Socrates

Che cos'è l'Assoluto? Dio esiste?

A god who entrusts him with a mission and warns him by a sign

Un Dio personaleLo dice espressamente

Socrates wrote nothing; his relation to the divine is known through Plato and Xenophon, who agree on the essentials. In Plato's Apology he speaks of “the god” of Delphi as someone who has assigned him a post in the city and whom he will obey rather than the Athenians, and he describes a divine sign, a voice that since childhood turns him away from what he should not do. Xenophon, in the Memorabilia, attributes to him an argument from design: eyes, eyelids or affection for offspring show the work of a wise craftsman who loves living beings, and the gods care for humans and see everything. It is a personal dealing with the divine, though Socrates avoids speculating about its nature.

Chi sono io? Esiste un vero sé?

What we are is the soul, and caring for it matters above all

Un'anima creata e immortaleSi deduce dalla sua dottrina

In Plato's Apology Socrates sums up his life in an exhortation: not to care for the body or for wealth before the soul, so that it may become as good as possible. The Alcibiades I, of disputed authenticity, draws the conclusion that the human being is his soul, and the Delphic command to know oneself becomes a lifelong task. On immortality, the Socrates of the Apology is cautious and leaves two possibilities open; the arguments of the Phaedo are already Plato's elaboration. Xenophon, for his part, attributes to him the idea that the soul is what in the human shares in the divine. The core attributable to Socrates is that the true self is the soul.

Perché soffriamo?

Nobody does wrong knowingly: evil is ignorance and harms the soul

L'ignoranza di ciò che siamoSi deduce dalla sua dottrina

Plato's dialogues attribute to Socrates two theses that together answer the question. First: no one errs willingly; whoever does wrong does so because he takes for good what is not, so that evil is a form of ignorance. Second: the greatest harm is not to suffer injustice but to commit it, because it spoils the only thing that matters, the soul; hence he would rather suffer it than commit it. Thus his reproach to the Athenians in the Apology: they care for wealth, fame and honours and not for the soul or for truth. The suffering that truly counts arises from not knowing oneself and confusing the goods of the body with one's own good.

Che cosa accade dopo la morte?

Either a dreamless sleep or a journey: in either case, not an evil

Silenzio o riserboLo dice espressamente

In Plato's Apology, already condemned, Socrates reasons that fearing death is thinking one knows what one does not know. He proposes two possibilities: either death is being nothing and feeling nothing, like a dreamless sleep, which would be a gain; or it is a migration of the soul to another place, where he could converse with poets and heroes of the past, which would be an immense good. To the good man, he concludes, no evil befalls in life or after death. His last words to the court leave the question open: who goes to the better lot, nobody knows but the god. The proofs of immortality in the Phaedo are already Plato's.

Come si raggiunge la liberazione o la salvezza?

Examining oneself and others: an unexamined life is not worth living

Con la conoscenza direttaLo dice espressamente

Socrates promises no salvation, but his whole life is a method for making the soul better. In Plato's Apology he says that the greatest good for a man is to converse every day about virtue and to examine himself and others, and that an unexamined life is not worth living. The instrument is refutation: questioning until the interlocutor discovers that he does not know what he thought he knew, the first step to truly seeking it. If virtue is knowledge, as Aristotle attributes to him, knowing oneself — in the Delphic sense — is the way to become good. His own death, accepted without committing injustice, appears in the dialogues as proof of that freedom.

Serve un maestro?

He does not teach: like a midwife, he delivers what the other carries

Il maestro è dentroLo dice espressamente

Plato's Socrates rejects the title of teacher: in the Apology he states that he has never been anyone's teacher nor charged for conversation. In the Theaetetus he describes himself as a midwife: barren of wisdom himself, he helps others give birth to what they carried within and to tell whether it is true or false offspring; what they find they learn not from him but from themselves. His own guidance was inner: a divine sign that turned him away from certain actions. The Meno adds the Platonic theory of recollection, by which seeking and learning are remembering. The outer teacher only asks; truth lies in the soul of the seeker.

