Socrates herein adopted firstly the doctrine of Anaxagoras that thought, the understanding, is the ruling and self-determining universal, though this principle did not, as with the Sophists, attain the form of formal culture or of abstract philosophizing. Thus, if with Socrates, as with Protagoras, the self-conscious thought that abrogates all that is determined, was real existence, with Socrates this was the case in such a way that he at the same time grasped in thought rest and security. This substance existing in and for itself, the self-retaining, has become determined as end, and further as the true and the good.
To this determination of the universal, we have, in the second place, to add that this good, which has by me to be esteemed as substantial end, must be known by me; with this the infinite subjectivity, the freedom of self-consciousness in Socrates breaks out. This freedom which is contained therein, the fact that consciousness is clearly present in all that it thinks, and must necessarily be at home with itself, is in our time constantly and plainly demanded; the substantial, although eternal and in and for itself, must as truly be produced through me; but this my part in it is only the formal activity. Thus Socrates’ principle is that man has to find from himself both the end of his actions and the end of the world, and must attain to truth through himself. True thought thinks in such a way that its import is as truly objective as subjective. But objectivity has been the significance of substantial universality, and not of external objectivity; thus truth is now posited as a product mediated through thought, while untrained morality, as Sophocles makes Antigone say (vers. 454-457), is “the eternal law of the Gods”: “And no one knew from whence it came.”
But though in modern times we hear much said of immediate knowledge and belief, it is a misconception to maintain that their content, God, the Good, Just, &c., although the content of feeling and conception, is not, as spiritual content, also posited through thought. The animal has no religion, because it only feels; but what is spiritual rests on the mediation of thought, and pertains to man.
Since Socrates thus introduces the infinitely important element of leading back the truth of the objective to the thought of the subject, just as Protagoras says that the objective first is through relation to us, the battle of Socrates and Plato with the Sophists cannot rest on the ground that these, as belonging to the old faith, maintained against the others the religion and customs of Greece, for the violation of which Anaxagoras was condemned. Quite the contrary. Reflection, and the reference of any judgment to consciousness, is held by Socrates in common with the Sophists. But the opposition into which Socrates and Plato were in their philosophy necessarily brought in regard to the Sophists, as the universal philosophic culture of the times, was as follows:—The objective produced through thought, is at the same time in and for itself, thus being raised above all particularity of interests and desires, and being the power over them. Hence because, on the one hand, to Socrates and Plato the moment of subjective freedom is the directing of consciousness into itself, on the other, this return is also determined as a coming out from particular subjectivity. It is hereby implied that contingency of events is abolished, and man has this outside within him, as the spiritual universal. This is the true, the unity of subjective and objective in modern terminology, while the Kantian ideal is only phenomenal and not objective in itself.
In the third place Socrates accepted the Good at first only in the particular significance of the practical, which nevertheless is only one mode of the substantial Idea; the universal is not only for me, but also, as end existent in and for itself, the principle of the philosophy of nature, and in this higher sense it was taken by Plato and Aristotle. Of Socrates it is hence said, in the older histories of Philosophy, that his main distinction was having added ethics as a new conception to Philosophy, which formerly only took nature into consideration. Diogenes Laertius, in like manner says (III., 56), that the Ionics founded natural philosophy, Socrates ethics, and Plato added to them dialectic. Now ethics is partly objective, and partly subjective and reflected morality [Sittlichkeit und Moralität],[117] and the teaching of Socrates is properly subjectively moral, because in it the subjective side, my perception and meaning, is the prevailing moment, although this determination of self-positing is likewise sublated, and the good and eternal is what is in and for itself.
Objective morality is, on the contrary, natural, since it signifies the knowledge and doing of what is in and for itself good. The Athenians before Socrates were objectively, and not subjectively, moral, for they acted rationally in their relations without knowing that they were particularly excellent. Reflective morality adds to natural morality the reflection that this is the good and not that; the Kantian philosophy, which is reflectively moral, again showed the difference.
