LISTEN. I was saying in class yesterday that my preferred approach to class prep these days is to rise early and try to come up with something fresh and novel to say about the philosopher(s) du jour. So, what's new with Socrates and Plato?
Well, according to Xenephon, Plato's Socrates is "pure rationality" whereas the real Socrates was a dispenser of practical "how to live" advice.
Those who know Socrates mainly through the writings of Plato – Xenophon’s near-exact contemporary – will find Xenophon’s Socrates something of a surprise. Plato’s Socrates claims to know nothing, and flamboyantly refutes the knowledge claims of others. In the pages of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, however, Socrates actually answers philosophical questions, dispenses practical life advice, provides arguments proving the existence of benevolent gods, converses as if peer-to-peer with a courtesan, and even proposes a domestic economy scheme whereby indigent female relatives can become productive through the establishment of a textile business at home. Socrates’ conversation, according to Xenophon, ‘was ever of human things’. This engaged, intensely practical, human Socrates can be refreshing to encounter. Anyone who has felt discomfort at how the opponents of Plato’s Socrates suffer relentless public refutations and reductions to absurdity can take some comfort in Xenophon’s Socrates who ‘tries to cure the perplexities of his friends’.
Trying to cure the perplexities of your friends, forever conversing "of human things," and generally just trying to ameliorate the human condition through an antiquarian version of talk therapy sounds exactly like what we should expect of a philosopher who claims to know nothing of things in the heavens and under the ground.
Humility and humanity go together well. The real mystery is why a Platonically hyper-rationalized Socrates ever had any credibility among scholars at all. We're accustomed to saying that Plato's our only credible source on Socrates, and to dismissing Xenophon without a hearing. Bertrand Russell called him stupid. But we're more likely to inch closer to the historical Socrates by triangulating our vision and consulting other sources. It would be stupid not to.
I just finished reading chapters 1 & 2 of Little History, and I am actually starting to ponder about Socrates and Platos way of thought. It still is confusing how Socrates would make people feel as though they actually know nothing about what they thought they knew quite well, but he also said he didn't know anything to be able to be the wisest man in Athens. After reading further, the author said that Socrates didn't KNOW anything, rather understood the "true nature of our existence, including the limits of what we can know". However, how can one continue to ask deep questions about life and never "know" anything?
ReplyDeleteWhile reading Chapter 1 of Little History I learned that the Socrates conversations Plato recorded were called the Platonic Dialogues. Since the Dialogues were named after Plato is this where the word 'platonic' originated from or is this just a coincidence?
ReplyDelete(HO1) While reading Chapter 1 of Little History, it struck me how differently Socrates and his star pupil, Plato, seemed to think when it comes to philosophy. However, the typical thought process of Athenians is definitely present in both of them. Plato's idea of a perfect society is one in which the philosophers are at the top of the chain of command, and the soldiers are second to them, and then the workers are underneath all. This is consistent with the Athenian thought process of the time, considering they were extremely haughty and prideful with their amount of knowledge. However, something that stuck out to me was Plato's idea to ban almost all art in this extreme, totalitarian form of government. This art ban directly parallels Nazi Germany, and I wonder, why is banning art considered a priority form of public control or influence?
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