SOURCE: "The Good," in The Philosophy of Socrates, Macmillan, 1968, pp. 165-204.

[In the following essay, Gulley explains that Socrates's teachings emphasize that "knowledge of the good is a necessary and sufficient condition of being good and of doing what is good," but that they do not explicitly state what "the good" is. Gulley examines the Socratic works of Plato, and Xenophon, as well as some references in Aristotle, in order to deduce a consistent understanding of "the good."]

A. Introduction

… Socrates' method of analysis assumes that it is possible to determine with certainty what the good is. His moral paradoxes, with their intellectualist conception of moral knowledge, make the same assumption. But the analysis which yields the moral paradoxes does not yield a specification of the good. For the moral paradoxes themselves are in this respect non-informative. They tell us that knowledge of the good is a necessary and sufficient condition of being good and of doing what is good. They do not tell us what the good is.

There are two places in Xenophon's Memorabilia where Socrates talks about the meaning of good. In a conversation with Aristippus (III viii) he emphasises its instrumental sense of 'good for a particular purpose'. In this sense, he argues, it can be equated with 'fine' or 'beautiful' (kalon); 'things which men use are considered to be fine and good in relation to that for which they are serviceable'. Similarly, in a conversation with Euthydemus (IV vi 8), he defines 'good' in terms of 'beneficial' (ōphelimon). The emphasis again is on the sense of 'good for a particular purpose'. What is beneficial to one person, he says, may be harmful to another. But a thing cannot be called good which is not beneficial to someone in relation to a certain purpose. So 'what is beneficial is good for him to whom it is beneficial'.

This emphasis on the instrumental sense of 'good' is in keeping with those features of the Greeks' moral language … which give to all Greek moral thought its broadly utilitarian character. It illustrates how readily the Greeks used 'good' synonymously with 'useful' or 'beneficial'. And, remembering that in moral behaviour doing what is 'useful' or 'beneficial' means for a Greek doing what is conducive to happiness (eudaimonia), we can see that what Socrates says in Xenophon about the meaning of good is a basic part of what he is saying when he asserts that no one does wrong willingly. This becomes clear when we look at Xenophon's formulation of that paradox. At Memorabilia (III ix 4) Socrates says that everyone chooses from possible courses of action what he considers to be 'most profitable' (sumphorōtata) for him, and does this. And in Plato's Protagoras, in presenting the same thesis (358bd), he links together 'fine' (kalon), 'good' (agathon) and 'beneficial' (ōphelimon) (358b; cf. 333d), just as he does in Xenophon in commenting on the meaning of good.

Now Socrates is not propounding a moral doctrine about what the good is when he talks about the instrumental sense of good, any more than he is propounding such a doctrine when he asserts that no one does wrong willingly. For to propound such a doctrine would be to give a descriptive specification of 'the good', considered as the end of human action, and distinguishable in this substantival use from its instrumental use as 'beneficial', 'profitable', or 'useful' (Plato, Hippias Major 296e-297d, 303e). Socrates' remarks are about this instrumental use, and are not concerned to specify a moral ideal.

It follows that those scholars have been mistaken who have tried to construct a moral ideal out of these remarks or out of the paradox that no one does wrong willingly. For there is nothing here which implies that Socrates was a relativist or subjectivist in his moral theory, or that he equated 'the good' with the useful or the advantageous.¹ Henry Jackson argued² that Socrates' answer to the question 'what is the good?' was that 'it is the useful, the advantageous. Utility, the immediate utility of the individual, thus becomes the measure of conduct and the foundation of all moral rule and legal enactment. Accordingly, each precept of which Socrates delivers himself is recommended on the ground that obedience to it will promote the pleasure, the comfort, the advancement, the well-being of the individual; and Prodicus's apologue of the Choice of Heracles, with its commonplace offers of worldly reward, is accepted as an adequate statement of the motives of virtuous action.'

The reference to Prodicus's Choice of Heracles is a reference to what Socrates is represented as narrating from Prodicus, with apparent approval of its sentiments, in conversation with Aristippus in Xenophon's Memorabilia (II i). The piece is in fact a recommendation of a life conscientiously devoted to the attainment of what is 'fine and good', and a condemnation of a life of maximum ease and pleasure. Neither here nor anywhere else in Xenophon's portrait is there evidence for thinking that Socrates was a hedonist.… He does indeed assume, in several of the conversations in Xenophon, that the good life is the most pleasant life. But this … is an assumption readily made by the Greeks in view of the natural 'eudaimonism' of their moral outlook. Both Plato and Aristotle assume it. It does not make them hedonists.

As for the other marks which Jackson ascribed to Socrates' conception of 'the good', such marks as the 'utility', the 'advancement', the 'well-being' of the individual, these are marks of the utilitarianism of the Greeks' moral language, not peculiar marks of Socrates' conception of 'the good'. The references to 'immediate' utility and 'the commonplace offers of wordly reward' are just misguided exaggerations, prompted to some extent, perhaps, by Xenophon's own severely practical outlook. So let us not look in this direction for Socrates' answer to 'what is the good?'. And let us not criticise him, as Jackson did, from this standpoint, as having 'no conception of the graver difficulties of ethical theory' or as a person to whom morality has so become 'a second nature' that 'the scrutiny of its credentials from an external standpoint has ceased to be possible'.³

What answer, then, did Socrates give to 'what is the good?'. The good is for him, as for any Greek, 'happiness' (eudaimonia). And we saw, in discussing his paradox that all the virtues are one, that a basis for this paradox is the notion that 'the good' or 'happiness' is a single unifying end of human action. It follows that any specification of it must maintain the unity of all morally good behaviour by specifying a single kind of activity or a single state of character as constituting happiness. Such a specification would be a descriptive specification of 'the good', the same in kind as, e.g., Aristotle's specification of happiness or human goodness as 'activity of the soul in accordance with philosophic wisdom (sophia)'. So our concern in the present chapter is to consider what particular specification of this kind was given by Socrates in answering the question 'what is the good?'.

An immediate difficulty is that in this respect Aristotle has virtually nothing to tell us. Nor is there in Plato's early dialogues, or in Xenophon's Memorabilia, any full and systematic discussion of the question we are considering. We do find in these sources, however, some portrayal of Socrates' views in politics, in theology, and in what it is not too pretentious to call philosophy of mind. We must see therefore whether, within these various views, it is possible to discern a consistent conception of the good.

B. Political Views

Socrates was not a practising politician. But in both Xenophon and Plato he expresses political views. He makes constitutional criticisms. He states his position with regard to matters of political concern such as 'conscientious objection', and a citizen's obligation to adhere to the laws. Finally, he indicates what he considers to be the relevance and value to the well-being of the state of his own activity as an educator of his fellow-citizens. These views are some guide to his political principles. And these principles, in so far as they reflect his moral ideals, are some guide to his conception of the good.

According to Xenophon (Mem. I ii 9) those who accused Socrates of corrupting the young men of Athens based their charge partly on the argument that he caused those who conversed with him to despise the established laws. Socrates is said to have maintained that it was foolish to elect the magistrates of a state by beans (i.e. by ballot), since no one would be willing to employ a pilot elected in that way, or an architect or a flute-player, or a person in any other such profession, where in fact errors caused far less harm than errors in the administration of a state. There are good grounds for thinking that this is a genuinely Socratic argument. Aristotle mentions it (Rhetoric 1393b) … as an illustration of a typically Socratic argument.

The implication of the argument is, of course, that expert knowledge is a necessary qualification for the statesman. One of Socrates' favourite analogies, the analogy between moral behaviour and the practice of professional skills, is here extended to political practice. The appeal to expert knowledge is made explicit in another part of the Memorabilia (III ix 10-11) where Socrates, arguing again from the practice of professional skills, asserts that true kings and commanders are 'not those who hold sceptres, not those chosen by the common crowd or elected by lot, not those who rely on violence or deceit, but those who know how to rule.'

Similarly (Mem. IV ii 6-7), he advocates the need for expert instruction in the art of government, an art which he subsequently characterises as the greatest art, 'the kingly art' (IV ii 11). And it is natural to associate with what Socrates says here his remarks on 'the kingly art' in Plato's Euthydemus. He describes this art (at 291b-292e) as a master-art which uses the results of the practice of all other arts or professional skills in the state in order to promote happiness. In developing this point Plato is possibly going beyond what Socrates himself had argued. But Xenophon's remarks are some confirmation that the notion is basically Socratic. There is no explicit specification here of what 'the good' is which the expert statesman is assumed to know and to be able to realise in the state. The Euthydemus (292ae) admits this. But some definite standard of values for political practice is implicit in what Socrates says. In looking at the rest of his political views we must try to discover what these values are.

At the outset we should beware of construing Socrates' political views in terms of Plato's ideals in the Republic. It is easy enough to look at the thought of the Republic as a direct and consistent development of the political ideas which we find ascribed to Socrates by Xenophon. But closer examination will show that Socrates' notions of political reform and of the relations between the state and the individual are far different from Plato's. Professor Popper has remarked that 'the Platonic "Socrates" of the Republic is the embodiment of an unmitigated authoritarianism'.⁴ He rightly dissociates Socrates from the Platonic Socrates in this respect. Socrates' apparent advocacy of government by experts is not intended to be the advocacy of an alternative form of government to democracy. Nor is it the advocacy of 'an unmitigated authoritarianism'.