Because Socrates in this way gave rise to moral philosophy, all succeeding babblers about morality and popular philosophy constituted him their patron and object of adoration, and made him into a cloak which should cover all false philosophy. As he treated it, it was undoubtedly popular; and what contributed to make it such was that his death gave him the never-failing interest derived from innocent suffering. Cicero (Tusc. Quæst. V. 4), whose manner of thought was, on the one hand, of the present, and who, on the other hand, had the belief that Philosophy should yield itself up, and hence succeeded in attaining to no content in it, boasted of Socrates (what has often enough been said since) that his most eminent characteristic was to have brought Philosophy from heaven to earth, to the homes and every-day life of men, or, as Diogenes Laertius expresses it (II. 21), “into the market place.” There we have what has just been said. This would seem as if the best and truest Philosophy were only a domestic or fireside philosophy, which conforms to all the ordinary ideas of men, and in which we see friends and faithful ones talk together of righteousness, and of what can be known on the earth, without having penetrated the depths of the heavens, or rather the depths of consciousness. But this last is exactly what Socrates, as these men themselves indicate, first ventured to do. And it was not incumbent on him to reflect upon all the speculations of past Philosophy, in order to be able to come down in practical philosophy to inward thought. This gives a general idea of his principle.
We must examine more closely this noteworthy phenomenon, and begin with the history of Socrates’ life. This is, however, closely intertwined with his interest in Philosophy, and the events of his life are bound up with his principles. We have first of all to consider the beginning of his life only. Socrates, whose birth occurs in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad (469 B.C.), was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and of Phænarete, a midwife. His father brought him up to sculpture, and it is said that Socrates acquired skill in the art, and long after, statues of draped Graces, found in the Acropolis, were ascribed to him. But his art did not satisfy him; a great desire for Philosophy, and love of scientific research, got possession of him. He pursued his art merely to get money for a necessary subsistence, and to be able to apply himself to the study of the sciences; and it is told of Crito, an Athenian, that he defrayed the cost of Socrates’ instruction by masters in all the arts. During the exercise of his art, and specially after he gave it up altogether, he read the works of ancient philosophers in so far as he could get possession of them. At the same time he attended Anaxagoras’ instructions, and, after his expulsion from Athens, at which time Socrates was thirty-seven years old, those of Archelaus, who was regarded as Anaxagoras’ successor, besides those of Sophists celebrated in other sciences. Amongst these he heard Prodicus, a celebrated teacher of oratory, whom, according to Xenophon (Memorab.
II. c. 1, §§ 21, 34), he mentions with affection, and other teachers of music, poetry, etc. He was esteemed as on all sides a man of culture, who was instructed in everything then requisite thereto.[118] Another feature in his life was that he fulfilled the duty of protecting his country, which rested on him as an Athenian citizen. Hence he made three campaigns in the Peloponnesian war, which occurred during his life. The Peloponnesian war led to the dissolution of Greek life, inasmuch as it was preparatory to it; and what took place politically was by Socrates carried out in thinking consciousness. In these campaigns he not only acquired the fame of a brave warrior, but, what was best of all, the merit of having saved the lives of other citizens. In the first, he was present at the tedious siege of Potidæa in Thrace. Here Alcibiades had already attached himself to him, and, according to Plato, he recited in the Banquet (p. 219-222, Steph.; p.
