

On the Non-Existent or On Nature. Again, this is not a work of ethics, but one on ontology,13

epistemology and philosophy of language. These correspond to the three horns of Gorgias’s

trilemma as follows:

Nothing exists (ontology)

If anything existed it couldn’t be known (epistemology)

If anything could be known, it couldn’t be communicated (philosophy of language)

1.2.1.0 Nothing exists

The first of Gorgias’s claims rests on the same issues we met above; the contradiction between

being and becoming. Nothing exists, Gorgias tells us, because if anything existed it would have to be

eternal or else it would have to be produced by something else. That is to say, existence has either

been here forever, or else, it came from nonexistence.14 But nonexistence, or nothingness, cannot

produce anything, otherwise nothingness would both exist and not exist at the same time, which is

impossible.15 And there is nothing eternal, according to Gorgias, because if so, it would also have to

be infinite, and as long as one recognizes a boundary between oneself and the other, there cannot

be an infinite…

It is not so important, for the purposes of MATSEC, to follow the thread of this argument as to

understand the conclusions. It is possible, in fact, that Gorgias was merely demonstrating his ability

to ‘make the weaker argument seem stronger,’ once again arguing against a nearly universally held

belief, that some things exists – you, me and this world we find ourselves in. They do not exist,

12 A practitioner of rhetoric and public speaking 13 The study of Being and Existence, a branch of Metaphysics 14 If we suppose that the universe was created by a God, then either that God is eternal or else He was created from nothing. 15 Note an early use of the Law of Non-Contradiction


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according to Gorgias, because of the problem of being and becoming. If something exists, it must

have come into being from something else, and ultimately from nothing. Or else it is eternal.

Religions and the sciences try to address this problem too, and it can be argued that no final answer

has been achieved.16

1.2.1.1 If anything existed, it couldn’t be known

The second horn of Gorgias’s trilemma rests on the problem of mind’s access to external reality (see

1.0.1). We think this world exists, because we see it, and perceive it through our other senses. But

what we see is not the world itself, but the image our brain forms of it, and similarly for the other

senses. Therefore we cannot know things that exist, even if there were any, we can only know the

way they appear to us.

Gorgias is not only referring to knowledge from sense-perception, but also to knowledge as thought,

and understanding (or even justified, true belief), and thus his arguments apply to knowledge as

understood both by empiricists and by rationalists (1.3.1). Things in the mind, whether they are the

images and sensations produced by the five senses, or the thoughts and ideas of reason, cannot be

what exists, otherwise it would be impossible to think of anything that does not exist; indeed, it

would be impossible to think about nonexistence.

1.2.1.2 If anything could be known, it could not be communicated

If the ideas in our mind are not what exists, then clearly our words are less so. When we talk or write

we do not express things-in-themselves, but symbols – Gorgias uses the word logos – that represent

them. In the Philosophy of Language (Advanced, Module 3 Q 4) this becomes the widely accepted

claim that the signifier (the word) is different from the signified (the world).

1.2.2 Gorgias and Protagoras on Truth

Protagoras and Gorgias agreed that there was no absolute truth. At the same time, they disagreed

about the implications of this view. For Gorgias, there was no truth at all – anything we say is only a

symbol for that which is in our mind and our mind cannot grasp anything outside of it, if anything

exists at all. As with Protagoras’s Mensura, this view is self-contradicting. If nothing can be known, or

communicated, because nothing exists, then Gorgias’s views are also about nothing which exists and

therefore not true.

In short, Gorgias’s views amount to the claim that nothing we can believe is true, i.e. nihilism.

Protagoras, on the other hand, can claim that everything we believe is true, for us at least, i.e.

relativism and subjectivism.

The problem with both these positions, as we have seen, is that they both lead to contradiction. If a

proposition is true, then its negation must be false, and vice-versa (See logic, rules of negator).

Although Protagoras and Gorgias knew of and respected this rule of logic, which would later be

formalised by Aristotle and come to be known as the Law of Non-Contradiction, their claim that

there is no absolute truth suggests that ultimate reality transcends the rules of logic.

16 The Big Bang theory fails to explain what happened in the very first nanoseconds of the explosion, much less why there was an explosion. It also fails to explain why certain parameters - e.g. forces and masses – have the values they do.


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1.3 Socrates

1.3.0 Socrates’s Life

While it is not usually important to know the biographical details of most philosophers we will study,

with Socrates, this is not the case. First of all, Socrates left no written accounts of his views – what

we know about his thoughts comes mostly from Plato, his student. Secondly, Socrates is often held

to have inspired the subsequent development of philosophy through his life and death.