Let us look first at Socrates' notion of political reform. The striking thing here is that, critical though Socrates is of methods of electing magistrates in a democracy, he emphatically asserts his loyalty to the laws of the state. 'He obeyed the magistrates', says Xenophon (Mem. IV iv 1), 'in all that the laws enjoined.' Xenophon represents him further as defining justice in terms of obedience to the laws (IV iv 18). As an example of Socrates' practice in this respect he mentions his behaviour in the public assembly when he stood alone in opposing a proposal which was contrary to recognised law. The occasion was the trial of the generals after the battle of Arginusae in 406 B.C. The generals were tried and sentenced to death in a body, though the recognised law was that they should have been tried separately (I i 18; IV iv 2; see also Plato Apol. 32b-c). This was under a democratic government.

Socrates' passionate respect for the law is further shown in his opposition to the government of the Thirty Tyrants when they tried to implicate him in their crimes. Xenophon says that 'when the Thirty ordered him to do anything contrary to the laws, he refused to obey them. For both when they forbade him to converse with the young, and when they ordered him, and some others of the citizens, to lead a certain person away to death, he stood alone in refusing to obey them, because the order was given contrary to the laws' (IV iv 3; Plato Apol. 32c-d).

In both these cases Socrates showed considerable personal courage and a high devotion to principle. But it was in his refusal to escape from prison when awaiting execution that he declared most strikingly his conviction that the laws must be obeyed.

Plato's Crito is devoted to explaining this refusal to escape. Socrates there defends his loyalty to the laws of the state by arguing that the foundation of law is an agreement or contract between the state and the individual, and that willingness on the part of an individual to live in a society governed by laws implies acceptance of that contract and hence willingness to obey the laws. To disobey the laws is to dishonour one's agreement. The right thing to do (to dikaion) is to obey them.

It seems to me that the complete consistency of everything that Xenophon and Plato tell us about Socrates' loyalty to the laws makes it very difficult to believe that they are not giving us a true picture. It is possible to argue that, in their desire to show that Socrates was unjustifiably condemned by a democratic government, both Xenophon and Plato would naturally be inclined to argue that he was always loyally obedient to the laws of the state, whether this was strictly true or not. But to argue in this way is to misconstrue Socrates' loyalty to the laws in one important respect.

For Socrates' loyalty is a loyalty not only to the laws of a democratic state, but to those of non-democratic states as well. Socrates, unlike Plato, does not appear to have been very interested in constitutional problems. He is not concerned to champion the case for, say, monarchy as against democracy, or vice-versa. And his opposition to any illegality is equally vehement whether it is a democracy or a tyranny which acts illegally. The examples of his opposition given by Plato and Xenophon make this clear. And since they make clear at the same time that Socrates' championing of the principle of loyalty to the laws is not necessarily a championing of democracy, it is unlikely that Plato and Xenophon are falsely insisting on Socrates' loyalty to the laws because they wish to make him out to be a loyal democrat.

It would be wrong, however, to infer from all this that Socrates approved of all forms of government and that he was concerned only to advocate loyalty to the laws under any government. In Xenophon he makes quite clear his disapproval of tyranny. And it follows from his definition of tyranny (Mem. IV vi 12) that his principle of loyalty to the laws has no application in the case of tyranny. Xenophon there says that Socrates considered tyranny a government which ruled men against their will and which was not controlled by law but only by the whim of the ruler. He considered that all other forms of government—including monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy—followed the rule of law and enjoyed the consent of those living under them.

The association made here between consent and the rule of law is in conformity with Socrates' views in the Crito about the implicit contract between state and individual in a society governed by laws that the individual should be obedient to those laws. Socrates, it is clear, was more broadly tolerant of different forms of government than a modern liberal democrat. He saw no incompatibility between monarchy and consent, and did not concern himself with the question of whether an aristocracy could be fully representative of the will of the majority of the citizens. The main distinction which he seems to make is between government by law and consent and government without law and consent. Under the former type of government he thinks that it is right to be loyal to the laws.

Socrates' distinction corresponds fairly closely to the distinction between 'democracy' and 'tyranny' made by Popper in discussing Plato's theory of sovereignty.⁵ 'Democracy' is a type of government 'of which we can get rid without bloodshed', i.e., where 'the social institutions provide means by which the rulers may be dismissed by the ruled'. 'Tyranny' is a government 'which the ruled cannot get rid of except by way of successful revolution—that is to say, in most cases, not at all.'

Socrates was, I think rather more naive than Popper in his attitude to tyranny. For he seems to have thought that the arbitrary rule of a tyrant is invariably suicidal. In Xenophon (Mem. III ix 12) he expresses the view that the tyrant always suffers for his indifference to the advice of others, and brings immediate destruction on himself if he puts to death wise counsellors whose policy differs from his own. But what Popper says about 'democracy' expresses admirably Socrates' attitude to non-tyrannical forms of government. He says that, in making possible the reform of institutions without using violence, 'democracy' thereby makes possible 'the use of reason in the designing of new institutions and the adjusting of old ones'.⁶

This is much more explicit, of course, than anything which we can ascribe to Socrates himself. But it is undoubtedly implicit in Socrates' attitude to government. And Popper is undoubtedly right in associating with Socrates the 'personalism' of what he calls 'democracy' in its attitudes to the education of its citizens and to political reform. The personalist attitude treats the question of 'the intellectual and moral standard of its citizens' as 'to a large degree a personal problem'. Moreover, it assumes that the problem of improving 'democratic' institutions 'is always a problem for persons rather than for institutions'.⁷

It is in Plato's Apology that Socrates expresses with the most passionate conviction his sense of the importance of his mission to serve the community, not by any direct participation in politics, but by a personal approach to individual citizens. It is God's bidding, he says (30-1), that he should serve the state by questioning and examining his fellow-citizens, stirring them from their apathy and intellectual self-satisfaction. In everything he says on this score he emphasises repeatedly the individual nature of his approach (30e, 31b, 36c). I turned aside, he says, from political offices, thinking that I would best benefit the state if I went around privately to each individual and did him what I consider to be the greatest of all services—trying to persuade him not to care for what he had but for the excellence of his moral and intellectual self, nor to care for what the state had, but for 'the state itself (36b-c).⁸ There are similar sentiments in Xenophon, and a similar emphasis on the value to the state of educating the individual in 'knowing himself through self-criticism.⁹

We see from this the kind of political significance which Socrates ascribes to his educational activities. One reason he gives for preferring to serve the state in this way rather than through public participation in politics is the severely prudential reason that it is personally safer. 'You may be sure', he says at his trial, 'that if I had attempted to enter public life, I would have perished long ago, without any good to you or to myself. No man will ever be safe who genuinely stands up against you or against any other democracy, and tries to prevent a host of injustices and illegalities being committed in the state. The man who is to fight for justice must work in private rather than in public, if he is to keep his life even for a short time' (Plato Apol. 31e-32a).

This is not, of course, a mere concern for his own skin. It is a concern for the well-being of the state. Indeed, Socrates' deep conviction of the importance for this purpose of his educational mission makes him ready to lose his life rather than give up his activity. Nor should we try to interpret his loyalty to the laws as an expedient for his own safety. This loyalty again belongs to his conviction that it is not by flouting the laws of the state and not by any resort to revolution that the good of the state is advanced. His respect for government by law and consent is a genuine respect. Within such a government, improvement must come through personal education of the citizens.

As a political programme this Socratic ideal no doubt appears unduly sanguine, as well as unduly acquiescent in its attitude of loyalty to the laws. Its expectations are, however, more readily understandable when placed within the context of the small, close-knit community of a city-state. And Socrates is confident that there will be many more besides himself ready and able to further his ideal.¹⁰ Moreover, his loyalty to the laws does not assume that the laws are necessarily the best laws for ensuring the happiness of the citizens. In defending his loyalty to the laws in the Crito he makes clear that the laws are open to 'persuasion' as to what is right and just (51b-e).

Besides claiming the right to 'persuade' the laws Socrates also claims the right of 'conscientious objection' to what the laws prescribe. He states at his trial that, if he were to be acquitted on condition that he put a stop to his philosophical activities, then he would refuse to give such an assurance. As long as life leaves him the ability to do so, he says, he will never give up his philosophical activities. He will continue to try to persuade each of the citizens to care for the excellence of his moral and intellectual self (Plato, Apol. 29c-e). He is ready, however, to accept whatever legal penalty is imposed as a punishment for his activities. His claim for the right of defiance is not also a claim for the right to escape the punishment of the law.

This is yet a further indication of Socrates' deep personal conviction of the rightness and the political value of his mission in life as an educator. And it helps us to appreciate more clearly his ideal that the wisest should rule. He does not think this ideal incompatible in any way with his ideal of government by law and consent, or with his claims for the rights of the individual's conscience and for the individual's right to happiness. He obviously thinks of the rule of the wisest as a type of government which ensures perfect harmony between the citizen's respect for the laws and his individual right to perfect his own good. There is, however, little of the political theorist about Socrates. As Popper has said, 'with his emphasis upon the human side of the political problem, he could not take much interest in institutional reform'. It was 'the immediate, the personal aspect' in which he was interested.¹¹ The ideal that the wisest should rule is, for Socrates, not so much one particular institutional form of government. Rather, it is the end result of an educational mission which aims to bring wisdom not only to those who will rule but to those also who will elect the rulers and themselves be ruled.

