The Socratic Problem - Max McGee

Socrates is credited as being the first moral philosopher of the Western world, perhaps best known for his sayings, ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’ and, ‘I know that I know nothing’ – or, more accurately, ‘I neither know nor think that I know’. Despite this, no writing of his was ever recorded. Thus, all that we can understand about Socrates comes from secondary sources, most notably his students: Plato and Xenophon, and the playwright Aristophanes. However, these sources often contradict certain details of his beliefs, words, and life and so arises the Socratic Problem, where reconstructing the image of Socrates becomes extremely difficult; both in an historical and philosophical sense.

The richest source for Socrates is Plato’s dialogues, providing more information than the combination of antiquity. Due to both his and Xenophon’s personal relationship with Socrates, it is their works that are considered most useful when pertaining to Socrates’ personal life and habits. Problems occur when we try to differ between the ideas of Plato and Socrates. Did Plato wish to express his teacher’s ideas, or did he augment and express his own through the character of Socrates? For this we go to a student of Plato’s Academy: Aristotle, who in Metaphysics, ‘fairly ascribed to Socrates inductive arguments and universal definitions.’ With Plato’s works, we should also note that his earlier dialogs appear to be most true to Socrates, being presented as an older man, closer to when Plato spent time as his student. In contrast, in the later dialogues, Socrates is a young man, which might represent the separation between his and Plato’s ideas. Nonetheless, some scholars have suggested that this is a sign of Plato’s development as a writer and highlight how phases of education change and become more advanced as it progresses.

Xenophon is most well known as an historian, perhaps ranked only behind Herodotus and Thucydides. By this nature, we would expect to see his accounts as highly reliable, yet he has offered examples of his own fictionalised ideas such as the education of Cyrus. As such, G. C. Field suggested that some scholars ‘lost all sense of evidence’ in Xenophon’s Socratic writings. Though in certain cases, Xenophon does in fact cite his sources, calling upon eyewitnesses. Others argue that, as an historian, although he searched for the truth, he may not have understood all of Socrates philosophical views and perhaps omitted them. Nevertheless, in his Symposium, Xenophon displays Socratic traits such as mock modesty and Socratic Irony, proposing that Xenophon was very much aware of what Socrates taught. Again therefore, a similar issue to Plato develops where we are not sure what of Xenophon’s ideas are Socrates or influenced by his own.

Aristophanes’ portrayal of Socrates is perhaps most interesting. It comes from his play The Clouds, a comedy, where Socrates is a meteorologist who denies the existence of gods and even has a school. All these things directly contradict both Plato and Xenophon and so theories to tackle these differences have been suggested by many scholars. Firstly, some think that Aristophanes’ depiction is that of a Socrates years before either Xenophon or Plato had met him. Therefore, maybe as his friend, Aristophanes saw a different side to Socrates, one that had experienced different influences and events than towards the end of his life. Another option from Kenneth J. Dover is that while Xenophon and Plato tell the truth, Aristophanes looks to apply the characteristics of the sophists to Socrates, something that he was not. This is supported by Socrates’ defence at his trial where ‘they repeat the accusations which are so readily made against all philosophers.’ We must also consider that, as a comedy, Aristophanes will have embellished certain aspects of Socrates,

already an easy target for comics due to his appearance: an ugly, satyr-like man. Some suggest using Xenophon and Plato to discriminate the real Socrates from Aristophanes’ caricature; lending to us a potential solution for the Socratic Problem.

The four most common solutions throughout the history of the Problem are frustratingly simple: Socrates’ qualities are exhibited by Plato and corroborated by others, Socrates is he who possesses no wisdom but aims to gain understanding, Socrates is the Socrates in Plato’s early dialogues, and the real Socrates is the one who turns from a preSocratic interest in nature to ethics. From these, we see that, while sometimes called the Socratic Question, Socratic Problem is more fitting as we cannot find an answer to this question. Though, at least it is not left unexamined.