SOURCE: "Sources and Characteristics of the Philosophy of Socrates," in Socrates and The Socratic Schools, translated by E. Zeller and Oswald J. Reichel, Longmans, Green and Co., 1868, pp. 82-149.

[In the following essay, Zeller discusses the questions surrounding the validity of Xenophon and Plato as Socratic sources and identifies Socrates's quest for "true knowledge" as the heart of the philosopher's intellectual and moral theories.]

There is considerable difficulty in arriving at an accurate view of the philosophy of Socrates, owing to the discrepancies in the accounts of the original authorities. Socrates himself committed nothing to writing,¹ and there are only the works of two of his pupils, Xenophon and Plato, preserved, in which he is made to speak in his own person.² But the accounts of these two writers are so little alike, that we gather from the one quite a different view of the teaching of Socrates to what the other gives us. It was the fashion among early historians of philosophy to construct a picture of the Athenian philosopher, without any principles of criticism to guide them, from the writings of Xenophon and Plato indiscriminately, as well as from later, and for the most part untrustworthy authorities. Since the time of Brucker, however, it became the custom to look to Xenophon as the only authority to be perfectly trusted on the philosophy of Socrates, and to allow to others, Plato included, at most only a supplementary value. Quite recently, however, Schleiermacher has lodged a protest against the preference shown for Xenophon.³ Xenophon, he argues, not being a philosopher himself, was scarcely capable of understanding a philosopher like Socrates; the object, moreover, of the Memorabilia was only a limited one, to defend his teacher from definite charges; we are therefore justified in assuming a priori that there must have been more in Socrates than Xenophon allows, or else he could not have played so important a part in the history of philosophy, nor have exerted so marvellous a power of attraction on the most intellectual and cultivated men of his time. The character too which is given him by Plato, would have otherwise been a manifest contradiction of the picture presented by him to the mind of his reader. Besides, Xenophon's dialogues create the impression, that philosophic matter has been put into the unphilosophic language of every-day life, with detriment to its full and proper meaning; and there are gaps left in his account which we must look to Plato to fill up. We can hardly, however, adopt the view of Meiners,⁴ that only those parts of the dialogues of Plato may be considered historical, which are either to be found in Xenophon, or immediately follow from what Xenophon says, or which are opposed to Plato's own views. This hypothesis would only give us the Socrates of Xenophon slightly modified, whilst the deeper spring of Socratic thought would still be wanting. The only safe course is adopted by Schleiermacher, who asks: What may Socrates have been, in addition to what Xenophon says he was, without denying the character and maxims which Xenophon distinctly assigns to him? and what must he have been to call for and to justify such a description as is given of him in the dialogues of Plato? Several other writers have since acquiesced in Schleiermacher's estimate of Xenophon,⁵ and even before Schleiermacher, Dissen⁶ had expressed his inability to see in the pages of Xenophon anything but a description of the outward appearance of Socrates. The same approval has been bestowed on Schleiermacher's canon for finding out the real Socrates, and only when it failed has an addition been made,⁷ that the expressions of Aristotle may be used as a touchstone to discover the teaching of Socrates. On the other hand Xenophon's authority has been warmly supported by several critics.⁸

In deciding between these two views a difficulty, however, presents itself. The authority of the one or the other of our accounts can only be ascertained by a comparison with the true historical picture, and the true historical picture can only be known from these conflicting accounts. This difficulty would be insurmountable, if the two narratives had the same claim to be considered historical in points which they state varyingly; nor would Aristotle's scanty notices of the Socratic philosophy have been sufficient to settle the question. Fortunately one thing is clear, that Plato only claims to be true to facts in those points on which he agrees with Xenophon, as for instance, in the Apology and the Symposium. On other points no one could well assert that he wished all to be taken as historical which he puts into the mouth of Socrates. Of Xenophon, on the contrary, it may be asserted, that in the Memorabilia he intended to unfold a lifelike picture of the views and the conduct of his teacher, although he did not feel himself bound to reproduce his discourses verbatim, and may have thus expanded in his own way many a conversation, of which he only knew the general substance. The objections to his account are only based on an indirect argument, that the historical importance of Socrates can hardly be explained from the picture he gives, and that if it were true, it is impossible to conceive how Socrates could have said what Plato makes him say, without violating the strongest probabilities. And supposing this objection to be established, it would be necessary in order to gain an idea of his philosophy, to look to the very questionable picture of Plato, and to the few expressions of Aristotle. But before these can be received, an examination of them must be made in a more careful manner than the opponents of Xenophon have generally cared to do. The enquiry is closely bound up with an exposition of the teaching of Socrates, and can only be distinguished from it in theory. It will not, therefore, be separated from it here. Socrates must be drawn after the three accounts of Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle. If the attempt to form a harmonious picture from them all succeeds, Xenophon will be justified. Should it not succeed, it will then be necessary to ask, which of the traditional accounts is the true one.

