Socratic Philosophy

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The Thinking Man

We are all familiar with Plato’s text ‘Dialogue’ and the ‘Concept of Irony’ by the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, 2 millennia apart. They talked about Socrates and the Socratic philosophy. What is it about Socratic philosophy that absorbed them, such that they spent their entire lives studying Socrates and adapted him into their own writings? 

Kierkegaard went to the extent of calling himself ‘The Socrates of Denmark’ in the 17^th century.

Socrates, referred to as the ‘Wise old Fool’, was a 5^th century BC thinker and philosopher. He was like a present day flaneur who walked the streets of Athens, observing people, witnessing events and engaging in conversation with his fellowmen. The exchanges usually turned out to be heated debates between Socrates and a person on the street and ended in the person walking away abruptly in a huff. 

The issue at hand could be, for example one which is often quoted in his works, that of an individual who had taken his father to court on matters of property. Socrates would always say that he knew nothing about such matters and would like to be enlightened about the goings on, in this case the dispute of the person with his father. Half way through the explanation by the person, Socrates would turn on him and start cross examining him about his intent in the matter. The debate would work to a point where the person ran out of arguments and reached a point of ‘Aporia’ – loss of words. Here the person would feel stripped of all masks and leave hurriedly. Over a period of time the Athenians felt uncomfortable, cornered and outright humiliated in a dialogue with Socrates.

In lucid terms the essence of the famous Socratic dialogue was to ask people, “Are you a good human being?” Kierkegaard applied the same philosophy in his times and asked, “Are you a good Christian?” We are familiar with the Rene Descartes quote during the beginning of the enlightenment period ‘I think, therefore I am,’ whereby we associate free thinking by man as having begun during this period. But the philosophy that a thinking human being is the measure of all things actually came with Socratic thought. The thinkers in the enlightenment only reinforced and made the thought contemporary in a climate of scientific study and rationality.

Socrates was made to drink a cup of poison (hemlock), after his trial where he was charged with imbuing mortals with superior subjective thinking process, contrary to the traditional belief that men could reform their ways only by the grace of God.  The Athenians vested their faith and belief in matters beyond their comprehension to the Oracle at Delphi, but Socrates said that the Oracle existed within a human being and by introspection he could attain to truth by himself in each matter.

 He saw himself as the Gadfly of Athens, who needled, irritated and provoked people to confront their Oracle.

Socrates also spoke of ‘Daimon’ - a voice inside him which stopped him from doing certain things. He said that it did not urge him towards things to do but acted in the negative – guiding him to refrain from certain actions. Over his lifetime he had come to rely on this voice, which was different from his will and intellect. It segregated his whims, moods and fancies and weakened their hold on his mind, illuminating the diamond which lay at his core – the soul. The rulers were aghast to learn that he valued Daimon and called it the God inside him. They charged him with having other Gods than the ones that Athenians worshipped at the Oracle of Delphi and sentenced him to death. 

On hearing his death sentence, Socrates only laughed and ridiculed the court, and said that the Daimon had not once stopped him during his trial, therefore all was well and it was all in God’s plan.  

‘Maieutic’ – midwifery is another term linked with Socratic thought. He explained that he was a midwife just like his mother, facilitating in the search of truth within his fellowmen and delivering them of folly. All in all he left a revolutionary philosophy (for which he gave up his life too) for mankind. Aided by his tropes of Daimon, Maieutics and Gadfly, he vested complete faith in the power of man’s thinking self.

Hegel, the German philosopher before Kierkegaard, too is known for his immersive study on Socrates. In contemporary times, Michel Foucault stressed on the idea of ‘each thinking man for himself’ and exposed the power structure of the state with bureaucracy and economics. The idea is to rationalize and be alert to inner trolls and outside systems that short change the freedom of a human being.

Hegel. Kierkegaard, Guru Nanak, Gandhi, Foucault have proclaimed the Socratic thought as panacea for the subjectivity, irony and crisis of modernism. That’s an amazing genealogy worth examining!