There are two events which are particularly important to understanding Socrates. The first concerns

the Oracle pf Delphi, who had pronounced Socrates to be the wisest man. Socrates could not accept

this and went about looking for someone wiser than he, to prove the oracle wrong. However, he

found out that there was in fact very little wisdom in the people who pretended to have it, and he

would expose this ignorance, often publically. Of course, this made Socrates very unpopular – like a

gadfly, which stings horses into action. Plato has Socrates explain all this in the Apology.

Socrates: “I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer [from

the Oracle], I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of this riddle?

for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What can he mean when he says that I am the

wisest of men? And yet he is a god and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After a long

consideration, I at last thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find

a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to

him, "Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest." Accordingly I went to

one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed to him - his name I need not mention; he was a

politician whom I selected for examination - and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with

him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many,

and wiser still by himself; and I went and tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but

was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by

several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well,

although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off

than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In

this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another, who

had still higher philosophical pretensions, and my conclusion was exactly the same. I made another

enemy of him, and of many others besides him.

After this I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked,

and I lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid upon me - the word of God, I thought, ought to

be considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the

meaning of the oracle. And I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear! - for I must tell you the

truth - the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the

most foolish; and that some inferior men were really wiser and better….

This investigation has led to my having many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and has

given occasion also to many calumnies, and I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I

myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God

only is wise; and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing; he is not

speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name as an illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the

wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go my way,

obedient to the god, and make inquisition into the wisdom of anyone, whether citizen or stranger,

who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is


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not wise; and this occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter

of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the

god.

The second event was Socrates’s trial and resulting death. Socrates was charged with impiety and

with corrupting the young. The first charge was that he did not believe in the old gods of Athens and

had introduced new ones and the second was that through his encouraging his students to question

conventional norms and ideas, he had corrupted their morals. Here is Socrates’s response in Plato’s

Apology:

“Young men of the richer classes, who have not much to do, come about me of their own accord;

they like to hear the pretenders examined, and they often imitate me, and examine

others themselves; there are plenty of persons, as they soon enough discover, who think that they

know something, but really know little or nothing: and then those who are examined by them instead

of being angry with themselves are angry with me: This confounded Socrates, they say; this

villainous misleader of youth! - and then if somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practise or

teach? they do not know, and cannot tell; but in order that they may not appear to be at a loss, they

repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all philosophers about teaching things up in

the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause;

for they do not like to confess that their pretence of knowledge has been detected - which is the

truth: and as they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, and are all in battle array and have

persuasive tongues, they have filled your ears with their loud and inveterate calumnies…”

Socrates was given the opportunity to choose his own punishment, and could have chosen to go into

exile. However, he argues instead that he should be rewarded for his services to Athens. This makes

the accusers even angrier and he is condemned to death by hemlock. Socrates agrees to drink the

hemlock, arguing that his executioners are doing more harm to themselves than to him, since they

are committing an injustice [see 1.3.3.2.0 below].

The life and death of Socrates had a profound effect on his student, Plato, who went on to write

several philosophical dialogues with Socrates as the central character. In 1979, the philosopher A.N.

Whitehead described all of Western philosophy as ‘a series of footnotes to Plato’ and since Plato was

so indebted to Socrates, we can begin to see how influential the latter was in the development of

Western thought.

1.3.1 Socrates’s Theory of Knowledge and on Education

We have already seen that Socrates would probably have had a different understanding of

knowledge from that of Protagoras. Please note, I say ‘probably would have had’, because since

Socrates left no written works of his own, we have had to reconstruct what his views might have

been from the writings of Plato and so on.

In any case, we have contrasted Protagoras’s views, which today we call ‘empiricist,’ with those of

Socrates, who probably leaned towards rationalism, as his student Plato describes.

1.3.1.0 Empiricism:17 “the attempt to tie knowledge to experience” where experience means that

which we gain through sense-perception. Empiricism “denies that there is any knowledge … outside

17 Please note that these are notes, hence the use of colons, bullet-points, numbered lists etc. In essays and exams, students are expected to write complete, grammatically correct sentences.


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of that which can be observed to be true by the use of the senses, and that which can be legitimately

theorized upon this basis.” (Adapted from Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy)

Empiricism is usually interpreted as the claim that there are no such things as innate ideas, or a

priori knowledge (see below). Rather, when we are born, our minds are like tabula rasa – a blank

slate. This means that babies have completely empty minds, like an empty disk, waiting to be

written. We learn everything we know through experiencing the world through our five senses; for

example, we see a cat, we hear the word ‘cat’ every time this happens, and we learn that this kind of

animal is a cat.