From what we have now seen of Socrates' political views it is clear how radically Socrates differs from Plato in his approach to politics. Plato … rejects the individualism of Socrates' ethics. He rejects, in the end, Socrates' belief in the supreme efficacy of individual reason in ensuring rightness of moral behaviour. And he rejects Socrates' belief that education is a personal affair, of individual by individual, and that education of this kind is the only proper education to promote the well-being of society. He turns instead to schemes of state control of education. And coupling with his view that only the wise should rule the view that only the few are wise, he gives to the wise supreme authority to determine the rights of the rest. In this respect the charge that Plato 'betrayed' Socrates is entirely justified.¹²

This contrast between Socrates and Plato in their political attitudes serves to emphasise what is distinctive in Socrates' attitude. What is distinctive about it is, in the first place, its individualism. This is in keeping with the spirit of Socrates' method and of his ethics. Socrates assumes the self-sufficiency of his method as a means of attaining moral knowledge. He further assumes the sufficiency of that knowledge for attaining virtue. And, finally, he assumes 'the moral self-sufficiency of the virtuous man'.¹³ No evil, he says, can come to a good man, whether in life or death (Plato Apol. 41d).¹⁴

These are all marks of the individualism of Socratic ethics. It is this individualism which leads him to oppose¹⁵ the traditional political virtue of doing good to friends and harm to enemies. For it follows from the good man's moral self-sufficiency that the only harm that can come to him is of his own making, i.e. by committing wrong himself. And if to do harm to others is to do wrong, then to do harm to those who have done wrong to oneself is to do wrong. Hence it is to impair one's own moral good. Moreover, one's moral self-sufficiency is proof against wrong done to one by others. So that it is 'better' to be wronged by others than to do wrong to others.

A corollary of this individualism is the liberalism of Socrates' attitude to politics. He considers the moral worth of the individual to be of paramount value. Hence he considers that the individual must be free to realise his own good. That is why he insists at his trial on the right of the individual to defy the state if it prescribes what he considers to be incompatible with realising that good. For it is clear from the assumptions of his own educational mission that the right he claims for himself is a right which he claims for any individual. Perhaps in some respects Socrates' attitude of acquiescence towards the laws of the state may appear to be unduly tolerant. Certainly his conviction of the individual's moral self-sufficiency predisposes him to think that the individual is able to realise his moral ends under most forms and conditions of government. But he always insists on the individual's right to be free to realise his own good. And he is confident that the vigorous exercise of this right will help to create the best political conditions for realising that good.

These political views of Socrates are clearly relevant to our inquiry into Socrates' conception of the good life. For they are a reflection of what Socrates holds to be valuable in human life. In the first place Socrates values the individual as an end in himself, and hence claims the right of the individual to pursue his own good. Hence he claims further for the individual the political freedom to do this. In the second place, he believes in the efficacy of reason as a means available to the individual of determining his good; he believes, moreover, in the possibility of persuading all citizens of any particular state to realise the value of applying their reason systematically, through self-criticism, to the realisation of that end.

This yields a conception of the good life as a life of free and independent criticism and inquiry, considered as the 'best' activity for the individual's self-development. Its general tendency is, of course, to emphasise the intrinsic value of the activity of impartially searching for the truth rather than its means-to-an-end value in establishing what the good is as an ultimate value. In this respect it might seem that there is some incompatibility between, on the one hand, the liberalism and individualism of Socrates' view that each person should be free to determine and to follow his own good, and, on the other hand, his conviction that there is only one proper method to determine what the good is, and that this method will yield certainty as to what it is.

The former view, emphasising the value of free and independent criticism and inquiry, seems more in keeping with the liberal ideal of morality as an individual and, indeed, private sphere of behaviour, immune from the interference of law and state; the concern here is not to evaluate the particular moral principles which the individual has determined to be the right ones for him; it is to champion the value of the individual's right to be free and independent in determining them. The latter view, in so far as it assumes that reason can establish certain principles of moral behaviour as indubitably true, seems to be more in keeping with the view that there is a rationally sanctioned code of morality which should be accepted by everybody and which law and state should uphold.¹⁶ This is the view systematically developed by Plato. It excludes 'private morality'.

It is very unlikely that Socrates was aware of this apparent incompatibility between his individualistic views and the authoritarianism implicit in his conviction that certainty was possible in ethics and that those who had attained it should be rulers. Certainly there is much of the philosophical liberal about Socrates. This is reflected in almost all of his political views. And it is reflected also in his conception of the good in so far as this puts a high value on the activity of free and independent criticism and inquiry. But does he consider it a sufficient specification of the good to define it in terms of this activity? Or does he rather value this activity as a means to the end of establishing what the good is? Let us now look at his views in fields outside politics, to see what indications are given there about his conception of the good which might help to resolve this problem.

C. Religious Views

In a familiar passage in Plato's Phaedo Socrates tells how dissatisfied he was as a young man with the theories of the natural scientists of his time. They were wrong, he thought, in explaining everything in terms of mechanical causation; they should have adopted a teleological kind of explanation.

Here is his account of his reaction to the theory of Anaxagoras (Phaedo 97b ff.):¹⁷

One day I heard someone reading an extract from what he said was a book by Anaxagoras, to the effect that it is Mind that arranges all things in order and causes all things; now there was a cause that delighted me, for I felt that in a way it was good that Mind should be the cause of everything; and I decided that if this were true Mind must do all its ordering and arranging in the fashion that is best for each individual thing. Hence if one wanted to discover the cause for anything coming into being or perishing or existing, the question to ask was how it was best for that thing to exist or to act or be acted upon. On this principle then the only thing that a man had to think about, whether in regard to himself or anything else, was what is best, what is the highest good; though of course he would also have to know what is bad, since knowledge of good involves knowledge of bad.

With these reflexions I was delighted to think I had found in Anaxagoras an instructor about the cause of things after my own heart… I imagined that in assigning the cause of particular things and of things in general he would proceed to explain what was the individual best and the general good; and I wouldn't have sold my hopes for a fortune.

And then … I found the man making no use of Mind, not crediting it with any causality for setting things in order, but finding causes in things like air and aether and water and a host of other absurdities. It seemed to me that his position was like that of a man who said that all the actions of Socrates are due to his mind, and then attempted to give the cause of my several actions by saying that the reason why I am sitting here is that my body is composed of bones and sinews … so that when the bones move about in their sockets, the sinews, by lessening or increasing the tension, make it possible for me at this moment to bend my limbs, and that is the cause of my sitting here in this bent position.

No: to call things like that causes is quite absurd; it would be true to say that if I did not possess things like that—bones and sinews and so on—I shouldn't be able to do what I had resolved upon; but to say that I do what I do because of them—and that too when I am acting with my mind—and not because of my choice of what is best, would be to use extremely careless language. Fancy not being able to distinguish between the cause of a thing and that without which the cause would not be a cause!

This is a clear and straightforward advocacy of the superiority of teleological explanations to mechanical ones. It emphasises the need to take account of the end or purpose to be realised in all natural processes, and characterises this end as 'the highest good'. It also emphasises the directive force of Mind (nous) in ordering these processes and realising 'the highest good'. Thus the principle that man has a realisable good is seen as part of the comprehensive principle that everything in the world is directed in its activity to the realising of a final good end.

The first thing to consider about this account in the Phaedo is, of course, whether it is truly Socratic. One ground for suspicion that it is not is that, after its rejection of the notion of mechanical causation, it goes on to explain its new conception of causation in terms of the metaphysical theory of Forms (100a ff.), a theory which we have Aristotle's authority for attributing to Plato, and not to Socrates. On the other hand, it is fairly certain that Socrates was acquainted with the theories of Anaxagoras. For there is a well attested tradition that Archelaus, a pupil of Anaxagoras, was the teacher of Socrates.¹⁸ So we may reasonably ask whether it is likely that Socrates' reaction to the theories of Anaxagoras was such as the Phaedo describes. The fact that the later part of the Phaedo's discussion of causation is non-Socratic does not make it unreasonable to ask this. For that fact does not entail that the earlier part is non-Socratic.

Aristotle does not help us here. He says (Met. 987b l-6) that, at the time when Socrates influenced Plato, Socrates' interests were exclusively ethical and not directed at all to the world of nature as a whole. This is quite compatible, of course, with what Aristophanes' Clouds, Xenophon's Memorabilia (IV vii 4-7) and Plato's Phaedo all suggest—that Socrates was well acquainted with the theories of the fifth-century physical scientists and had reflected on the value of such studies. But Aristotle does not, unfortunately, make any comment about Socrates' later lack of interest in this field.

Xenophon, however, has a good deal to say. According to Xenophon, Socrates criticised the scientists on several counts—for the futility of their assumption that it was possible to achieve definite knowledge, for the lack of practical value in their studies, and for their presumption, amounting virtually to impiety, in seeking to explain the order of the universe (Mem. I i 11-15; IV vii 4-6). Admittedly, Xenophon has an axe to grind. He wishes to dissociate Socrates from any interests smacking of impiety, and hence from Aristophanes' caricature of him in the Clouds as an impious speculator in physical science. He also wishes to emphasise the practical benefits of Socrates' teaching. However, what he attributes to Socrates here is quite in keeping with what Plato's Apology represents him as arguing at his trial—that Aristophanes' portrayal of him is false and that it is wrong to associate him with the kind of theory he is there associated with (Apol. 18b-19d; 23d-e). Taken together, these passages from Xenophon and Plato give a consistent picture of Socrates' attitude to the theories of the fifth-century scientists.