461-466, Bekk.), a eulogy on Socrates for being able to endure all toil, hunger and thirst, heat and cold, with mind at rest and health of body. In an engagement in this campaign he saw Alcibiades wounded in the midst of the enemy, lifted him up, forced his way through, and saved both him and his arms. The generals rewarded him with a wreath, which was the prize of the bravest; Socrates did not, however, take it, maintaining that it was given to Alcibiades. In this campaign it is said that once, sunk in deep meditation, he stood immovable on one spot the whole day and night, until the morning sun awoke him from his trance—a condition in which he is said often to have been. This was a cataleptic state, which may bear some relation to magnetic somnambulism, in which Socrates became quite dead to sensuous consciousness. From this physical setting free of the inward abstract self from the concrete bodily existence of the individual, we have, in the outward manifestation, a proof of how the depths of his mind worked within him. In him we see pre-eminently the inwardness of consciousness that in an anthropological way existed in the first instance in him, and became later on a usual thing. He made his other campaign in Bœotia at Delium, a small fortification which the Athenians possessed not far from the sea, and where they had an unfortunate, though not an important engagement. Here Socrates saved another of his favourites, Xenophon; he saw him in the flight, for Xenophon, having lost his horse, lay wounded on the ground. Socrates took him over his shoulders, carried him off, defending himself at the same time with the greatest tranquillity and presence of mind from the pursuing enemy. Finally he made his last campaign at Amphipolis in Edonis, on the Strymonian Bay.[119] Besides this, he occupied various civil offices. At the time when the democratic constitution of Athens hitherto existing, was taken away by the Lacedemonians, who now introduced everywhere an aristocratic and indeed tyrannical rule, whereby they in great measure put themselves at the head of affairs, he was chosen for the council, which, as a representative body, took the place of the people. Here he distinguished himself by his immovable firmness in what he held to be right as against the wills of the thirty tyrants, as formerly against the will of the people. For he sat in the tribunal which condemned the ten generals to death, because, as admirals at the battle of Arginusæ, though they certainly had conquered, yet, being kept back through storm, they had not dragged out the bodies nor buried them on the shore, and because they neglected to erect trophies; _i.e._ really because they did not stand their ground, and thus appeared to have been beaten. Socrates alone did not agree with this decision, declaring himself more emphatically against the people than against the rulers.[120] To-day he fares badly who says anything against the people. “The people have excellent intelligence, understand everything, and have only the most excellent intentions.” As to rulers, governments, ministers, it is self-evident that “they understand nothing, and only desire and bring forth what is bad.”
Along with these to him more accidental relationships to the State, in which he acted only from the ordinary sense of citizenship, without spontaneously making the affairs of the State his real business, or pressing on to the head of public affairs, the real business of his life was to discuss moral philosophy with any who came in his way. His philosophy, which asserts that real existence is in consciousness as a universal, is still not a properly speculative philosophy, but remained individual; yet the aim of his philosophy was that it should have a universal significance. Hence we have to speak of his own individual being, of his thoroughly noble character, which usually is depicted as a complete catalogue of the virtues adorning the life of a private citizen; and these virtues of Socrates are certainly to be looked at as his own, and as made habitual to him by his own will. It has to be noted that with the ancients these qualities have generally more of the character of virtue, because with the ancients, in ordinary morality, individuality, as the form of the universal, was given free scope, so that virtues were regarded more as the actions of the individual will, and thus as personal qualities; while with us they seem to be less what is meritorious to the individual, or what comes from himself as this unit. We are accustomed to think of them much more as what exists, as duty, because we have a fuller consciousness of the universal, and consider the pure individual, the personal inward consciousness, as real existence and duty. With us virtues are hence actually either elements in our dispositions and nature, or they have the form of the universal and of what is necessary; but with Socrates they have the form, not of ordinary morality or of a natural or necessary thing, but of an independent determination. It is well known that his appearance indicated naturally low and hateful qualities, which, as indeed he says, he himself subdued.
He lived amongst his fellow-citizens, and stands before us as one of those great plastic natures consistent through and through, such as we often see in those times—resembling a perfect classical work of art which has brought itself to this height of perfection. Such individuals are not made, but have formed themselves into what they are; they have become that which they wished to be, and are true to this. In a real work of art the distinguishing point is that some idea is brought forth, a character is presented in which every trait is determined by the idea, and, because this is so, the work of art is, on the one hand, living, and, on the other, beautiful, for the highest beauty is just the most perfect carrying out of all sides of the individuality in accordance with the one inward principle. Such works of art are also seen in the great men of every time. The most plastic individual as a statesman is Pericles, and round him, like stars, Sophocles, Thucydides, Socrates, &c., worked out their individuality into an existence of its own—into a character which regulated their whole being, and which was one principle running throughout the whole of their existence. Pericles alone lived with the sole end of being a statesman. Plutarch (in Pericle, c. 5, 7) says of him that, from the time that he devoted himself to the business of the State, he laughed no more, and never again went to a feast. Thus, too, Socrates formed himself, through his art and through the power of self-conscious will, into this particular character, and acquired this capacity for the business of his life. Through his principle he attained that far-reaching influence which has lasted to the present day in relation to religion, science, and justice, for since his time the genius of inward conviction has been the basis which must be fundamental. And since this principle proceeded from the plasticity of his character, it is very inappropriate when Tennemann regrets (Vol. II. p. 26) “that though we know what he was, we do not know how he became such.”