In brief, empiricism is the view that knowledge is primarily gained through sense-perception.

1.3.1.1 Rationalism: “Any philosophy magnifying the role played by unaided reason, in the

acquisition and justification of knowledge.” (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy)

Rationalism is the view that there is some knowledge that is a priori, i.e. knowledge that we have

before any kind of experience. There is knowledge we are born with, in other words, our mind is

structured in a particular way, and is not merely a blank slate when we are born.

Rationalism is most easily understood by considering maths and geometry. Often, when we work out

a proof, or someone explains it to us, there is a sense in which we ‘remember’ that that is the

correct answer; it is as if we cannot understand why we didn’t see it before. It is very different from

studying more empirical sciences like biology or chemistry, where we are given a lot of information,

and mostly, we have to take our teachers’ word for it. With geometry, math, and logic too, once we

have the answer explained to us, we can see for ourselves that the argument is valid and sound. Such

knowledge is said to be ‘self-evident.’

1.3.1.2 The theory of Innate Ideas and a priori knowledge

The theory of innate ideas is the claim that there is some knowledge that we gain before experience,

or in Latin, a priori. We are born with this knowledge18 – however we often require a good teacher in

order to truly understand it.

Plato gives us an example of an innate idea – that of equality, or sameness - in his book Phaedo. His

example involves a pair of sticks which are of the same length, whereas I will continue with our

example of how a child gains knowledge about cats.

For the child to be able to learn what a cat is, she must already have the ability to recognize two

things that are the same, that is, she must have already seen the similarity between all the cats she

has encountered, and every instance of the word ‘cat’ she hears.

The idea of sameness or equality seems to underlie most basic learning activities of babies, for

example, when learning to sort pieces according to colour and shape, or when repeating the same

activity and expecting the same result, like throwing toys on the ground to watch mummy pick them

up. For a baby to be able to do any of this, he must already have an understanding of what it means

for two things to be the same.

The idea of sameness or equality seems to underlie the very possibility of a child learning, and

therefore it cannot be that children learn about it from experience. Rather, the understanding that

two things can be the same seems pre-requisite to the very possibility of having coherent experience

18 The word ‘innate’ shares the same root as ‘natal’ and ‘nativity’ and comes from Latin ‘natus,’ which means ‘born.


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at all – we would not be able to sort out the various impressions and stimuli we receive from the

senses into any ordered pattern if we could not already recognize sameness.

If all of this is beyond you, fear not – all you need for the purposes of Ethics is a general

understanding of the differences between empiricism and rationalism. If you are an advanced

student and doing Epistemology, you might want to try to grapple with innate ideas a little.

1.3.1.3 The theory of recollection [anamnesis]

In another book, Meno, Plato has Socrates give a demonstration of the theory of innate ideas and of

recollection of knowledge. We are told that Socrates and Meno are having a conversation about

what virtue is, and whether it can be taught, and we encounter Socrates’s view that virtue is a kind

of wisdom. Socrates uses his method [1.3.2] on a slave boy, to show that even someone without any

schooling at all, could be brought to understand the principles of geometry and maths. We saw this

example in class when I asked you to draw a square which was double the size of my original square

(without using a ruler). We concluded that even without any knowledge of geometry, anyone would

be able to see how two halves of a square were the same size. Thus the ideas underlying geometry

and maths, such as equality, are innate.

The theory of recollection adds that the soul is immortal, and that we are able to learn through

recollection. That is, we remember those ideas that are innate in us. Babies remember to look for

similarity in their experiences, and we ‘remember’ the principles of maths and geometry as we learn

them in school. It is not that the teacher ‘imparts’ such knowledge; rather, we had it all the time.

The theory of recollection suggests that we existed, perhaps as living creatures, or perhaps as angels

or spirits, and that we had some form of knowledge, before we were born to this world. It suggests a

theory of rebirth (or transmigration, metempsychosis, as Plato called it) similar to that found in the

East (see 1.3.3.0 on the Soul).