Moreover, there are passages in Xenophon in which Socrates criticises these theories, just as he criticises them in Plato's Phaedo, on the ground of their materialism and their mechanistic explanations. These passages also attribute to Socrates a positive preference for teleological explanations of all the phenomena hitherto explained in terms of mechanical causation. Now it is easy enough to say that all that Xenophon is doing here is borrowing from the Phaedo. But the fact is that Xenophon goes well beyond the Phaedo in describing Socrates' teleological views. Some of these views have no parallel at all in the Phaedo. They are interesting and important.

In the first place, Xenophon (Mem. I iv 4 ff.) attributes to Socrates a teleological proof of the existence of a divine architect (demiourgos) of the order of the world. Socrates' argument from design appeals especially to the intricate and consistent adaptation of means to ends in the human body and personality. The major premiss of his argument here is that whatever is adapted to serve a useful purpose is the product of intelligence, not of chance (4). If then, he argues, we look at the human body, we see that the delicate structure of the different senses is adapted to man's needs and wellbeing. Similarly man's upright posture, his ability to speak, his intelligence are all adapted to benefit him, since they enable him to maintain himself in all sorts of conditions and to increase his happiness (5-17). Thus man is a most striking example of intelligent design. But he is only one example. Throughout the natural world an order is maintained which is evidence of a directing intelligence (8).

Thus the structure of the whole world is the product of intelligence and not of chance. A directing intelligence (nous, phronesis) is manifested everywhere (17). And all this points to the existence of a divine architect (di miourgos, 7), one who orders and holds together the whole cosmos (IV iii 13), exercising in the world a form of intelligent control which is conceived as analogous to the control of the human mind over the body (I iv 17).

Within this general teleological argument for the existence of a divine architect, Socrates introduces further the thesis that the pattern of adaptation of means to ends throughout the world is of a kind which shows that it is for the sake of man that the world is designed as it is. He develops this thesis at Mem. IV iii 3 ff. As evidence of man's privileged position in the order of the world he mentions his enjoyment of the 'gifts' of air, food, fire, of beneficial regulation of the seasons, of the use of other animals, of finely adjusted senses and intelligence, of speech, and of foreknowledge through divination of what is to his advantage. And on the basis of this evidence for man's privileged position within the cosmic pattern of means and ends, it is argued that God has a providential care for mankind and has designed the world to serve man's well-being.

If we compare the passage quoted from the Phaedo with these two chapters from the Memorabilia, we see that the arguments of the Memorabilia go beyond the arguments in the Phaedo in two main respects. The Phaedo argues that the order of the physical world as a whole and the purposive behaviour of human beings in particular are more plausibly explained in terms, not of a mechanical theory of causation, but of a teleological theory which recognises the directive force of mind (nous) in realising a good end. From this teleological viewpoint Socrates in the Memorabilia develops, first, a detailed argument for theism (the now familiar argument from design), and, second, a detailed argument to show that God in his providential care for man, has designed the world to serve man's well-being.

These arguments in the Memorabilia have a form which is closely parallel to the form of Stoic arguments to support the notion of divine providence. Indeed, in form and detail they immediately recall the arguments used by Balbus in his exposition of Stoic theology in the second book of Cicero's De Natura Deorum, especially those in the latter half of the book (133 ff.). The same examples are used in each case, the same conclusions are drawn. The parallel is close enough to make it likely that the Stoics made use of the arguments of the Memorabilia when formulating their own theological arguments. Sextus Empiricus, in his discussion of Stoic theology (Adv. Math. IX 92 ff.), certainly assumes this (see especially IX 101). And he gives a good deal of attention to the question of the proper interpretation of one highly important part of the argument in the Memorabilia (I iv 8).

In view of this, and in view also of the absence in earlier extant literature of any clear and explicit formulation of the Memorabilia's theistic arguments, the further likelihood is suggested that Socrates' arguments in Xenophon are in the main original arguments, and that Socrates is therefore a thinker of some importance in the development of a philosophy of theism. For there is no doubt that the two chapters of the Memorabilia we are considering present a theory which appears in many ways to be an 'advanced' theory for its time. The vocabulary of its account is not the least of the marks of its advanced nature. In this respect too the affinities are with later Stoic thought rather than with earlier or contemporary thought.¹⁹ Nor, for most of the arguments of the Memorabilia, is it possible to find in the pre-Stoic period, whether in the Platonic theology of the Timaeus and the Laws, or in Aristotle, arguments for theism which are at all closely parallel in general form and in detail to those of the Memorabilia.

It has been argued, indeed, that these arguments are so advanced for their time that their place in the Memorabilia can plausibly be explained only by the assumption that they are late interpolations. For example, Lincke argued that the Stoic Zeno put them where they are.²⁰ But as alternatives to this speculative hypothesis, let us consider the probabilities of the views either that the arguments can be traced, in their essentials at least, to pre-Socratic thought or that they can be attributed, whether wholly or in part, to Socrates.

As we have already seen, it is acknowledged in Plato's Phaedo that Anaxagoras' introduction into his cosmogony of the element of Mind (nous) as that which 'arranges all things in order and causes all things'²¹ suggests at once a teleological mode of explanation. But in both Plato and Aristotle the criticism is made that Anaxagoras, after introducing Mind to start the cosmic revolution, falls back on mechanical explanations in the rest of his cosmogony and makes no further use of Mind as that which 'arranges all things in order'.²² Clearly the criticism was prompted by the lack of any use of the notion of end (telos) or purpose in Anaxagoras' detailed explanations.

But in the work of Diogenes of Apollonia a genuinely teleological outlook appears for the first time. Diogenes, described by Theophrastus as 'almost the youngest' of the cosmologists of the fifth century B.C., was no doubt influenced in his views by Anaxagoras' notion of Mind. Unlike Anaxagoras, however, Diogenes emphasises the conscious purpose and design to be found in nature. He assumes that this purpose is directed to the realisation of what is 'best'; this is the kind of end which Socrates, in the Phaedo, says that he looked for in vain in Anaxagoras' theory of causation. Finally, Diogenes thinks that the whole material world, in as much as it is infused by such purposive intelligence, is to be considered divine.

Let us see how he expresses all this. Without intelligence, he says, it would not be possible for the basic substance of the world to be distributed in such a way that it has a measure of everything—of winter and summer and night and day and rains and winds and periods of fine weather; other things too, if one cares to study them, will be found to be disposed in the best possible way.²³ Hence he describes the basic substance of the world as 'that which has intelligence'. He identifies it with air. All men, he says, are steered by this, and it has power over everything; for this itself seems to me to be God and to reach everywhere and to dispose all things and to be in everything.²⁴

We can see more clearly what Diogenes means when he says that 'all men are steered by this' if we look at his account of human sensation and thought. He explains sensation in terms of interaction between external and 'internal' air. And what is especially interesting in his account is his statement that in perception it is 'the air within' which perceives, 'being a small portion of the God'; that this is so is indicated, he argues, 'by the fact that often, when we have our mind (nous) on other things we neither see nor hear'²⁵

What he means by this is that the divine nous which is operative in the whole cosmos is operative also in the act of human perception. For this act is not explicable simply in terms of interaction between external stimuli and sense-organs; for when the nous is directed elsewhere perception does not occur, even though physical interaction between external stimuli and sense-organs occurs. Hence 'the small portion of the God' which perceives is intelligence (nous). Cicero drew this conclusion from the passage when he said that it could readily be understood from it that it is the mind (animus) which sees and hears, not those parts which are as it were windows of the mind.²⁶ It affords one example of the ways in which man is 'steered' by 'that which has intelligence'.

There are obvious affinities between Diogenes' arguments and Socrates' arguments in the Memorabilia. In both cases there is agreement that all things are disposed 'for the best' (kallista: Diogenes in DK.64 B 3, Socrates in Mem. I iv 13), that this is a divine disposition, and that it is exemplified in the regulation of the seasons, of night and day, and of the weather, and in the human senses and intellect (Diogenes in DK.64 A 19, B 3-5, Socrates in Mem. I iv 8, 13, 17; IV iii 4-9, 11).

There is some agreement also in the use of the analogy between the intelligent behaviour of the human person and the orderly processes of the cosmos. Diogenes thinks of human intelligence (nous) as 'a small portion of the God'. And in identifying 'that which has intelligence' with air as a cosmic principle, he was certainly influenced by the connexion between air and breathing in men and animals, the further connexion between breathing and life, and, finally, the connexion between life, sensation and thought (DK.64 B 4, B 5). This kind of connexion between air and intelligence in the human personality no doubt played its part in prompting him to adopt the theory that air, possessing 'intelligence' to order all things 'for the best', is the basic substance of the cosmos.

