Life of Socrates
Socrates, (born c. 470 BCE, died 399 BCE, Athens), ancient Greek philosopher whose
way of life, character, and thought exerted a profound influence on ancient and
modern philosophy.
Because Socrates wrote nothing, information about his personality and doctrine is
derived chiefly from depictions of his conversations and other information in the
dialogues of Plato, in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, and in various writings of
Aristotle. He fought bravely in the Peloponnesian War and later served in the
Athenian boule (assembly).
Socrates considered it his religious duty to call his fellow citizens to the examined life
by engaging them in philosophical conversation. His contribution to these exchanges
typically consisted of a series of probing questions that cumulatively revealed his
interlocutor’s complete ignorance of the subject under discussion; such cross-
examination used as a pedagogical technique has been called the “Socratic method.”
Though Socrates characteristically professed his own ignorance regarding many of
the (mainly ethical) subjects he investigated (e.g., the nature of piety), he did hold
certain convictions with confidence, including that:
(1) human wisdom begins with the recognition of one’s own ignorance
(2) the unexami ned life is not worth living.
(3) ethical virtue is the only thing that matters.
(4) a good person can never be harmed, because whatever misfortune he may suffer,
his virtue will remain intact.
His students and admirers included, in addition to Plato, Alcibiades, who betrayed
Athens in the Peloponnesian War, and Critias (c. 480–403 BCE), who was one of the
Thirty Tyrants imposed on Athens after its defeat by Sparta. Because he was
connected with these two men, but also because his habit of exposing the ignorance
of his fellow citizens had made him widely hated and feared.
Socrates was tried on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth and condemned to
death by poisoning (the poison probably being hemlock) in 399 BCE; he submitted to
the sentence willingly.
Plato’s Apology purports to be the speech that Socrates gave in his own defense. As
depicted in the Apology, Socrates’ trial and death raise vital questions about the
nature of democracy, the value of free speech, and the potential conflict between
moral and religious obligation and the laws of the state.
Theory of Spirit
Socrates was known to many as an intellectual gadfly, talking nonsense and
questioning others of their own beliefs. This public portrayal was aided and
abbetted by the play 'The Clouds' written by Aristophanes, wherein Socrates is
portrayed as an idle person who seems detached from the world. Many people were
angered by the way Socrates conducted himself, constantly undermining other's
ideas and opinions, and Socrates was charged by the court.
Socrates divides his critics into two separate sets, the earlier and the more recent.
Socrates claims that his earlier critics are made of people who have been angered
by the manner with which Socrates has systematically questioned the wisdom and
beliefs of the public; politicians, poets and craftsman. Socrates explains that he
only did this to fulfil an order from a Goddess. One day, the Goddess had told a
friend of Socrates' that Socrates was the wisest man. Socrates refused to believe
that this was the case, as he was quite sure that he knew nothing at all; so set about
to find someone wiser than he, to figure out whether the Goddess spoke true.
Everyone he questioned however, seemed to profess to know things when they
didn't, whilst Socrates maintained that he knew nothing whatsoever, which made
him the smarter man. These angry people accused Socrates of corrupting the
young, but the young who chose to follow Socrates followed him out of their own
free will, and Socrates claims that he never taught them anything.
Socrates defends himself from the modern accusers (e.g. Meletus) by questioning
Meletus, and showing that he holds contradictory ideas. For example, Meletus
accuses Socrates of corrupting the young. But Socrates assumes the living among
good citizens is preferable to living among wicked citizens, so either Socrates
unwillingly corrupted the young, or he did not corrupt them at all; in either case he
should not be brought to court, and Meletus is lying.
Secondly, Meletus accuses Socrates of not believing in any Gods whatsoever.
Meletus also maintains, however, that Socrates teaches spiritual things. Socrates
argues that if he teaches spiritual things, he must believe in spiritual things, which
means he must believe in spirits, and spirits are only of the form of children of
Gods and Gods themselves, so Socrates definitely believes in Gods.
Importance
It is the best possible state of your soul, i.e. the excellence of your soul
It is virtue, i.e. a stable disposition to behave well
As it is virtue, it has moral value
Virtue enables you to use well all good things (health, wealth, and so on)
Virtue is the only thing which is intrinsically good and makes other things (which
are merely conditionally good) good. This is why it makes you happy
Virtue can only be obtained through an examined life
Since virtue is the only good, and it can be obtained only through an examined life,
an unexamined life is not worth living
The semantic expansion of ‘soul’ in the sixth and fifth centuries is reflected in the
philosophical writings of the period. For instance, once it becomes natural to speak of
soul as what distinguishes the animate from the inanimate, rather than as something that
is restricted to humans, it becomes clear that the domain of ensouled things is not limited
to animals, but includes plants as well.
There is, moreover, some reason to think that philosophical activity, notably Pythagorean
speculation (beginning around mid-sixth century), contributed to the semantic expansion
of ‘soul’. As we have seen, at least some of the earliest extant texts that associate with the
soul moral virtues other than courage suggest Pythagorean influence. It is, in fact, not
difficult to see how Pythagoreanism may have furthered the expansion of ‘soul’.
Pythagoreanism was concerned with, among other things, the continued existence of the
person (or something suitably person-like) after death. It is obvious that against the
Homeric background, ‘soul’ was an eminently appropriate word to use so as to denote the
person, or quasi-person, that continued to exist after death; there was, after all, the
familiar Homeric use of ‘soul’ as that which endures in the underworld after a person's
death.
Carl Jung theory of psychoanalysis
Jung proposed a second and far deeper level of the unconscious, which he
called collective unconsciousness. Shared by all individuals in a culture, the
collective unconscious could be regarded as the, repository of racial memories
and of the primordial images and patterns of experirences, which he
calls archetypes.
While Freud believed literature to be an expression of the repressed conflicts and
desires of the author, Jung regarded literature as an expression of the collective
unconscious, as it provides access for readers to the archetypal images buried in
racial memories, thereby helping in revitalising the psyche of the culture as a whole.
Hence the importance of using myths and legends in African, Native American and
other resistance literatures in a desperate attempt to reclaim the past, redefine
history and assert their cultural identities. A powerful explication of this concept can
be seen in Eugene O’Neill‘s Emperor Jones. Jung’s theory has also been a cardinal
formative influence on Northrop Frye‘s Archetypal Criticism. Jung also postulated
the concept of the Self as constituting of the anima and the animus—the anima being
the unconscious female component in men, and the animus being the
unconscious male component in women.