Il mondo è reale?

A world arranged by provident gods, though physics does not occupy him

Una creazione buona e realeSi deduce dalla sua dottrina

The sources agree that Socrates turned away from the investigation of nature. Aristotle states that he dealt with moral questions and not with nature as a whole; Xenophon says he did not discuss how the cosmos came about and considered those who did so foolish. In Plato's Apology he denies knowing anything of what lies beneath the earth or in the sky. But when he speaks of the world he does so in terms of providence: in the Memorabilia he argues that the arrangement of the organs and the beauty of the universe reveal a wise craftsman who cares for living beings, and that the gods have ordered the cosmos for the benefit of humans.

Che cos'è l'amore?

He claims to know only love: the desire that improves the beloved

Anelito e unioneSi deduce dalla sua dottrina

The man who claimed to know nothing declared himself expert in one thing alone: love. So Plato has him say in the Symposium and the Lysis. In the Symposium Socrates sets out what, he says, Diotima taught him: Eros is the desire to possess the good for ever and to beget in beauty, and it leads by degrees from beautiful bodies to Beauty itself. The Alcibiades of Aeschines of Sphettus, another Socratic, presents his love for the young man as a force that, by divine gift, could make him better without teaching him anything. Xenophon adds conversations on friendship. Socratic love is longing for the good that raises both lover and beloved.

Siamo liberi o è tutto determinato?

The god assigned him a post, and he answers for how he holds it

Destino e responsabilitàSi deduce dalla sua dottrina

Socrates does not discuss the theoretical problem of freedom, but his life, as Plato and Xenophon tell it, is ordered by a charge. In the Apology he interprets the Delphic oracle as a mission: the god has set him beside the city like a gadfly, and abandoning that post for fear of death would be like deserting in battle. The divine sign turns him away from certain actions and, significantly, did not stop him on the day of the trial. At the same time, responsibility is fully his: in the Crito he chooses not to flee because committing injustice is never permitted. The thesis that nobody errs willingly, however, complicates any reading in terms of free will.

Perché meditare o pregare?

Asking the gods for the good, unspecified, and to be beautiful within

Rito e coltivazione di séLo dice espressamente

The sources show a Socrates pious in the ways of his city. Xenophon relates that he sacrificed at home and at the public altars, consulted divination and asked the gods simply for good things, since they know best what is fitting; modest sacrifices from someone with little please them no less than great ones. In Plato's Phaedrus, at the end of the conversation, he prays to Pan and the gods of the place to grant him to be beautiful within and that what is outside be in friendship with what is within. Plato also relates that at Potidaea he stood absorbed in thought from dawn to the following dawn.

Può la ragione conoscere l'ultimo?

He knows he does not know: he tests the god's word by reason

Fede e ragione si aiutanoLo dice espressamente

Plato's Apology relates how Socrates received the reply of the Delphic oracle — no one was wiser than he — and, instead of simply accepting it, set out to examine it by questioning politicians, poets and craftsmen. He concluded that his wisdom lay in not thinking he knew what he did not know, and that human wisdom is worth little or nothing: the truly wise one is the god. Reason, exercised in dialogue, does not reach a final science of the ultimate, but it purges false opinions and guides life; divine signs and dreams complete that limited knowledge. Aristotle credits him with the search for universal definitions and inductive arguments.

Ritirarsi dal mondo o trasformarlo?

True politics is making the citizens' souls better

La rivoluzione è interioreLo dice espressamente

Socrates did not withdraw from Athens: he spent his life in the agora, served as a hoplite and fulfilled his public offices, opposing the majority and the Thirty when justice required it. But, according to Plato's Apology, he abstained from active politics because his divine sign prevented him and because whoever truly fights for justice does not survive long in it. His task was another: to urge each citizen, in private, to care for the soul before wealth. In the Gorgias he claims to be one of the few Athenians practising the true political art, because he seeks his fellow citizens' good and not their pleasure. Changing the city begins with changing souls.