We will begin with enquiring into the general point of view and the fundamental conception of Socrates. But, on the very threshold of the enquiry, different lines seem to be taken by our main authorities. According to Plato, Socrates appears as a perfect thinker—at home in all branches of knowledge; whereas, in Xenophon he is represented far less as a philosopher than as an innocent and excellent man, full of piety and common sense. It is from Xenophon's account that the ordinary view of Socrates has arisen, that he was only a popular teacher holding aloof from speculative questions, and that he was far less a philosopher than a teacher of morality and instructor of youth.⁹ It cannot, indeed, be denied, nor have we attempted to do so, that he was full of the most lively enthusiasm for morality, and made it the business of his life to exercise a moral influence upon others. But if he had only discharged this duty in the superficial way of a popular teacher, and had only imparted and inculcated the ordinary notions of duty and virtue, it would be a mystery how he could have exerted the influence he did, not only on weak-minded and thoughtless young men, but on the most talented and cultivated of his cotemporaries. It would be inexplicable what induced Plato to connect the deepest philosophical enquiries with his person, or what induced all later philosophers, from Aristotle down to the Stoics and Neoplatonists to regard him as having inaugurated a new epoch in philosophy, and to trace their own peculiar systems to the stimulus imparted by him.

There is also more than one feature in the personal habits of Socrates to refute the idea that he thought knowledge only of value in as far as it was instrumental for action. So far is this view even from being the true one, that we shall find that he considered actions to have a value only when they proceeded from correct knowledge, the conception of knowledge being the higher one to which he referred that of moral action or virtue, and perfection of knowledge being the measure for perfection of action. Again, the ordinary view represents him as aiming in his intercourse with others at moral training alone; but it would appear¹⁰ from his own words, that love of knowledge was the original motive for his activity; and accordingly we observe him in his dialogues pursuing enquiries, which not only have no moral end,¹¹ but which, in their practical application, could only serve immoral purposes.¹² These traits are not met with exclusively in one or other of our authorities, but they appear equally through the accounts given by the three main sources. This fact would be wholly inexplicable if Socrates had been only the moralist for which he was formerly taken. The key which explains it will be found in the assumption that, in all his investigations, even when he appears specially as a moral teacher, a deeper philosophic interest was concealed below.

Our authorities do not leave us any room to doubt in what his purpose consisted. He sought for true knowledge in the service of the Delphic God. He busied himself unweariedly with his friends to gain a knowledge of the essence of things. He referred all the claims of morality to the claims of knowledge. In a word, the idea of knowledge forms the centre of the Socratic philosophy.¹³ Now, as all philosophy aims at knowledge, a further determination must be added to this definition:—that the pursuit of true knowledge, which had been hitherto an immediate and instinctive activity, became with Socrates a conscious and methodical pursuit. He became conscious of the idea of knowledge as knowledge, and when once conscious of it, he raised it to be his leading idea.¹⁴ This, again, requires further explanation. If the love of knowledge was in existence before, it may be asked why did it not develope into a conscious and critical pursuit? The answer can only be found in the fact, that the knowledge which earlier philosophers pursued, was, in itself, different from the knowledge which Socrates required, and therefore they were not led on as Socrates was by this idea of knowledge to direct their attention to the intellectual processes and conditions, by which it was truly to be acquired. Such a necessity was, however, imposed on Socrates by the theory which he held, according to the most trustworthy accounts, as the soul of all his teaching—that all true knowledge must be based on correct conceptions, and that nothing can be known, unless it can be referred to a general conception, and judged of by that.¹⁵ With this fundamental theory, however simple it may appear, an entire change in the intellectual process was demanded. The ordinary view regards things as being what they appear to be to the senses; or if contradictory experiences forbid this, it clings to those appearances which make the strongest impression on the observer, declares these to constitute the essence, and thence draws further conclusions. This was exactly what philosophers had hitherto done. Even those who decried the senses as not to be depended upon had started from one-sided observations, without being conscious of the necessity of grounding every judgment on an exhaustive enquiry into the object. This dogmatism had been overthrown by the Sophists, and it was recognised that all impressions derived from the senses were relative and personal, that they do not represent things as they are, but as they appear; and, that, consequently, whatever assertion we may take, its opposite may be advanced with equal justice. For, if for one person at this moment this is true, for another person at another moment that is true.