1.3.1.4 Midwife analogy

We have already mentioned the midwife analogy through which Socrates described himself, and

indirectly, the role of a good teacher. A teacher does not put knowledge into a student’s ‘blank slate’

mind; rather, a good teacher draws out knowledge which is already there. Here is Theaetetus 150 b-

c:

Socrates: “My art of midwifery is in general like theirs [real midwives]; the only difference is

that my patients are men, not women, and my concern is not with the body but with the

soul that is in travail of birth. And the highest point of my art is the power to prove by every

test whether the offspring of a young man's thought is a false phantom or instinct with life

and truth…

Those who frequent my company at first appear, some of them, quite unintelligent, but, as

we go further with our discussions, all who are favored by heaven make progress at a rate

that seems surprising to others as well as to themselves, although it is clear that they have

never learned anything from me. The many admirable truths they bring to birth have been

discovered by themselves from within. But the delivery is heaven's work and mine.”

1.3.2 The Socratic Method

How does Socrates draw out this knowledge, how does he help men birth these “many admirable

truths”? He does this through what has become known as the Socratic Method, which we read


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about in Meno, and other works by Plato. Other words for the Socratic Method, which is still a

popular pedagogical approach used by teachers today, are ‘dialectic’ and ‘elenchus.’

1.3.2.0 Dialectic and Elenchus

Dialectic and elenchus involve a process whereby the teacher, Socrates, asks for a definition (e.g.

what is virtue?) and then proceeds to reveal the flaws in such an understanding (elenchus) and

often, together with the interlocutor, goes on to construct a better understanding (dialectic).

Socrates preferred to engage in philosophy publicly, through conversation with other teachers, and

therefore dialectic in his original sense involved a dialogue between individuals. Later on it came to

mean even dialogues between cultures and epochs (Hegel) and eventually it came to mean

something a philosopher might engage in alone (Aquinas, Nietzsche).

In any case, dialectic and elenchus involve a process of questioning – either actual questions which

Socrates asks his interlocutors, or else in the form of hypotheses. Often the aim is to reach a

universal definition – e.g. what is virtue? – and the process begins with this question.

Once the interlocutor has proposed an answer, Socrates proceeds to provide counter-examples, i.e.

examples that show inconsistencies in the interlocutor’s beliefs. For example, suppose we defined

virtue as ‘a good quality.’ I could then ask whether it is good to have accurate eyesight and a steady

hand, and you would probably say yes. Then I could claim that these two good qualities might be

used to murder someone and I would ask you if you thought murder was good. You would probably

have to say no, and admit that virtue cannot be any good quality, and you would begin to

understand why Socrates was so unpopular.

1.3.2.1 Socratic irony and admission of ignorance

Although dialectic and elenchus aim at universal definitions, in most Socratic dialogues, as in Meno,

the result is a negative one, and the conclusion is that we do not know what virtue is. The fact of not

knowing is not negative in itself, however, rather, it is a form of wisdom. For Socrates, wisdom was

knowing that one does not know, as opposed to thinking that one knows something, when one does

not. Here he is in Plato’s Apology:

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he

fancies he knows something although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything,

so I do not fancy I do.

When we realize that we do not actually know something that we thought we knew, a feeling of

wonder and puzzlement arises, and this is called aporia. For Socrates, this was a positive experience,

as it leads to a person wanting to know more.

Socrates however, often claimed to know nothing at all and this has become known as Socratic

irony. Irony is the uttering of words which mean the opposite of what you intend, such as when you

comment upon a bad football shot and say “brilliant!”

Socrates may have meant to deceive his listeners into thinking he was really as ignorant as he

claimed, or he may have wanted to shock them into a state of aporia. In any case, his claims to know

nothing about the subject, only later to reveal that he knows quite a lot, his praise of the

interlocutors, even while he is demolishing their argument, are all instances of Socratic irony.

1.3.2.2 Universal definitions


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The key point about the Socratic Method is that it aims at reaching a universal definition. Socrates

wants to know what virtue is and insists he is not asking for examples or particular instances of

virtue, but wants a definition that applies to all instances of virtues and to nothing but instances of

virtue.

In Euthyphro and Meno, Plato has Socrates discuss what he aims for in a definition, and today we

explain such definitions in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. If we want to define a cat,

we might say “a cat is a furry, four-legged domestic creature.” This definition is too broad as well as

being too narrow. It is too broad because other creatures – dogs, guinea-pigs – are included in this

definition. It is too narrow because there are cats without fur, cats with fewer than four legs, and

cats that are wild or feral.