The analogy between human and cosmic intelligence is much more explicit in Socrates' arguments. He says (Mem. I iv 17) that, just as the human mind (nous) directs the body, so the intelligence that pervades everything directs all things. He argues also that the physical constituents of a man are the same, though infinitely smaller in amount, as those of the cosmos, and that it is therefore arrogant to assume that, while intelligence exists in man, the order of the world is maintained without it (I iv 8). The argument is found also in a late dialogue of Plato, the Philebus (28c-30b).²⁷

It is highly probable that Socrates was familiar with Diogenes' work. And in view of the affinities between Diogenes' arguments and Socrates' it is reasonable to assume that in these respects Diogenes' arguments had some influence on Socrates. Yet there is a good deal more in Socrates' teleological thesis than in Diogenes'. It is possible to argue, of course, that if we had all Diogenes' work, we would find a fuller and more detailed exposition of his teleological views and in all probability find there an anticipation of all Socrates' arguments. For example, it might be argued that Diogenes' serious interests in physiology²⁸ are likely to have led him to view the structure of the human body from the standpoint of a teleological thesis about the structure of the cosmos as a whole. And it might be argued from this that Socrates' detailed arguments (Mem. I iv 5-12)—to show that there is evidence of intelligent design in the purposive adaptation of means to ends in the structure of the human body—are in all probability taken from Diogenes.

But these speculative arguments carry little conviction. If Diogenes had indeed anticipated Socrates in the full range and direction of his teleological arguments, then it becomes quite incomprehensible that Diogenes should not be mentioned along with Anaxagoras in the account of the Phaedo as a teleological type of thinker. For what is said in the Phaedo about Anaxagoras as a possible pioneer in teleological thinking seems eminently fair in its assessment and criticisms; Aristotle has much the same criticism to make, and the extant fragments generally confirm the rightness of that criticism. So is it at all likely that Plato would at the same time be so singularly unfair as to suppress all reference to Diogenes' teleological views if Diogenes had in fact been the sort of teleologist that Socrates is in the Memorabilia?

It seems clear, then, from Plato's lack of reference to Diogenes²⁹ in the account of the Phaedo, that Plato cannot have thought of Diogenes as at all important as a teleological thinker. The probability is that he ranked Diogenes with Anaxagoras as a natural scientist who did recognise the mark of intelligent design in the structure of the world but who was content to rely in his detailed explanations on a mechanical notion of causation. The reason for selecting Anaxagoras rather than Diogenes for special mention as a possible pioneer in teleological thinking is presumably that Anaxagoras, unlike Diogenes, introduced into his system a dualism of mind and matter³⁰ which seemed to be a much more promising basis for a teleological theory than Diogenes' monism.

And if Plato was so unimpressed by Diogenes as a teleological thinker, it is likely that Socrates was similarly unimpressed and that he relied much less on Diogenes for his own teleological views than some scholars would maintain. For what is really distinctive about Socrates' arguments in the Memorabilia is the humanistic and moral orientation belonging to them. There is nothing of this either in Anaxagoras or in Diogenes. Diogenes does indeed speak of the direction of all things 'in the best possible way'. But there is no kind of moral connotation in this. It simply means a disposition in the most orderly or regular way, with the implication that this is in itself more admirable than a state of chaos. And there is nothing in the detail of Diogenes' cosmology or his physiological theory to suggest any sort of moral interest, or indeed to suggest anything beyond the interests of a natural scientist concerned with the mechanical explanation of natural processes.

Thus, if we look for anticipations of Socrates' arguments in the work of the fifth-century natural philosophers, we find some very general anticipation of a teleological approach, but comparatively little anticipation of either the range or the direction of Socrates' arguments. Is there anything, then, in the non-philosophical literature of the fifth century that provides any sort of parallel to Socrates' arguments?

It is clear from the tragedians that there was general recognition of a range of distinctively human abilities, skills, and advantages, which allowed man to lead a civilised life superior to that of all other animals. Sometimes these were looked on as gifts from the gods, sometimes as the results of man's own persistent endeavours in adapting himself to his environment. But there is a wide measure of agreement as to the specification of them. They are, with very little variation, the 'gifts' which Socrates appeals to (Mem. IV iii) in arguing for God's providential care of mankind. In Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides we are given much the same list—fire, water, food and shelter, the beneficial regularity of the season, the use of other animals, sailing in ships, speech, thought and the power of divination (Aeschylus P.V. 442-506; Sophocles Antigone 332-75; Euripides Supplices 201-15). The closest parallel to Socrates' argument (Mem. IV iii) is the argument of Theseus in the Supplices passage. In arguing for the view that there is a preponderance of good over evil in the world Theseus mentions as examples of the way in which God 'orders' man's life his bestowal of just those 'gifts' which Socrates mentions (IV iii 5-6, 8, 11-12).³¹

There can be little doubt that it is on these popular examples of man's distinctive advantages that Socrates draws when he formulates his argument for God's providential care of mankind. There is, moreover, an obviously moral significance in the use made of these examples by the tragedians. Man's enjoyment of these advantages makes his life 'better' than that of other animals. And the higher the development of his advantages, the happier he is. No doubt this moral significance recommended the examples to Socrates as the basis of one of his main teleological arguments.

Having now reviewed the possible sources in fifth-century philosophical and non-philosophical literature of Socrates' teleological views, what remains in those views which is distinctively original? In the first place he puts forward, as a theological argument, the teleological argument from design for the existence of God as an architect (demiourgos) of the order of the world. This God is both omniscient and omnibenevolent (Mem. I iv 18). In the second place he puts forward, as a moral argument, the argument for God's providential care of mankind. For he considers that this divine providence entails an obligation (IV iii 14, 17) on the part of man to 'respect what is divine' in the order of the world and to refrain from what is impious, unjust, or disgraceful (I iv 19; IV iii 14).

In this way he dissociates from the context of theories in natural science any pointers to a teleological mode of interpretation that he finds in such theories. The dualism of mind and matter which he finds in the essentially mechanical theory of Anaxagoras is given a moral and theological interpretation. And the teleological arguments within Diogenes' monistic system become part of a theology which views the order of the world in terms of a dualism. The importance of this for Socrates is that, with his exclusively moral interests, he is able to make his teleological arguments for the existence of God a basis for justifying a moral ideal. So that his originality lies essentially in the formulation of a theology which not only introduces novel arguments for the existence of God but gives a new moral significance to such arguments of a teleological kind as he takes from others.

It seems to me plausible to claim this degree of originality for Socrates. From what we know of Xenophon it is hardly conceivable that Xenophon invented any of the arguments himself. And though the terminology of the arguments still strikes me as being in some respects rather sophisticated for the time when Xenophon was writing and rather reminiscent of Stoic terminology, I am inclined to think that this is not fatal to the acceptance of the view that Xenophon, in these parts of the Memorabilia, is presenting genuinely Socratic views.³² Moreover, these views are in keeping with the convictions which are the basis of Socrates' defence of his ideals at his trial. They are in keeping with his conviction that his educational mission is a divinely appointed mission, with his conviction that man's moral aim should be to care for his soul rather than his body, and, finally, with his conviction that the good man's interests are not neglected by the gods (Plato, Apology 28d-31c, 41d). And if we add to Socrates' religious temperament his fondness for analogical arguments, we can see how readily inclined he would be to make use of the kind of analogy he finds between the practice of professional skills and moral behaviour, and to make it the basis of his argument for the existence of a divine architect of the order of the world.

So far we have tried to establish that in his teleological arguments for the existence of God the end or purpose which Socrates constantly has in view is the end of man's behaviour as a moral being, i.e. his goodness. But what sort of moral ideal is implied by Socrates' theology? It tells us that God 'knows best what things are good' (Mem. I iii 2) and that in his wisdom and benevolence he has given man the abilities and advantages which will enable him to achieve happiness. But in specifying these abilities and advantages Socrates is specifying in the main what he considers to be the principal conditions for the attainment of happiness. He is not specifying the summum bonum itself. His theology does, however, give some positive indications of what he considers to be the peculiar excellence of man.

We have seen that Socrates' view is that the providence of God entails an obligation on the part of man to 'respect what is divine' in the order of the world. The chief defining characteristic of God is reason or intelligence (nous, phronesis). And the dualism of the ordering intelligence of God and the material world he orders is conceived by Socrates on the analogy of the dualism of the human mind and body. The moral significance of this for Socrates is that man's general obligation to 'respect what is divine' entails that he should place a far greater value on the activities of mind than on those of body within the dualism of his own personality. For the relation between human and divine intelligence is such that it entails that the human mind or psyche (soul) is the greatest, the most excellent element in the human personality (Mem. I iv 13). For man's psyche is that in him which 'partakes of the divine' (Mem. IV iii 14). In his Philebus Plato was later to argue, on basically the same grounds, that nous and phrone sis must be reckoned essential ingredients of the good life (28c-30b, 64b-66b).

All this clearly adds a new dimension to our inquiry into Socrates' conception of the good. We see that Socrates views the question of moral goodness within the context of a dualism of soul and body, and justifies on theological grounds his view (i) that goodness belongs to soul rather than to body, and (ii) that it is in virtue of the nous or phronesis belonging to the human soul that the highest value can be placed on its activities. In order to give more precise definition to this moral ideal we must examine in more detail Socrates' notion of psyche.

D. The Soul

Much has been written about the development which took place in the Greek concept of soul in the two centuries before Socrates,³³ and the story of these developments is, in its broad outlines, a now familiar one. But something must be said briefly about it if we are to appreciate Socrates' distinctive contributions to the meaning of the concept.