Socrates expresses the same sentiment relative to the value of common opinions. He is aware that they cannot furnish us with knowledge, but only involve us in contradictions. But he does not draw the inference, which the Sophists did, that real knowledge is impossible, but only that it is impossible in that way. The majority of mankind have no true knowledge, because they confine themselves to suppositions, the accuracy of which they have never examined, and they only take into consideration one property or another, but not the essence. Amend this fault; consider every object in all its bearings, and endeavour from such many-sided observation to determine its essence; we shall then have conceptions instead of vague notions—a regular examination, instead of an unmethodical procedure without reflection—a true, instead of a supposed knowledge. By requiring knowledge to be made of conceptions, Socrates not only broke away from the current view, but, generally speaking, from all previous philosophy. A thorough observation from every side, a critical examination, a methodical enquiry conscious of its own basis, was demanded; all that had hitherto been regarded as knowledge was rejected, because it fell short of these conditions; and at the same time the conviction was expressed that, by observing these rules, real knowledge could be secured.

This theory had not only an intellectual, but more immediately a moral value for Socrates. It is in fact one of the most striking traits in his character that he was unable to divide the intellectual from the moral, and neither admitted knowledge without virtue, nor virtue without knowledge. In this respect he is the man of his age, and herein consists his greatness, that he made its needs and lawful desires felt with great penetration and keenness. When advancing civilisation had created the demand for a higher education amongst the Greeks, and the course of their intellectual development had diverted their attention from nature, and fixed it on mind, a closer connection became necessary between philosophy and life. Philosophy could only find its highest object in man, and man could only find in philosophy the help and support which he needed for life. The Sophists endeavoured to meet this want with great skill and vigour, and hence their extraordinary success. But the sophistic philosophy of life suffered too much from the want of a tenable ground. It had by universal doubting loosened its intellectual roots too effectually to save itself from degenerating with terrific speed, and serving to foster every wicked and selfish impulse. Instead of the moral life being raised by the influence of the Sophists, both life and philosophy were taking the same downward course.

The sad tendencies of the age were fully understood by Socrates, and while his contemporaries, struck blind with admiration, were either insensible to the dangers of the sophistic education, or else through fear and singular indifference to the wants of the times and the march of history, confined themselves, as did Aristophanes, to denouncing the innovators, he was able with penetrating look to discern, what was right and what was wrong in the spirit of his time. The unsatisfactory nature of the older culture, the untenableness of the ordinary virtue, the obscurity of the prevailing notions so full of contradictions, the necessity for intellectual education, were all recognised by him as much as by any other of the Sophists. But he held out other and higher ends to education. He sought not to destroy the belief in truth, but rather to show how truth might be acquired, by a new intellectual process. His aim was not to minister to the selfishness of the age, but rather to rescue the age from selfishness and apathy, by teaching it what was truly good and useful: not to undermine morality and piety, but to rear them up on a new foundation of knowledge. Thus Socrates was at once a moral and an intellectual reformer. His one great thought was to transform and restore moral conduct by means of knowledge, and these two elements were so intimately united by him, that he could find no other subject of knowledge but human conduct, and could discover no security for conduct but knowledge. The service which he rendered to both morality and science by his labours, and the standard which he set up for the intellectual condition of his people and of mankind generally, were felt in after times. If in the sequel, the distinction between moral and intellectual activity in addition to their unity, was fully brought out, yet the knot by which he connected them, has never been untied; and if in the last centuries of the old world, philosophy took the place of the waning religion, and gave a new ground to morality, purifying and exalting the inner moral life, this great and beneficial result was due to Socrates in as far as it can be assigned to any one individual.