Socrates was a peaceful, pious example of the moral virtues—of wisdom, discretion, temperance, moderation, justice, courage, inflexibility, firm sense of rectitude in relation to tyrants and people; he was equally removed from cupidity and despotism. His indifference to money was due to his own determination, for, according to the custom of the times, he could acquire it through the education of youth, like other teachers. On the other side, this acquisition was purely matter of choice, and not, as with us, something which is accepted, so that to take nothing would be to break through a custom, thus to present the appearance of wishing to become conspicuous, and to be more blamed than praised. For this was not yet a State affair; it was under the Roman emperors that there first were schools with payment. This moderation of his life was likewise a power proceeding from conscious knowledge, but this is not a principle found to hand, but the regulation of self in accordance with circumstances; in company he was, however, a good fellow. His sobriety in respect to wine is best depicted in Plato’s “Symposium,” in a very characteristic scene in which we see what Socrates called virtue. Alcibiades there appears, no longer sober, at a feast given by Agathon, on the occasion of a success which his tragedy had obtained on the previous day at the games. Since the company had drunk much on the first day of the feast, the assembled guests, amongst whom was Socrates, this evening took a resolution, in opposition to the Greek custom at meals, to drink little. Alcibiades, finding that he was coming in amongst abstemious men, and that there was no one else in his own frame of mind, made himself king of the feast, and offered the goblet to the others, in order to bring them into the condition reached by himself; but with Socrates he said that he could do nothing, because he remained as he was, however much he drank. Plato then makes the individual who tells what happened at the Banquet, also tell that he, with the others, at last fell asleep on the couch, and as he awoke in the morning, Socrates, cup in hand, still talked with Aristophanes and Agathon about comedy and tragedy, and whether one man could write both comedies and tragedies, and then went at the usual time into the public places, to the Lyceum, as if nothing had happened, and walked about the whole day as usual.[121] This is not a moderation which exists in the least possible enjoyment, no aimless abstemiousness and self-mortification, but a power belonging to consciousness, which keeps its self-possession in bodily excess. We see from this that we have not to think of Socrates throughout after the fashion of the litany of moral virtues.
His behaviour to others was not only just, true, open, without rudeness, and honourable, but we also see in him an example of the most perfect Attic urbanity; i.e. he moves in the freest possible relations, has a readiness for conversation which is always judicious, and, because it has an inward universality, at the same time always has the right living relationship to the individual, and bears upon the case on which it operates. The intercourse is that of a most highly cultured man who, in his relation to others, never places anything personal in all his wit, and sets aside all that is unpleasant. Thus Xenophon’s, but particularly Plato’s Socratic Dialogues belong to the highest type of this fine social culture.
Because the philosophy of Socrates is no withdrawal from existence now and here into the free, pure regions of thought, but is in a piece with his life, it does not proceed to a system; and the manner of his philosophizing, which appears to imply a withdrawal from actual affairs as it did to Plato, yet in that very way gives itself this inward connection with ordinary life. For his more special business was his philosophic teaching, or rather his philosophic social intercourse (for it was not, properly speaking, teaching) with all; and this outwardly resembled ordinary Athenian life in which the greater part of the day was passed without any particular business, in loitering about the market-place, or frequenting the public Lyceum, and there partly partaking of bodily exercises, and partly and principally, talking with one another. This kind of intercourse was only possible in the Athenian mode of life, where most of the work which is now done by a free citizen—by a free republican and free imperial citizen alike—was performed by slaves, seeing that it was deemed unworthy of free men.