We try to narrow our definition by picking out necessary and sufficient conditions. For example it is

not necessary that a cat has fur, but it is necessary that, if it is healthy, it is able to reproduce

successfully with other cats. This is, in fact, Ernst Mayr’s biological definition of a species. No matter

how mangled our cat may be – no fur, no legs etc. – it is still a cat if, had it been healthy and of

reproductive age, it would have been able to reproduce successfully with other cats of its species.19

Let us define x as “a thing is a cat” and y as “it is (in theory) able to reproduce successfully with other

cats”. The idea that y is necessary for x can be understood as “if x then y.” If a thing is a cat, then

necessarily it can mate with other cats. In other words, y applies to all cases of x, unlike other

features we considered, like fur or legs.

Not only that, the ability to mate with other cats of a species is enough to make one a member of

that species. The sense in which this condition is sufficient for being a cat can be understood as “if y

then x”. That is, y applies to nothing but cases of x. If it can reproduce with other cats, it’s a cat.

As we will learn in logic, these two propositions together make a bi-subjunction. Thus, the

conditional sentence describing a set of necessary and sufficient conditions can be understood as:

“if and only if [x] then [y]”.

Of course, in our case, our definition is circular – one would already need to know what a cat is in

order to be able to determine whether a particular creature could reproduce with other cats.

Aware of such problems, Socrates added a further condition for a successful definition. Not only

should it be universal, i.e. not only should it apply to all cases of x and nothing but cases of x, a good

definition should also explain why x is an x. Aristotle took this up in his theory of four causes, and

planted the seed of what would eventually become modern science. Today, we look for such causes

in physics chemistry and biology, and in our example, we would turn to the study of genetics to

understand what a cat is.

1.3.3 Socrates’s Ethics: Knowledge, wisdom and virtue

1.3.3.0 Care of the Immortal Soul

As we have seen, the doctrine of innate ideas and recollection can be interpreted to suggest that we

have lived past lives20 and that theory stems on the view of the soul as something immortal. In

19 This is why ligers and tigons are known as ’hybrids’ rather than species. 20 Another interpretation does not require belief in past and future lives, or in the immortality of the soul, but rather understands innate ideas to refer to structures in our brain which shape human experience, for example, by priming it to seek similarities.


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Phaedo, Plato has Socrates describe the soul as being “imprisoned” in the body. Here we find a few

arguments for the immortality of the soul that Socrates might have made. One of these, the Cyclical

Argument, claims that life follows death like day and night follow each other.

It is hard to know exactly what Socrates believed about the soul. Plato lays out two different

theories in his books. In Phaedo, Socrates argues for a soul which is simple and undivided. The soul

here is described as the principle of life or else as the capacity to think. In any case, the soul under

this account is seen as one, as unchanging and hence immortal.

In Republic, Plato describes another understanding of the soul; one where reason, or the capacity to

think, is just one part of it, albeit the most important part. The other parts of the soul, appetite and

spirit, are described as two horses that draw a chariot, with reason being the charioteer that guides

them. It is likely that on this understanding of the soul, Plato thought that only reason is immortal.

In any case, Socrates often makes an analogy between care of the soul and that of the body, arguing

that for a good life, to reach Eudaimonia [1.3.3] a healthy soul is sufficient. Just as there are things

which are good for the body – proper nutrition, hygiene etc. – similarly there are things which are

good for the soul - virtue, wisdom, and knowledge of the Truth. For Socrates, care of the soul is far

more important, for the simple reason that the soul is immortal, while the body will only be with us

during this lifetime. Thus rather than seeking wealth, reputation and honor, Socrates advises his

listeners to see wisdom and Truth for improving the soul.

In the Apology, Plato makes Socrates claim that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates

describes how the oracle at Delphi had changed his life with her pronouncement that none is wiser

than Socrates. Socrates understood this to be an exhortation to philosophy, to examine his soul in

the search for truth, and the love of wisdom.

Thus we can see that for Socrates, virtue, knowledge of the Truth and wisdom are of supreme value.

It is now time to explore the relation between these.

1.3.3.1 Wisdom and Virtue are one

As we have seen, for Socrates the soul is that which knows, that which has wisdom. Wisdom is the

state of inner harmony of the soul, and to do philosophy is to take care of the soul. The words

‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ are often used interchangeably when discussing Socrates’s philosophy,

however wisdom is more than just knowledge. Wisdom also includes knowing how to make the best

use of things, according to Socrates.

Whatever goods we consider – wealth, beauty, courage and all of the virtues except for wisdom – all

of these can be used in a bad way. The same can be said of knowledge; a teacher might use their

knowledge to corrupt young minds. Wisdom – knowing how to use things in the best way – is the

only thing that is unconditionally and intrinsically good.21

But what exactly does Socrates mean by wisdom? Besides being a harmonious and completed state

of the soul, and the only thing unqualifiedly good, wisdom is also sometimes described as a state of

epistemic humility. In the Apology, we read that wisdom is knowing what you don’t know.