The interest of philosophy was now turned away from the outer world, and directed to man and his moral nature. But, inasmuch as man can only regard a thing as true and connected when he has been convinced of its truth by personal research, great attention was bestowed by Socrates on the culture of his own personality. In this some modern writers have thought that they discerned the peculiar character of his philosophy.¹⁶ But the life and personality of Socrates is a very different thing from the caprice of the Sophists, nor must it be confounded with the extreme individualism of the post-Aristotelian schools. Socrates was aware, that each individual must seek the grounds of his own conviction, that truth is not something given from without, but must be found by the exercise of a man's own thought. He required all assumptions to be examined anew, no matter how old or how current they were, and that dependence should only be placed on proof and not on authority. But he was far from making man, as Protagoras did, the measure of all things. He did not even as the Stoics and Epicureans did, declare personal conviction and practical need to be the ultimate standard of truth, nor yet as the Sceptics, resolve all truth into probability; but as knowledge was to him an end in itself, he was convinced that true knowledge could be obtained by a thoughtful consideration of things. Moreover he saw in man the proper object of philosophy, but instead of making personal caprice the law, as the Sophists did, he subordinated it to the general law residing in nature and in abstract moral relations.¹⁷ Instead too of making, with later philosophers, the self-contentment of the wise man his highest end, he confined himself to the old Greek morality, which could not conceive of the individual independent of the state,¹⁸ and which accordingly made the first duty of a citizen to consist in living for the state,¹⁹ and regarded the law of the state as his natural rule of conduct.²⁰ Hence the political indifference or the universal patriotism of the Stoa and its contemporary rivals were entirely alien to Socrates. If it can be truly said 'that in him commences an unbounded reference to the person, to the freedom of the inner life,'²¹ it must also be added that this statement by no means exhausts the theory of Socrates; and thus the disputes about the purely personal, or the really general character of the Socratic doctrine,²² will have to be decided in such a way, that it is allowed that his theory exhibits an inward personal bent, in comparison with former systems, but is not by any means purely relative. Its object is to gain a knowledge which does more than serve a personal want, and which is true and desirable for more than the person who seeks it, but the ground on which it is sought is only the personal thought²³ of the individual.

It is true that this theory is not further expanded by Socrates. He has established the principle, that only the knowledge which has to do with conceptions is true knowledge; that true being only belongs to conceptions, and that therefore conceptions are alone true; but he never reached to a systematic exposition of what conceptions are true in themselves. Knowledge is here laid down as a postulate, and set as a problem for individuals to solve. Philosophy is rather philosophic impulse, and philosophic method, a seeking for truth, but not yet a possessing it; and this incompleteness has countenanced the view that the theory of Socrates was a theory of a personal and one-sided knowledge. It should, however, never be forgotten, that the aim of Socrates was always to find out and describe what was really true and good. Mankind is to be intellectually and morally framed, but the one only means for the purpose is the acquisition of knowledge.

As the great aim of Socrates was to train men to think, rather than to construct a system for them, it seemed to be his main business to determine the way which would lead them to truth, or in other words to find out the true method of philosophy. The substance of his teaching appears to have been confined on the one hand to questions having an immediate bearing on human conduct; and it does not, on the other hand, go beyond the general and theoretical demand, that all action should be determined by a knowledge of conceptions. There is no systematic tracing of the development of morality in the individual; no attempt to ground it upon other than external reasons.

Notes

¹ The unimportant poetical attempts of his last days (Plato, Phado, 60, C.) could hardly be taken into account, even if they were extant. They appear, however, to have been very soon lost. See Diog. ii. 42. The genuineness of the Socratic letters need not occupy us for a moment, and that Socrates committed nothing to writing is clear from the silence of Xenophon, Plato, and all antiquity on the point, not to mention the positive testimony of Cie, de Orat. iii. 16, 60; Diog. i. 16; Plut. De Alex. Virt. i. 4.

² For instance, those of Eschines, Antisthenes, Phado.

³ On the philosophical merits of Socrates, Schleiermacher, Works, iii. 2, 293.