A free citizen could in Athens certainly be a handicraftsman, but he had slaves who did the work, just as a master now has workmen. At the present day such a life of movement would not be suitable to our customs. Now Socrates also lounged about after this manner, and lived in this constant discussion of ethical questions.[122] Thus what he did was what came naturally to him, and what can in general be called moralizing; but its nature and method was not that of preaching, exhortation or teaching; it was not a dry morality. For amongst the Athenians and in Attic urbanity, this had no place, since it is not a reciprocal, free, and rational relationship. But with all men, however different their characters, he entered on one kind of dialogue, with all that Attic urbanity which, without presumption on his part, without instructing others, or wishing to command them, while maintaining their perfect right to freedom, and honouring it, yet causes all that is rude to be suppressed.
1. _The Socratic Method._ In this conversation Socrates’ philosophy is found, as also what is known as the Socratic method, which must in its nature be dialectic, and of which we must speak before dealing with the content. Socrates’ manner is not artificial; the dialogues of the moderns, on the contrary, just because no internal reason justifies their form, are necessarily tedious and heavy. But the principle of his philosophy falls in with the method itself, which thus far cannot be called method, since it is a mode which quite coincides with the moralizing peculiar to Socrates. For the chief content is to know the good as the absolute, and that particularly in relation to actions. Socrates gives this point of view so high a place, that he both puts aside the sciences which involve the contemplation of the universal in nature, mind, &c., himself, and calls upon others to do the same.[123] Thus it can be said that in content his philosophy had an altogether practical aspect, and similarly the Socratic method, which is essential to it, was distinguished by the system of first bringing a person to reflection upon his duty by any occasion that might either happen to be offered spontaneously, or that was brought about by Socrates.
By going to the work-places of tailors and shoemakers, and entering into discourse with them, as also with youths and old men, Sophists, statesmen, and citizens of all kinds, he in the first place took their interests as his topic—whether these were household interests, the education of children, or the interests of knowledge or of truth. Then he led them on from a definite case to think of the universal, and of truths and beauties which had absolute value, since in every case, from the individual’s own thoughts, he derived the conviction and consciousness of that which is the definite right. This method has two prominent aspects, the one the development of the universal from the concrete case, and the exhibition of the notion which implicitly exists in every consciousness,[124] and the other is the resolution of the firmly established, and, when taken immediately in consciousness, universal determinations of the sensuous conception or of thought, and the causing of confusion between these and what is concrete.
_a._ If we proceed from the general account of Socrates’ method to a nearer view, in the first place its effect is to inspire men with distrust towards their presuppositions, after faith had become wavering and they were driven to seek that which is, in themselves.
Now whether it was that he wished to bring the manner of the Sophists into disrepute, or that he was desirous to awaken the desire for knowledge and independent thought in the youths whom he attracted to himself, he certainly began by adopting the ordinary conceptions which they considered to be true. But in order to bring others to express these, he represents himself as in ignorance of them, and, with a seeming ingenuousness, puts questions to his audience as if they were to instruct him, while he really wished to draw them out. This is the celebrated Socratic irony, which in his case is a particular mode of carrying on intercourse between one person and another, and is thus only a subjective form of dialectic, for real dialectic deals with the reasons for things. What he wished to effect was, that when other people brought forward their principles, he, from each definite proposition, should deduce as its consequence the direct opposite of what the proposition stated, or else allow the opposite to be deduced from their own inner consciousness without maintaining it directly against their statements. Sometimes he also derived the opposite from a concrete case. But as this opposite was a principle held by men as firmly as the other, he then went on to show that they contradicted themselves. Thus Socrates taught those with whom he associated to know that they knew nothing; indeed, what is more, he himself said that he knew nothing, and therefore taught nothing. It may actually be said that Socrates knew nothing, for he did not reach the systematic construction of a philosophy. He was conscious of this, and it was also not at all his aim to establish a science.