Furley has remarked that 'it is typical of the development of psyche that it comes to replace other words in more and more contexts'.³⁴ In Homer it is a simple notion. It is the life which distinguishes the living person from the dead person. But in post-Homeric literature it is not long before the notion of soul is associated with various experiences and activities naturally associated with the living person.

In non-philosophical literature it is associated, from the early lyric poets onwards, with certain feelings and emotions—courage, grief, love, anger, etc.³⁵ In philosophical literature there are several ways in which its use is extended. Within the materialistic theories of the natural scientists its primary sense of life is retained in most cases without attempts to extend its meaning. There are, however, a few exceptional cases in which soul is associated with intellectual activities. Heraclitus is one such case.³⁶ But the most interesting and most explicit case is the Sophist Gorgias, in a work which is essentially a rhetorical exercise but which has some philosophical interest. The Encomium on Helen refers to both the emotional and the intellectual effect of persuasive argument on the soul. It says that wisdom (sophia) is the glory of the soul. Thus it assumes that the soul is the seat of intellectual activity as well as emotion.

Assuming that the Encomium is a genuine work of Gorgias, there still remains the difficulty of dating it. It probably belongs to the last quarter of the fifth century B.C., and thus suggests that the notion of associating the soul with intellectual activity was by then at least sufficiently acceptable in use to allow it to figure prominently in a rhetorical exercise.³⁷

Diogenes of Apollonia appears to reflect in his work this new tendency to associate soul with intellect. We noted earlier his association of air with intelligence. And though he refers to soul (psyche) and intelligence (no e sis) separately, and is clearly not identifying soul with mind, yet the link he makes between air and intelligence is the more easily forged because he finds it possible to use psyche as his middle term. Moreover, it is clear that in his view the material substance of psyche is air, which is 'that which has intelligence' (DK.64 B 5). So the activity of noe sis can be included within the activities of soul.

Diogenes' work illustrates one further extension of the application of psyche in pre-Socratic thought. It is the connecting of the notion of psyche as life and breath in the human being with the life and motion belonging to all the processes of the physical world. This cosmic significance attached to soul is already apparent in Anaximenes.³⁸ When it appears later in Diogenes there is added to its cosmic significance as a principle of life and motion the notion of intelligence. This marks the culmination of developments in the notion of soul within the materialistic tradition of pre-Socratic thinking.³⁹

Outside this tradition there is one important development to be noted. It concerns the nature of the psyche which survives the death of a man. In Homer the soul survives merely as a ghost-like shade. Any thought of survival after death was naturally associated with soul, since it was the soul, as the breath of life, which deserted the body at death. But a deeper significance was given to the notion of the soul's survival by the Orphics and Pythagoreans.

This new significance is already apparent in Pythagoras' doctrine of the transmigration of souls. In a well known fragment preserved by Diogenes Laertius (VIII 36), Xenophanes tells how Pythagoras, passing by when a puppy was being beaten, took pity on it and ordered the beating to be stopped, since 'this is really the soul of a man who was my friend; I recognised it as I heard it cry out'. What is implied by this is the survival of the personal soul. And this idea of the retention of personality from one life to another is associated with the idea of 'punishment in the body' and with the further idea of 'purifying' the soul in the hope of escaping further incarnation. The Orphics spoke of the body as the prison or as the tomb of the soul. Plato refers to their belief that the incarnate soul is suffering the punishment of sin, and that the body is a prison in which the soul is incarcerated (Crat. 400c; cf. Men. 81a-e, Rep. 364e-365a).

In this way a moral significance is attached to the behaviour of the soul. But there is little reliable evidence to show that the idea of 'purifying' one's soul was associated with anything other than ritualistic procedures. It seems fairly clear that the Pythagoreans associated purification with music and poetry.⁴⁰ But whether they associated it further with scientific or philosophic studies it is impossible to say. We do know that they broadened the basis of mathematics to give it the form of a 'liberal education'.⁴¹ But this in itself does not imply any link between mathematical studies and purification.

What is remarkable about these religious ideas of the soul and its immortality is that they stand right outside the naturalistic theories which represent the main tradition of pre-Socratic thought. When the Pythagoreans speculated about the nature of the soul within the context of their scientific and cosmological theory they advanced theories about it quite incompatible with their religious views of its nature.⁴² Empedocles, who was much influenced by these religious ideas, seems to have held some naturalistic view of the nature of soul within his general physical theory.⁴³ But when he expresses his religious views in the Purifications he speaks of that which survives bodily death as the daimōn.⁴⁴

Thus the position in the latter half of the fifth century B.C. was that the concept of psyche, while it had been examined and developed within the materialistic cos-mologies of the pre-Socratics, had attracted no serious philosophical attention as a non-naturalistic concept. As such it remained a rather vague notion within a body of religious ideas which linked it with the notions of personal survival and of purification but which did not attempt any kind of theoretical justification for any of its views.

Socrates was no doubt familiar with these developments. His religious views suggest that he was familiar with the work of Diogenes, and hence that he was familiar with the notions of giving to soul a cosmic significance and of associating it with intelligence and reason. And the dualism in his religious views also makes it highly probable that he was not only familiar with, but attracted by Orphic and Pythagorean notions of the soul. It is interesting to note in this connexion that, in his caricature of Socrates' activities in the Clouds, Aristophanes describes Socrates' school as a 'reflectory (phrontisterion) of wise souls' (94). The unusual use here of 'soul' for 'person' is a possible reflection of Pythagorean ideas about the personal survival of the soul.

It would be wrong, however, to look for any extensive influence of Pythagorean religious views on the thought of Socrates. There is nothing at all in the ancient tradition about Socrates which links him with the Pythagoreans, though much is said about the link between Plato and the Pythagoreans. And I agree with Ross that 'this must in all probability come in the long run from a tradition in the early Academy that it was not Socrates that formed the link between Plato and the Pythagoreans; and I see no reason to doubt that Plato's interest in these doctrines was largely due to his association with the Pythagoreans of Magna Graecia several years after Socrates' death.'⁴⁵

All that we can plausibly grant, then, in respect of Pythagorean influence on Socrates, is influence of a very general kind in turning Socrates' thought to the idea of associating moral behaviour with the soul and also of associating the personality of a man with his soul. And in view of the intellectualism of his ethics Socrates would naturally be inclined further to associate intellectual activities with the soul and would therefore be attracted by the new tendency to extend the range of meaning of soul in that direction.

We must now consider, in relation to these influences, how much originality there is in the Socratic concept of soul. We must look in particular for any developments in the analysis of it as a non-naturalistic entity, for hitherto, as we have noted, very little attention had been given to such analysis.

We have already seen that in Xenophon's Memorabilia Socrates says that the soul is the most excellent part of a man, and that it is that in him which 'partakes of the divine'. Elsewhere in the Memorabilia he emphasises the dualism of soul and body in a way which implies that for him the soul is incorporeal. Unlike the body, the soul is invisible (I iv 9; IV iii 14). It directs the body (I iv 9, 13-14). And it is because it is the seat of reason and intelligence (nous, phronesis) that it is able to do this; for it is in the soul alone that intelligence resides (I ii 53; 1 iv 17). Moreover, a person's moral behaviour is the behaviour of his soul, not of his body. The 'performances that belong properly to the soul' are 'doing that which we ought to do' and 'refraining from that from which we ought to refrain' (I iv 19). In Plato's Crito (47e-48a) it is to the soul that Socrates implicitly refers when he distinguishes from the body 'that thing in us, whatever it is, which has to do with right or wrong.'

This dualism of soul and body is specially associated by Socrates in the Memorabilia with the notion of self-control or self-discipline (sophrosune, enkrateia). Self-control is, indeed, the key moral concept for Socrates in the Memorabilia. And he thinks of it essentially as a control of the soul over the body, just as he thinks of the lack of it as the result of a successful assault on the soul by the persuasive influences of bodily pleasures. Thus he says that 'pleasures that have been generated in the same body with the soul persuade the soul to abandon self-control and to gratify the pleasures and the body as soon as possible' (I ii 23). He speaks also of 'being a slave' to pleasures (I v 5), and says that every man ought to consider self-control to be the foundation of all virtue, and to establish it in his soul above all else (I v 4; cf. II i 20). It is in these terms that Xenophon claims that Socrates was superior to 'the pleasures of the body' (I v 6).

It is clear that this moral interpretation of the dualism of soul and body is for Socrates an additional ground for thinking that the soul, already characterised as invisible and divine, is a distinct part of a man, an entity different in kind from the body. What he says about self-control in terms of relations between body and soul constitutes in fact a new psychological argument in support of his dualistic views. And he bases on it a moral ideal, which prescribes 'care of the soul' (I ii 4) rather than of the body as the aim of the good man.

In Plato's Apology the ideal of 'care of the soul' mentioned by Xenophon is given an important place by Socrates in the defence of his activities at his trial. A measure of the importance which he gives to it is already indicated in Xenophon. For there it becomes apparent that Socrates uses the phrase 'the care of the soul' as equivalent both to 'the care of goodness' and to 'the care of oneself (I ii 2 with I ii 4 and I ii 8). The same is true of what he says in Plato's Apology (29d-30b with 31b, 36c and 41e). He is saying that in caring for the good of one's soul one is caring for one's true self.