Wisdom is not just an art or a technique, according to Socrates. Although it involves knowing how to

make the best use of things, this is not a matter of practical knowledge which one could pick up by

repetition, but requires theoretical knowledge, in fact, of knowing the Good.

21 Later on, we will see that Kant made a similar point about the Good Will


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Whatever Socrates meant by wisdom and knowledge, it is clear that they were of supreme value to

him, and in fact, all virtues are reduced to a form of knowledge in his philosophy. As we have seen,

the other virtues might be used in a good way or in a bad way. In order to use them in a good way,

one needs to know the Good, i.e. one needs wisdom. Thus all true virtues are a form of knowledge

of the Good.

In others words, all virtues are one, and all virtue is knowledge. This will form an important part of

Socratic ethics, in particular, moral optimism [1.3.3.2.1] and moral intellectualism [1.3.3.2.2]

1.3.3.2 Knowledge of Truth and Right Actions

We have already placed Socrates’s ethics within the tradition of virtue ethics. According to this

approach, if we focus on becoming virtuous people, the right action will follow. According to

Socrates, as we have seen, becoming virtuous depends upon knowing what virtue is. Virtue is

knowledge of the Good. In particular, when it comes to knowing which action to perform, Socrates

appeals to the virtue of justice, as we will see [1.3.3.2.0]

Virtue ethics contains the further premise that all humans aim towards the good. In fact, some

versions go further and claim that all things in general strive for, or are driven towards, their own

good. When it comes to humans, this good is known as Eudaimonia – Happiness, or better still Self-

Fulfilment or Flourishing.22 Although the term Eudaimonia is most commonly associated with

Aristotle, both Socrates and Plato made extensive use of it. We will see an example of this in the

excerpt from the Symposium cited below [1.3.4]

Socrates’s ethics can be summed up as the view that wisdom, knowledge or virtue (recall that they

are one) is necessary and sufficient for happiness. To know the good is to do the good, and to do the

good is true happiness, in a nutshell. We will now explore this idea in further detail.

1.3.3.2.0 Moral heroism

Prima facie, there is a lot that seems wrong with Socrates’s views as I have explained them. Not

everyone who knows the good does it, and not everyone who does the good is happy. Socrates’s

own life seems to provide evidence for this; despite being the wisest and best of Athenians, Socrates

was put to death.

Socrates’s view of Eudaimonia rests heavily on his view of the soul as immortal and the body as

unimportant. Despite having suffered a massive injustice, Socrates’s soul is still whole and healthy,

and thus it could be argued that he died a happy man, with Eudaimonia.23

We read about this in Plato’s Apology, where Socrates explains that those who have silenced him by

sentencing him to death have harmed themselves much more than they have harmed him, since

wrong-doing harms the soul.

22 ‘Happiness’ is the most common translation of Eudaimonia, and students are strongly advised to use it, together with other words like ‘self-fulfilment’ (which is the word MATSEC chose to use on the syllabus) and Flourishing (which is the word I prefer). What ‘happiness’ and ‘flourishing’ lack is the sense of completion, of finality, that ‘self-fulfilment’ conveys. That is to say, Eudaimonia is not to be understood as a fleeting psychological state; it is not the feel of pleasure when one is happy, not something that comes and goes, but a quality that one ascribes to the whole of one’s life. To reach Eudaimonia means to have fulfilled oneself, in the sense that one has led the best life for the type of being one is. 23 Some, like J.S. Mill, suggest rather that Socrates died dissatisfied


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For his own part, Socrates thinks that “a man worth anything at all does not consider whether his

course of action endangers his life or threatens death.” (Plato, Republic). The only criterion that

should govern our decisions about how to act, is whether an act is just or not. According to Socrates,

one should be willing to sacrifice even one’s life for that, and the starting point of The Republic, in

fact, is that “it is better to suffer an injustice than to commit it.”

Thus we see a certain heroic stance in Socrates; there is no fear, laziness, greed or emotion impeding

the true philosopher in his search for the Truth and the Good. Later, Plato and Aristotle would

challenge that view in fact.

1.3.3.2.1 Moral optimism

Socrates’s moral heroism rests on his moral optimism, the view that we can reach Eudaimonia,

because human nature is basically good.