⁴ Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Griechenland und Rom, ii. 420.

⁵ Brandis, Ritter, Van Heusde.

⁶ De philosophia morali.

⁷ By Brandis.

⁸ Hegel, Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 69; Rotscher, Herrman, &c.

⁹ How common this view was in past times, needs not to be proved by authorities which abound from Cicero down to Wiggers and Reinhold. That it is not yet altogether exploded may be gathered not only from writers like Van Heusde, but even Marbach, a disciple of the Hegelian philosophy, asserts that Socrates 'regarded the speculative philosophy which aimed at general knowledge, as useless, vain, and foolish,' and that he 'took the field not only against the Sophists as pretenders to knowledge, but against all philosophy;' in short that 'he was no philosopher.'

¹⁰ Plato, Apol. 21, where Socrates deduces his whole activity from the fact that he pursued a real knowledge.

¹¹ Examples are to be found in the conversation (Mem. iii. 10), in which Socrates conducts the painter Parrhasius, the sculptor Clito, and Pistias, the forger of armour, to the conceptions of their respective arts. It is true Xenophon introduces this conversation with the remark that Socrates knew how to make himself useful to artisans. But the desire to make himself useful can only have been a very subordinate one; he was no doubt really actuated by the motive mentioned in the Apology, a praiseworthy curiosity to learn from intercourse with all classes, whether they were clearly conscious of what their arts were for. Xenophon himself attests this, Mem. IV. 6, 1.… This pursuit of the conceptions of things, aiming not at the application of knowledge, but at knowledge itself, is quite enough to prove that Socrates was not only a preacher of virtue, but a philosopher. Even Xenophon found some difficulty in subordinating it to his practical view of things, as his words show: from which it may be seen that Socrates made his friends more critical. But criticism is the organ of knowledge.

¹² Mem. iii. 11 contains a paragraph adapted more than any other to refute the idea that Socrates was only a popular teacher. Socrates hears one of his companions commending the beauty of Theodota, and at once goes with his company to see her. He finds her acting as a painter's model, and he thereupon enters into a conversation with her, in which he endeavours to lead her to a conception of her trade, and shows her how she will best be able to win lovers. Now although such a step would not give that offence to the Greeks which it would to us, still there is not the least trace of a moral purpose in it.

¹³ Schleiermacher, Works, iii. 2, 300: 'The awakening of the idea of knowledge, and its first utterances, must have been the substance of the philosophy of Socrates.' Ritter agrees with this, Gesch. d. Philosophie, ii. 50. Brandis only differs in unessential points. To him the origin of the doctrine of Socrates appears to be his desire to establish against the Sophists the absolute worth of moral determinations, and then he adds: to secure this purpose the first aim of Socrates was to gain a deeper insight into his inner life, in order to be able to distinguish false and true knowledge with certainty. Similarly Braniss.

¹⁴ Schleiermacher. Brandis.

¹⁵ Xenoph. Mem. iv. 6, 1.… As is explained by the context, he referred all doubtful points to the universal conceptions, in order to decide by them; iv. 5, 12.… Comp. i. 1-16, and the many instances in the Memorabilia. Aristotle (Met. xiii. 4, 1078, b, 17, 27).…

¹⁶ Hegel, Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 40; Rotscher, Aristoph., p. 245.

¹⁷ Proofs may be found Xen. Mem. ii. 2; ii. 6, 1-7; iii. 8, 1-3; iv, 4, 20.

¹⁸ Compare the conversation with Aristippus, Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 13; and Plato's Crito, 53, A.

¹⁹ See Xen. Mem. i. 6, 15; Plato, Apol. 30, A.

²⁰ Mem. iv. 4, 12, and 3, 15.

²¹ Hegel.

²² Compare the views of Rotscher and Brandis.

²³ Hegel says nothing very different, when in distinguishing (Gesch. d. Phil. ii. 40) Socrates from the Sophists he says: 'in Socrates the creation of thought is at once clad with an independent existence of its own,' and what is purely personal is 'externalised and made universal by him as the good.' Socrates is said to have substituted 'thinking man is the measure of all things,' in place of the Sophistic doctrine 'man is the measure of all things.' In a word, his leading thought is not the individual as he knows himself experimentally, but the universal element which is found running through all individuals.