This identification of soul with self is the conclusion of an argument in Alcibiades 1, a dialogue which cannot with any confidence be attributed to Plato but which presents a Socrates whose views can be matched in virtually all respects with the views of the Socrates of Xenophon and of Plato's early dialogues. One cannot confidently claim that the formal shape of its argument for the identification of soul with self is genuinely Socratic. But I think it fairly represents the sort of considerations which are at the back of what is a genuinely Socratic conclusion.

Here is the argument. If we ask what 'caring for one's self means (127e), we must first ask what the self is (128e). It is clear that the user of anything is in all cases different from the thing used. The person who uses his hands, eyes, and so on is therefore different from the hands and eyes he uses. More generally, a man is different from the body as a whole which he uses. It is his soul which uses his body. And since man must be soul or body or both together, and since, as user of his body, he cannot be body or body and soul together, it follows that 'either man is nothing at all, or, if he is something, he turns out to be nothing else than soul'. The soul, then, is man (129b-130c).

This is just the view that Plato represents Socrates as taking at the end of the Phaedo (115c-d). Crito asks Socrates in what way he and his friends should bury him. 'In whatever way you like', says Socrates, 'if you can catch me'. The real Socrates, he points out, is the one at present taking part in discussion with them and marshalling the various arguments, not the one soon to be seen as a corpse. And he associates this view with the confident hope that this self will survive the death of the body.

Are we able to accept as Socratic this belief in personal immortality attributed to him by Plato in the Phaedo? It is certainly a belief in keeping with the conception of soul as a divine, invisible, and non-bodily entity which constitutes the true self. For to think of the soul in that way is to think of it as something which is not subject to the physical laws which govern the 'coming to be' and 'passing away' of the material body; at the same time the 'true self is dissociated from what is subject to those laws. Hence it is possible to think of one's self as not subject to death in the sense in which the body is subject to death.

Socrates seems to have been content to hope, on the basis of these convictions, that his soul would in fact survive the death of his body, without pretending to have any certainty that this would be the case. This is the impression given by Plato's account in the Apology of his concluding remarks at his trial. 'Death', says Socrates, 'must be one of two things—either to have no consciousness at all of anything whatever, or else, as some say, to be a kind of change and migration of the soul from this world to another' (40c). And he adds that he would be ready 'to die many deaths' if the latter alternative was true (41a).

It is essentially the Socratic concept of soul which Plato attempts to justify in the Phaedo, on much more elaborate theoretical grounds than Socrates appears to have done. Plato himself soon abandoned the Phaedo's severely intellectual conception of the soul. For, once he had committed himself to the identification of the self with the substantial soul, Plato increasingly felt it necessary to widen his conception of soul beyond its intellectual activities. For there were non-intellectual activities which he found it impossible to dissociate from his notion of a person. Yet the Phaedo, while it allows us to see the difficulty of giving a satisfactory theoretical justification of Socrates' concept of soul, is at the same time the finest of tributes to its philosophical influence and importance.⁴⁶

One thing which the Phaedo emphasises, and which Socrates himself emphasises, is the practical moral importance of understanding the nature of the soul and its relation to the body. His ideal of 'caring for the soul' is a moral ideal. It is essentially the same ideal which we found to be implied by his religious views. But what Socrates says in moral contexts about the distinction between soul and body gives to this ideal a little further specification.

For one thing, it gives practical significance to Socrates' view of the self-sufficiency of the morally good man who 'cares for his soul'. Like Socrates himself, such a man will be content with small material means and will have iron self-control in respect of all bodily pleasures (Xen. Mem. I ii 4-5, 14, 19-23). For to become a slave to bodily pleasures is to 'corrupt' the soul (Mem. IV 3-5). With regard to food, drink, dress, or sexual pleasures, Socrates' view is that these are things of the body and that only a very small regard for them is compatible with the moral self-sufficiency which belongs to the soul (Mem. II i).

This is, of course, the attitude of the Phaedo. It is also the attitude of the Socrates of Plato's Apology. Do not care, he says there, for one's body or for money and fame and reputation, but for truth and wisdom and making one's soul as good as it can be (29d-30b). And Socrates himself practised what he preached. He took no money for his instruction, and lived in poverty (19de, 23b-c, 3lb-c).

This dualism of soul and body in Socrates' thought provides, then, a further context within which to appreciate his conception of the good life. It is from this viewpoint that many of the personal habits of Socrates caricatured by Aristophanes in the Clouds can best be appreciated. Negatively, the good life is a life of frugality and abstinence as far as material possessions and the indulgence of desires classed as bodily are concerned. Positively, it is a life devoted to making oneself 'as wise as possible'. For to 'care for one's soul' is to care for making oneself 'as wise as possible' (Xen. Mem. I ii 55). And self-control, the key moral notion of the Memorabilia, is equated by Socrates, in conformity with his thesis that virtue is knowledge, with 'wisdom' (sophia) (Mem. III ix 4).

E. Conclusion

Although we are now able to form a fairly definite picture of the Socratic good, a major problem still remains. Reason and intelligence (nous, phronesis), says Socrates, belong essentially and exclusively to the soul. So to 'care for one's soul' is to care above all else for the full exercise and development of one's reason and intelligence. And his own example of a life devoted to free and independent criticism and inquiry in ethics seems to be intended by Socrates to be an example of what he means by exercising one's reason and intelligence to the full. But is it a sufficient definition of the good, in Socrates' view? For it still seems legitimate to ask what we asked at the end of our examination of his political views, i.e. whether the life of unremitting and unfettered criticism and analysis, as practised by Socrates, sufficiently specifies the good life, or whether Socrates values such activity as a means of establishing what is the good.

In favour of the latter alternative it can be argued that Socrates' search for general definitions in ethics is presented by Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle as at once an example of independent criticism and analysis and a method of discovering what is the good. In favour of the former alternative much more can, I think, be said. When we looked at Socrates' political views as a guide to his moral ideals we saw that those views placed a special value on the life of free and independent criticism and inquiry. This moral estimate is entirely consistent with Socrates' speculative views in theology and psychology. For both his theology and his psychology are designed to justify the claim that supreme moral value belongs to the intellectual activities of the human soul.

Moreover, if we accept the account in Plato's Apology as the clearest and most direct statement of Socrates' moral convictions, we find him saying there that the post which God has assigned to him is that of 'living a life of philosophy, examining himself and others' (28e). 'The greatest of all human goods', he says later, 'is to discuss virtue and the other things you hear me arguing about in my examination of myself and others. An unexamined life is not worth living' (38a). And in his concluding remarks he expresses the hope, not only that his soul will survive the death of his body, but also that in the after-life his soul will continue its activity of critical examination. For he is convinced that even then the 'greatest thing of all' for the soul will be 'to go on examining and questioning the men of that world in the same way as the men of this, to see who is wise among them, and who thinks he is, but is not. To converse with men there and associate with them and examine them would be happiness unspeakable' (41b-c).

Thus the life dedicated to philosophy is, for Socrates, the good life. And by this he means a life dedicated to the critical analysis which he himself has practised for the best part of his life. Clearly, in the Apology, he thinks of this activity as constituting in itself the good, and not as a means to attaining goodness by establishing what the good is.

In the light of this, Socrates' thesis that virtue is knowledge gains an additional significance. In this thesis knowledge means knowledge of what is the good. And the thesis means, as we have seen, that this knowledge is both a necessary and a sufficient condition of being good and thus of doing what is good. We have now examined Socrates' own conception of what is the good, and we have concluded that it was Socrates' conviction that the good is sufficiently defined in terms of the philosophical activity of 'examining oneself and others' by the method of critical analysis which he himself practised. Moreover, his educational mission assumes that this specification of the good is one which is possible for others to realise for themselves to be true. Thus it is, for Socrates, an objective specification which is valid as a standard of goodness for all men.

The thesis that virtue is knowledge becomes, therefore, the thesis that knowing that the good is specifiable in the above terms is a necessary and sufficient condition of practising what is thus specified as good. For I can see no good reason for not assuming that Socrates' convictions as regards the specification of the good were considered by him to amount to knowledge of the good, and, further, that he saw his educational mission as one which aimed to realise this knowledge in others.

The thesis that all the virtues are one also takes on a new descriptive significance when it is considered in the light of Socrates' specification of the good. This specification expresses the deep moral convictions which are reflected, as we saw, in Socrates' views about the soul and in his political and religious views. Against the background of these views it is easy to appreciate that the Socratic moral ideal of wholehearted dedication to the life of philosophy embraces and unifies all the accepted Greek virtues. It is a pious life, for to practise philosophy is to care for that element in man which 'partakes of the divine'. It is a courageous life, for it is a life which in all circumstances confidently and unswervingly follows the path of goodness, even at the risk of death. It is a life of self-control, for the conviction of its goodness is always strong enough to ensure that the care of the soul takes precedence over the care of the body. And it is a just life. For it is a life which respects the right of the individual to pursue his good and shrinks from doing any wrong to others, even if others have done wrong to oneself.

It remains true, of course, that Socrates' definition of what is the good is not a formal conclusion reached by his method of analysis. It is the expression of a moral conviction which the practice of his method of analysis itself helped to create. Socrates himself did not, it is clear, analyse as fully as he might have done the grounds of his conviction that his definition of the good was certainly true. Since all his speculative thinking in ethics led him to what seemed a certain conclusion about the good, he was perhaps able to persuade himself not only that the life of philosophy was the good life but also that the practise of it served to substantiate the truth of that view.