Virtue ethics, as we have said, posits that humans always act for the good. Another way of putting

this, is that nobody does evil knowingly or willingly. Socrates could claim this because to him, all

virtues amount to knowledge. If one seems to knowingly and willingly choose evil - say when we

choose to smoke, despite knowing all the medical and ethical arguments as to why we shouldn’t –

according to Socrates this is because one does not truly know the Good. In this case, perhaps we

choose the lesser good, the pleasure we get from smoking, mistaking that for the Good. If we

knowingly harm others, this is because we do not know the harm this causes our soul.

What this amounts to is that human nature is basically good. The only vice is ignorance; people err

because they do not know better, not because they are evil. This is captured in the common phrase

we use when we need to apologize. We never mean to hurt anyone, or intend to do evil; rather we

mistake a lesser good for the higher good.

Moral optimism can be explained as the following: “If one knows the good one does it.” The

conditional works the other way, however, that is, it is another bi-subjunction, an ‘if and only if’

sentence. ‘If one does the good one knows it’ is also true according to Socrates, since wisdom is both

necessary and sufficient for virtue.

1.3.3.2.2 Moral Intellectualism

Knowing the good, then, is necessary and sufficient for right action. This is another aspect of

Socrates’s ethics, his moral intellectualism, or the view that what motivates our action is primarily a

cognitive state. It is our thoughts, our knowledge about Good which determines what we do,

according to this view, not our feelings, or emotions, like fear, or laziness.

We can see this moral intellectualism in Socrates’s view that wisdom is the only virtue, that is, that

all virtues are a form of knowledge. Later on, Plato and Aristotle would challenge this view, and

ascribe a larger role to the Will and to the Non-Rational aspects of our soul in guiding our action.

For Socrates, however, knowledge was both necessary and sufficient for right action. To live a good

life, to reach Eudaimonia, depends on knowing the Good and if one truly knows the Good, one will

do the right thing, even at the cost of one’s life.

1.3.3.3 Socrates’s Eudaimonism

Knowledge is also necessary and sufficient for happiness, Eudaimonia. This follows clearly from

Socrates’s moral intellectualism, by the law of transitivity (see logic notes). Thus we find, once again


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that care of the soul, the examined life – that is, the practice of philosophy, as the love of wisdom –

is the path to virtue, and to Eudaimonia.

1.3.3.3.0 Socrates compared to Plato, Aristotle

Plato would go on to describe this path in the Allegory of the Cave and the Analogy of the Divided

Line. In Republic he describes the soul as Tripartite, comprising appetite and spirit (will) as well as

reason. He describes the soul through the Allegory of the Chariot where Reason is represented as a

charioteer, driving two winged-horses, one obedient and one unruly, representing Spirit and

Appetite respectively.

Aristotle also divided the soul into a rational and non-rational part, and admitted we might

knowingly do what we know to be wrong through weak-will [akrasia]. In other words, no one is good

or virtuous by nature; rather, to be virtuous requires practice and habituation.

1.3.4 Socrates’s Love of Truth

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn

We have dwelt on the relation between Truth and Goodness in Socrates’s Philosophy, and it is now

time to turn to the third element that connects them, Beauty. We see that for Socrates, the search

for Truth is not a neutral and disinterested procedure; rather it is inspired by love and desire, as we

read in this passage from Plato’s Symposium, where Socrates tells us what he has learnt about love,

from the prophetess and philosopher Diotima:

“That, Socrates,” she replied, “I will attempt to unfold: of love’s nature and birth I have already

spoken; and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful. But someone will say: Of the beautiful in

what, Socrates and Diotima?-or rather let me put the question more dearly, and ask: When a man

loves the beautiful, what does he desire?”

I answered her “That the beautiful may be his.”

“Still,” she said, “the answer suggests a further question: What is given by the possession of beauty?”

“To what you have asked,” I replied, “I have no answer ready.”

“Then,” she said, “Let me put the word ‘good’ in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question

once more: If he who loves good, what is it then that he loves?

“The possession of the good,” I said.

“And what does he gain who possesses the good?”

“Happiness,” I replied; “there is less difficulty in answering that question.”

“Yes,” she said, “the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any need

to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final… And is this wish and this desire

common to all? and do all men always desire their own good, or only some men?—what say you?”


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“All men,” I replied; “the desire is common to all.”

“... [And] there is nothing which men love but the good. Is there anything?”

“Certainly, I should say, that there is nothing.”

“Then,” she said, “the simple truth is, that men love the good….To which must be added that they

love the possession of the good… And not only the possession, but the everlasting possession of the

good?”

“That must be added too.”

