A Critical History of Greek Philosophy by W. T. Stace (short story to read txt) 📖

restrained our tears. But he, having walked about, when he said that his legs were growing heavy, lay down on his back; for the man so directed him. And at the same time he who gave him the poison, taking hold of him, after a short interval examined his feet and legs; and then having pressed his foot hard, he asked if he felt it; he said that he did not. And after this he pressed his thighs; and thus going higher he showed us that he was growing cold and stiff. Then Socrates touched himself, and said that when the poison reached his heart he should then depart. But now the parts around the lower belly were almost cold; when uncovering himself, for he had been covered over, he said; and they were his {141} last words. 'Crito, we owe a cock to AEsculapius; pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it.' 'It shall be done,' said Crito, 'but consider whether you have anything else to say.'

"To this question he gave no reply; but shortly after he gave a convulsive movement, and the man covered him, and his eyes were fixed, and Crito, perceiving it, closed his mouth and eyes.

"This, Echecrates, was the end of our friend, a man, as we may say, the best of all of his time that we have known, and moreover, the most wise and just."

Our knowledge of the teaching of Socrates is derived chiefly from two sources, Plato and Xenophon, for the peculiarities of each of whom allowances must be made. Plato in his dialogues makes Socrates the mouthpiece of his own teaching, consequently the majority of the tenets to which Socrates is made to give expression are purely Platonic doctrines of which the historical Socrates could never even have dreamed. It might, therefore, seem at first sight that there is no possibility of ascertaining from Plato's dialogues any trustworthy account of the ideas of Socrates. But on closer inspection this does not turn out to be correct, because the earlier dialogues of Plato were written before he had developed his own philosophy, and when he was, to all intents and purposes, simply a disciple of Socrates, bent only upon giving the best expression to the Socratic doctrine. Even in these Socratic dialogues, however, we have what is no doubt an idealized portrait of Socrates. Plato makes no pretence of being merely a biographer or historian. The incidents and conversation, although they are no doubt frequently founded upon facts, are, in the {142} main, imaginary. All we can say is that they contain the gist and substance of the philosophy of Socrates. The other source, Xenophon, also has his peculiarities. If Plato was an idealizing philosopher, Xenophon was a prosaic and matter of fact man of affairs. He was a plain, honest soldier. He had no great insight into any philosophy, Socratic or otherwise. He was not attached to Socrates primarily as a philosopher, but as an admirer of his character and personality. If Plato puts the teaching of Socrates too high, Xenophon puts it too low. But, in spite of this, Xenophon's Memorabilia contains a mass of valuable information both about the life and the philosophical ideas of Socrates.

The Socratic teaching is essentially ethical in character. In this alone did Socrates bear any resemblance to the Sophists. It was the Sophists who had introduced into Greek philosophy the problem of man, and of the duties of man. And to these problems Socrates also turns his exclusive attention. He brushes aside all questions as to the origin of the world, or the nature of the ultimate reality, of which we have heard so much in the philosophies of the earlier thinkers. Socrates openly deprecated such speculations and considered all such knowledge comparatively worthless as against ethical knowledge, the knowledge of man. Mathematics, physics, and astronomy, he thought, were not valuable forms of knowledge. He said that he never went for walks outside the city, because there is nothing to be learnt from fields and trees.

Nevertheless the ethical teaching of Socrates was founded upon a theory of knowledge, which is quite simple, but extremely important. The Sophists had founded knowledge upon perception, with the result {143} that all objective standards of truth had been destroyed. It was the work of Socrates to found knowledge upon reason, and thereby to restore to truth its objectivity. Briefly, the theory of Socrates may be summarized by saying that he taught that all knowledge is knowledge through concepts. What is a concept? When we are directly conscious of the presence of any particular thing, a man, a tree, a house, or a star, such consciousness is called perception. When, shutting our eyes, we frame a mental picture of such an object, such consciousness is called an image or representation. Such mental images are, like perceptions, always ideas of particular individual objects. But besides these ideas of individual objects, whether through sense-perception or imagination, we have also general ideas, that is to say, not ideas of any particular thing, but ideas of whole classes of things. If I say "Socrates is mortal," I am thinking of the individual, Socrates. But if I say "Man is mortal," I am thinking, not of any particular man, but of the class of men in general. Such an idea is called a general idea, or a concept. All class-names, such as man, tree, house, river, animal, horse, being, which stand, not for one thing, but for a multitude of things, represent concepts. We form these general ideas by including in them all the qualities which the whole class of objects has in common, and excluding from them all the qualities in which they differ, that is to say, the qualities which some of the objects possess, but others do not. For example, I cannot include the quality whiteness in my general idea of horses, because, though some horses are white, others are not. But I can include the quality vertebrate because all horses agree in being vertebrate. Thus a {144} concept is formed by bringing together the ideas in which all the members of a class of objects agree with one another, and neglecting the ideas in which they differ.

