Socrates; The man sentenced to death for his way of thinking

Albeit, it was ancient Greece, so…

The Socratic way of thinking is considered one of the fundamental foundations for western thought. Now, if you don’t know what that means, then you’re in for a ride.

This is Socrates, or a really good actors, really good rendition of him

I mentioned Western thought, but what exactly is it? Well, let’s put that on hold for a second so I can deconstruct what it really is; Philosophy.

Since I used the word deconstruct(Derrida, haha, I am so funny), let’s also deconstruct that to make it a little easier to understand. And, by that, I mean the monster of a profession named Philosophy.

Philosophers were pretty stern looking guys, huh? That, or the artist was intimidated by them.

Philosophy was born from the innate desire to understand something. What? it was the idea of moving away from superstition, to explanation. In any culture around the world, to any remote region, there will always be a need to understand. This… sounds pretty similar to science does it not?

Why is it that we think this way? Why is it that the world works the way it does?

These were the questions even the greatest philosophers had trouble answering, or even merely comprehending. When you really take a minute to think about these things, try to deconstruct them, it starts to hurt your head.

So, I’m going to ask you to close your eyes for a moment, and think really hard. Try to answer these two questions. Use this nifty little timer to help you out for a moment. If… you opened your eyes.

Congratulations! You didn’t answer it, and if you think you did, sorry, you didn’t.

The reason I say something like this is because it is alright to admit this is hard stuff to understand. Unlike the conception of many, philosophy is deeply intertwined with pure math and science, as philosophy was the original science. It’s not something you can figure out in ten seconds.

Moving on, we have established philosophy as science, except a lot of philosophy has been broken down into many different fields. We have chemistry, all the way to cognitive neuroscience. Philosophy was science except without the fancy machines and mechanisms. It was science all in the head of some really famous people, and mind you, one of them was…

Socrates

His bust was also quite intimidating.

Socrates is heralded as the man who started it all. The man who really began to question our way of living, which caved away and left tons of insight for future generations. Many still struggle to decipher what he meant because he never wrote it down.

Wait… what?

It is exactly as it seems. Socrates never found pleasures in writing down his works, though that is a very bold claim to make on my part. Almost everything we know about Socrates comes from accounts of his students, like Plato.

The teacher of Plato? Socrates, for a lack of a better term, was LEGIT.

Enough about his life story, lets move onto Western thought, and Socratic thinking.

Western thought prevails to the west, and we have many common saying that stem from the philosophy of some very old men.

Separate the state and religion.

I am sure you’ve heard that before. It is a matter of fact in many democratic countries, but it is was never the case in the past. And even more shocking, some states still hold this superstitious way of thinking up.

Socrates hoped to establish a state where thought and meritocracy led the nation, rather than hearts gripped tight by superstition. He went so far as suggesting that mind and body were completely separate. He claimed that the state of the body was irrelevant to the state of the mind, and he completely disregarded the notion that the body was any important.

This, despite sounding quite obvious, was completely novel to the ancient Greeks. Socrates’s belief in this concept seemed to grip him tightly, as during the three campaigns he had gone on, he did not fear death. Even when ordered to drink poison for his crime of thought, he did not waver.

Western thought. Separate state and religion, your body has no control over your mind. Sound familiar yet?

The promotion of critical, speculative and creative yet curious thinking flourished in the hearts of many of Socrates’s students. He was regarded as a man of deep thought, even if he may not adhere to the standard image of beauty in an Athenian man(thought, that was big, bad, buff, and bad breath… so Socrates was ahead of his time).

In Athens, he attempted to establish a new way of thinking. He beleived that choice was moved by a desire for happiness. Is it not true?

Think about it in these terms. Do you not choose your career(most times) on what will make you happy? Do you not buy that ice cream because it will make you happy? Do you not work hard for a future of happiness?

If you actually think about it, that is not practical at all. Why not just make yourself happy? While it does take some training to do, it is super possible. Philosophy, for Socrates, was a practical way to benefit society. If you teach someone to fish, rather then give them a meal, you will benefit them more. The same concept applies here.

You need to know yourself in order to make correct decisions. The greatest emperors, like Marcus Aurelias, knew themselves inside out. You see, monarchy always fails because you don’t always choose the best or the most capable leaders. you just hand it to your snot-nosed son who when proceeds to screw everything up.

Yikes.

What’s also super interesting is that Socrates always asked questions as if he had no knowledge to contribute. He claimed that he was ignorant and devoid of the truth, even when he may have been the closest to it.

He compelled his audiences to think through questions to the nth degree, though for some it proved to be insightful, for others it seemed he mocked them. To put it simply, the Socratic method is the method of logical reasoning. So to say, how do you get to the truth of the question and then answer it.

When Athens began to fall to Sparta, things took a turn for the worst with Socrates.

Recall: Mind and body are separate.

With their wounded pride, many Greeks began to questions their worth and place. They clung to factitious images of their previous spoils, glory and beauty. They looked to their gods, and saw some of that impossible-to-attain beauty in themselves.

So, you can guess they weren’t too pleased when Socrates attacked that belief and stomped it into dust before their very eyes. Not to mention he was very straight forward, and kind of blunt, which made it worse. In such an inhabitable political climate… in ancient Greece, you can tell it didn’t end too well for our boy Socrates.

Many admired him, many despised him. So it came to no surprise when he was sentenced to death for offending a higher up. More accurately, he was accused of corrupting the youth and he chose to go to trial, and he lost. It was majorly because he came off as haughty, not defending himself as wrongly accused but as the fact that he was educating and helping Athens. He even suggest he get a paycheck for his amazing services.

That… didn’t fly over well with any of the jury.

Whilst what he did may have been arrogant, his death sentence was a reflection of the way they clung to their foolish way of thinking. They perceived such a great man to be a threat to their nation, when he could barely do anything but speak his mind. That makes his story really tragic to everyone but himself. He was convinced that it didn’t matter that he died, he only cared for his thought.

Even on his death bed, he claimed to be separating his soul from his body at last.

Key takeaways

What can we learn from him?

1. Mind and body are separate, as are state and religion
2. Always dig down to the essence of the question, and then attempt to answer it
3. A true leader needs a deep understanding of themselves
4. Theocratic thinking should never precede logic when making desicions.

What should we not learn from Socrates?

1. Don’t drink poison and just die.

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