“Then love,” she said, “may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the

good…There is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation-procreation which

must be in beauty and not in deformity; and this procreation is the union of man and woman, and is

a divine thing... For love, Socrates, is not, as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only … [but] the

love of generation and of birth in beauty…Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of

eternity and immortality and if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of

the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good: Wherefore love is of

immortality.”

…

“Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget children-this is

the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them

the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnant-for

there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies conceive that which

is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions?—wisdom and virtue in

general. …

But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of

states and families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who in youth has the seed of

these implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and

generate. He wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring-for in deformity he will

beget nothing-and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body; above all when

he finds fair and noble and well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such an

one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man; and he tries to

educate him; and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when

absent, he brings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends that

which he brings forth; and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than

those who beget mortal children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and

more immortal. Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would not rather

have their children than ordinary human ones? Who would not emulate them in the creation of

children such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory? Or

who would not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours, not only of

Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of

Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other places, both among Hellenes and

barbarians, who have given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of


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every kind; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such as theirs;

which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children.

“These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and

more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit,

they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you,

and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to

visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only-out

of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one

form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish

would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives

this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will

become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is

more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little

comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth

thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of

institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that

personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may

see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution,

himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of

beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until

on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science,

which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best

attention:

“He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful

in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of

wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)—a nature which in the

first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning;24 secondly, not fair in one

point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another

time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and-foul to others,25 or in the

likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or

knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven or in earth, or in

any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution

and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all

other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that

beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of

love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty,

using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair

forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the

notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear Socrates,”

said the stranger of Mantineia, “is that life above all others which man should live, in the

contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after

the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you;

and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them

24 i.e. an absolute Beauty 25 i.e. universal Beauty


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without meat or drink, if that were possible-you only want to look at them and to be with them. But

what if man had eyes to see the true beauty-the divine beauty, I mean, pure and dear and unalloyed,

not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life-thither

looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that

communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not

images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth

and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would

that be an ignoble life?”

Diotima explains that from the appreciation of a particular beautiful body, one can come to

appreciate a particular beautiful soul, i.e. one endowed with wisdom and virtue. From this, one can

come to appreciate what is beautiful in others, and what is beautiful universally. From this

understanding of physical and spiritual beauty, one begins to understand the beauty of practices and

actions, and from this the beauty of ideas such as justice, truth and wisdom. Ultimately one will

come to see the idea of absolute and universal Beauty itself, and this is the goal of the philosopher.

Moreover, with such an understanding of Beauty, the philosopher will want to propagate it (just like

ordinary men who meet beautiful women want to have children with them). He or she will devote

his or her life to immortalizing this Beauty in the form of art, institutions and societies, implementing

justice wherever they can. In this way, philosophy, or love of wisdom, leads to Eudaimonia, or

Happiness.

What this shows is that for Socrates, the search for truth is not completely divorced from human

values. Socrates and philosophers as he describes them, are not like the modern scientist,

discovering facts for their own sakes. Rather, the philosopher has a desire to know, a longing for

Truth, Goodness and Beauty and thus the realms of phusis and nomos, facts and values, are not as

sharply separated as they were for the Sophists, or for our modern understanding, but are

intertwined.

1.4 Past Paper Questions

1. What led the ancient Sophists to declare that there is no absolute truth, or that truth is

unknowable even if it exists? What are the moral and ethical implications of their position?

(Intermediate September 2016)

2. Outline the Sophist’s notion of Truth by making reference to both Protagoras and Gorgias.

(Advanced May 2018)

3. ‘The primary difference between Socrates and the Sophists seems to lie in a disagreement on

whether or not a truth (or knowledge) might be absolute’. Explain this statement by making

reference to their respective philosophies. (Intermediate September 2018)

4. What arguments would Socrates use to refute Protagoras’ claim that “Man is the measure of all

things.”? (Advanced May 2016)

5. “There is only one good, knowledge and one evil, ignorance” Discuss in relation to Socratic moral

optimism. (Advanced September 2016)

6. The Socratic Method involves dialogue. Discuss how this method leads Socrates to attain

knowledge of the Truth. (Intermediate May 2016)


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7. Socrates holds that knowledge of the Truth is a prerequisite to right action. Discuss. (Intermediate

May 2017)

8. Discuss how Socrates uses moral optimism to account for i) knowledge of the truth and right

actions, and ii) the dialectic method. (Advanced September 2018)

9. ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ (Plato, Apology) Discuss this quote, accredited to

Socrates by Plato, with reference to Socratic Philosophy and its concept of Truth. (Intermediate

September 2019)

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