Now reason is the faculty of concepts. This may not, at first sight, be obvious. Reason, it might be objected, is the faculty of arguing, of drawing conclusions from premises. But a little consideration will show us that, though this is so, yet all reasoning is employed upon concepts. All reasoning is either deductive or inductive. Induction consists in the formulation of general principles from particular cases. A general principle is always a statement made, not about a particular thing, but about a whole class of things, that is, about a concept. Concepts are formed inductively by comparing numerous examples of a class. Deductive reasoning is always the opposite process of applying general principles to particular cases. If we argue that Socrates must be mortal because all men are so, the question is whether Socrates is a man, that is to say, whether the concept, man, is properly applied to the particular object called Socrates. Thus inductive reasoning is concerned with the formation of concepts, deductive reasoning with the application of them.

Socrates, in placing all knowledge in concepts, was thus making reason the organ of knowledge. This was in direct opposition to the principle of the Sophists, who placed all knowledge in sense-perception. Now since reason is the universal element in man, it follows that Socrates, in identifying knowledge with concepts, was restoring the belief in an objective truth, valid for all men, and binding upon all men, and was destroying the Sophistic teaching that the truth is whatever each {145} individual chooses to think it is. We shall see this more clearly if we reflect that a concept is the same thing as a definition. If we wish to define any word, for example, the word man, we must include in our definition only the qualities which all men have in common. We cannot, for example, define man as a white-skinned animal, because all men are not white-skinned. Similarly we cannot include "English-speaking" in our definition, because, though some men speak English, others do not. But we might include such a quality as "two-legged," because "two-legged" is a quality common to all human beings, except mere aberrations and distortions of the normal type. Thus a definition is formed in the same way as a concept, namely, by including the common qualities of a class of objects, and excluding the qualities in which the members of the class differ. A definition, in fact, is merely the expression of a concept in words. Now by the process of fixing definitions we obtain objective standards of truth. If, for example, we fix the definition of a triangle, then we can compare any geometrical figure with it, and say whether it is a triangle or not. It is no longer open to anyone to declare that whatever he chooses to call a triangle is a triangle. Similarly, if we fix upon a definition of the word man, we can then compare any object with that definition, and say whether it is a man or not. Again, if we can decide what the proper concept of virtue is, then the question whether any particular act is virtuous can only be decided by comparing that act with the concept, and seeing if they agree. The Sophist can no longer say, "whatever seems to me right, is right for me. Whatever I choose to do is virtuous for me." His act must be judged, not by {146} his subjective impressions, but by the concept or definition, which is thus an objective standard of truth, independent of the individual. This, then, was the theory of knowledge propounded by Socrates. Knowledge, he said, is not the same thing as the sensations of the individual, which would mean that each individual can name as the truth whatever he pleases. Knowledge means knowledge of things as they objectively are, independently of the individual, and such knowledge is knowledge of the concepts of things. Therefore the philosophizing of Socrates consisted almost exclusively in trying to frame proper concepts. He went about enquiring, "What is virtue?" "What is prudence?" "What is temperance?"--meaning thereby "what are the true concepts or definitions of these things?" In this way he attempted to find a basis for believing in an objectively real truth and an objectively real moral law.

His method of forming concepts was by induction. He would take common examples of actions which are universally admitted to be prudent, and would attempt to find the quality which they all have in common, and by virtue of which they are all classed together, and so form the concept of prudence. Then he would bring up fresh examples, and see whether they agreed with the concept so formed. If not, the concept might have to be corrected in the light of the new examples.

But the Socratic theory of knowledge was not a theory put forward for its own sake, but for practical ends. Socrates always made theory subservient to practice. He wanted to know what the concept of virtue is, only in order to practise virtue in life. And this brings us to the central point of the ethical teaching of Socrates, {147} which was the identification of virtue with knowledge. Socrates believed that a man cannot act rightly, unless he first knows what is right, unless, in fact, he knows the concept of right. Moral action is thus founded upon knowledge, and must spring from it. But not only did Socrates think that if a man has not knowledge, he cannot do right. He also put forward the much more doubtful assertion that if a man possesses knowledge, he cannot do wrong. All wrong-doing arises from ignorance. If a man only knows what is right, he must and will infallibly do what is