Aristotle saw clearly enough the limitations of Socrates' analysis. He is ready to accept Socrates' moral paradoxes except for their complete denial that there are cases of weakness of will. But he realises the need to analyse more fully the notion of moral knowledge, and is severely critical of Socrates' intellectualism in so far as it seemed to him to assume that the use of the intellect was sufficient to establish what is the good and thereby to ensure that the good is done. His criticism is valuable for the proper understanding of Socratic ethics. For quite apart from its contribution to the problem of weakness of will, its analysis of the nature of moral knowledge reveals just those features of moral knowledge which belong to Socrates' own convictions as to what the good is but which Socrates himself seems not to have recognised.

In this chapter we have examined Socrates' conception of the good, and we have argued that Socrates' moral paradoxes gain a new significance from their association with his conception of what is the good. Socrates does not think of them merely as the results of an analysis of the Greeks' moral language, nor does he consider them to be true only in an analytic sense. He considers them to be true also as practical principles of moral behaviour. For he considers that any person who is brought to share his own conviction as to what is the good will invariably practise that good. That he is able to think of his moral paradoxes as practical truths in this way is a measure of the intensity of his conviction that the good life is the life of philosophy.

This Socratic moral ideal had a considerable influence on all subsequent Greek ethics, the more so because of Socrates' remarkable personal example in remaining faithful to it in practice, even though he had to die for it. Both Plato and Aristotle were inspired by Socrates to find in the life of philosophy their ideal of human goodness. Yet his influence on their thought was much more than an influence in shaping their particular moral ideals. He determined in large part the direction of their philosophical inquiries. And in his method they found a pattern for fruitful philosophical analysis.

Notes

¹ Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, ii I (5th ed., 1922), p. 152, suggests, on the basis of this evidence, that Socrates appears to hold that there is no absolute, but only a relative good, no standard for good and bad except advantage and disadvantage.

²Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 25, p. 36.

³ Ibid.

⁴The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. i (4th ed., 1962), p. 131.

⁵ Ibid. pp. 124-5.

⁶ Ibid. p. 126.

⁷ Ibid. p. 127. Popper's italics.

⁸ The distinction between 'what the state has' and 'the state itself is meant to distinguish material prosperity and military power from the moral well-being of the state. Compare Plato's remarks at Gorgias 519a, where he complains of fifth-century statesmen that 'they have filled the state with harbours and docks and walls and revenues and trash of that kind, to the neglect of moderation and justice'.

⁹ See Mem. III vi-vii; IV i-ii.

¹⁰ Plato Apol. 39c-d.

¹¹ Op. cit. p. 191.

¹² Popper, op. cit. p. 194. 'Plato, his most gifted disciple, was soon to prove the least faithful. He betrayed Socrates, just as his uncles had done.… Plato tried to implicate Socrates in his grandiose attempt to construct the theory of the arrested society; and he had no difficulty in succeeding, for Socrates was dead.'

¹³ Popper, op. cit. p. 301.

¹⁴ Cf. Plato Republic 387d-e.

¹⁵ Plato Crito 49a-e. There are places in Xenophon's Memorabilia where Socrates appears to approve of the traditional virtue of benefiting friends and harming enemies (II iii 14; II vi 35). But I do not think, in view of their contexts, that they can be pressed as expressions of Socrates' serious views. See Burnet's note on Crito 49b 1O (Plato's Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and Crito (Oxford, 1924), pp. 198-9).

¹⁶ Cf. Professor H. L. A. Hart's remarks ('Immorality and Treason', The Listener, 30 July 1959) in criticism of the view that the function of human law should be not merely to provide men with the opportunity for leading a good life, but to see that they actually do lead it.

¹⁷ Hackforth's translation (Plato's Phaedo (1955), pp. 124-6).

¹⁸ See DK.60 A 1-3, A 5, A 7.

¹⁹ I am thinking of the use, in the context of an argument for theism, of such words and phrases as sophoutinos dēmiourgou kai philozou technēmati (I iv 7), pronoia and pronoē tikos (I iv 6 and IV iii 7), ho ton holon kosmon syntattōn and noēmatos anamartētōs hypēretounta (IV iii 13). Compare with this sort of language the Latin of Cicero's account of Stoic theology at D.N.D. 11 113 ff., and the Greek of Diogenes' summary of Zeno's views (Diogenes Laertius VII, 147-8).

²⁰ K. Lincke, Neue Jahrbucher fur Klassische Altertum, xvii (1906), pp. 673-91.

²¹Phaedo 97c. For Anaxagoras' own statement on this see DK.59 B 12: 'And whatever things were going to be, and whatever things existed that are not now, and all things that now exist and whatever shall exist—Mind arranged them all, including the revolution now followed by the stars, the sun and moon, and the air and the aether which are being separated off.'

²² DK.59 A 47.

²³ DK.64 B 3.

²⁴ DK.64 B 5.

²⁵ Theophrastus, De sensu, 42.

²⁶ Cic. Tusc. Disp. 120, 46; noted by W. K. C. Guthrie in A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. ii (1962), p. 374, n. 2.

²⁷ W. Jaeger, in The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford, 1947), p. 246, n. 91, argued that the Philebus passage 'proved' that at Mem. I iv 8 Xenophon is 'making his Socrates pronounce doctrines of pre-Socratic origin', since 'in the Philebus Socrates expressly names some earlier philosophers of nature as his source for this argument to which he subscribes'. Socrates does not in fact name any one when he refers at 28d, e to 'earlier philosophers'. And all he ascribes to them is the general thesis that mind (nous) is ruler over everything. When he says at 30d that the argument from human to cosmic intelligence gives support to that general thesis he implies that 'earlier philosophers' who subscribed to the general thesis did not have this particular argument. No doubt he is thinking of Anaxagoras, and possibly also of Diogenes, as the philosophers who maintained that mind is ruler over everything.

²⁸ See DK.64 B 6.

²⁹ A possible implicit reference is at Phaedo 96b, where Socrates mentions the theory that it is air that we think with as a theory he encountered in his early inquiries in natural science. The context of the reference shows that it is not considered to be a theory with any teleological implications.

³⁰ See especially DK.59 A 41, with the remarks of G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1957), p. 375.

³¹ The most probable date for the Supplices is about 420 B.C. Possibly Euripides is adapting to his own purposes at 201-15 what he had heard from Socrates.

³² For the terminology see note 19 above. Cf. Jaeger's comments (op. cit. pp. 244-5, n. 76) on the use by Xenophon's Socrates at Mem. I iv 7 of the term di miourgos. Jaeger thinks that 'it is perfectly believable that this term had been used by previous philosophers who, like Diogenes, interpreted nature in this teleological way'.

³³ See especially D. J. Furley, The Early History of the Concept of Soul (University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, Bulletin no. 3 (1956), pp. 1-18), with references there to the most important recent literature on the subject.

³⁴ Ibid. p. 6.

³⁵ E.g., Pindar, Pythian 147; Nemean 9, 32: Aeschylus, Persae 840: Sophocles, O.C. 498; Phil. 1013; fr. 101: Euripides, Hippolytus 504, 526, 1006; Herodotus III 14, V 124; Thucydides 11 40 3.

³⁶ DK.22 B 45, 107, 117, 118.

³⁷ See also Euripides, Orestes 1180, and Antiphon, De Caede Herodis 93.

³⁸ DK.13 A 2.

³⁹ In most important respects it is, of course, the theory of the Greek atomists which marks the culmination of this tradition of thought, and their views on the soul are perhaps, for that reason, worth mentioning here. Democritus associated the soul with life and also with sensation. As Aristotle says (De An. 403b25-8), sensation is one of the two chief characteristics in which that which has soul is thought to differ from that which has not. Democritus' view was that the soul is concerned with what is perceptible, whereas the mind (nous) is concerned with 'truth'. A condition of correctness of thought was, however, that the mixture of atoms constituting the soul should be a 'harmonious' one (DK.68 A 113, A 135, sec. 58). Democritus follows the general practice of pre-Socratic scientists in not allotting to the soul itself intellectual activities. Even at the end of the fifth century the idea of allotting intellectual activity to the soul was an unconventional one.

⁴⁰ DK.58 D 1. The authorities for this are Aristoxenus and lamblichus.

⁴¹ DK.14, 6a.

⁴² Aristotle De An. 404a, 407b with Plato Phaedo 86bd.

⁴³ Aristotle De An. 408a.

⁴⁴ DK.31 B 115.

⁴⁵Proceedings of the Classical Association, vol. xxx (1933), p. 22.

⁴⁶ In my account of Socrates' conception of the soul, as well as of his religious views, I have leaned rather heavily on Xenophon's Memorabilia. It might be argued that Xenophon is taking the essential parts of his own account of these matters from Plato, and especially from the Phaedo, and that his testimony therefore has no independent worth. But we have seen that in his account of Socrates' religious views Xenophon goes well beyond what he could have got from the Phaedo. And his remarks about the soul and the notion of 'caring for the soul' are made in contexts which distinguish his account quite clearly from any account which is simply a literal borrowing from the Phaedo. Even in the very fragmentary remains of the Socratic dialogues of Aeschines of Sphettus we find some reflection of Socrates' notion of 'caring for oneself and of his religious views (Aeschinis Socratici Reliquiae, ed. Krauss: Alcibiades, fr. I, lines 49-64).