Plato 9.6 Plato’s Re-Creation of Socrates
It is an important historical and biographical fact that Plato started out writing his dialogues as part of a movement by the followers of Socrates to defend his memory in the wake of his execution by the Athenian state. Depicting Socrates in action was not for the Socratics a merely intellectual exercise; it was a matter of showing Athens and the Greek world that Socrates was not a subversive or a criminal, but a great thinker with a vital message. In that sense, Plato’s essays in defending Socrates were not an incidental feature of his writing. On the other hand, Plato was not merely an apologist. Many, indeed most, of his Socratic dialogues focus on Socrates’ methods and beliefs. Plato wants his readers to experience Socratic inquiries and confront the questions and concerns that Socrates posed to his interlocutors.
Plato probably set out in a cooperative endeavor to share Socrates with the Greek world. The Socratics wanted others to feel what it was like to pursue a knowledge of right and wrong with their mentor. Yet the depictions of Socrates inevitably varied from author to author. Who was Socrates, and what exactly was his method and his ultimate message? Did Socrates aim at developing a discipline of ethical behavior to be practiced, as Antisthenes suggested? Did he aim at promoting a correct understanding of ethical principles, as Plato suggested? Did he aim at moral improvement by inspired interventions in the life of his followers, as Aeschines suggested? Did he preach and exhort his followers to proper action, as Xenophon suggested? Not long after the cooperative enterprise began, cracks opened up in the façade of the Socratic movement and a competition of rival views emerged.
This might lead us to despair of reaching any understanding of Socrates and his philosophy. Yet the problem is not unique. A similar situation emerged in Britain with the death of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the brilliant but idiosyncratic Austrian philosopher who had taught at the University of Cambridge. Essentially an oral philosopher who gave up on publishing his theories, he became, like Socrates, a cult figure among intellectuals and inspired a generation of young philosophers. They oversaw the publication of his lectures and discussions, collected from class notes, and began to explain his work to the world. When they did, deep divisions emerged as to how to understand his methods and doctrines. Despite the conflicts, Wittgenstein’s thought had a major impact on philosophy in the mid-twentieth century.[27]
The parallel example shows how a thinker can have a major impact despite, or perhaps precisely because of, divergent interpretations of his or her work. But it does not remove the problem of identifying whose interpretation (if any) is most apt. With the case of Plato, however, we can identify two major advantages he had over his fellow Socratics. First, he was one of the greatest writers the world has known. At times his Socrates seems to rise off the page and live a life of his own. This could be a distraction. But it also suggests a level of observation and empathy that few writers (and especially few academic philosophers) ever achieve. We see in Plato’s Socrates a wide range of emotions and behaviors, from bumbling literary critic to passionate crusader. But somehow his Socrates seems to be authentic.
In second place, Plato was one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He is the first thinker to develop a comprehensive philosophy, going far beyond the ethical studies of his mentor. This may lead us to distrust him for the same reason: he is capable of distorting and reinventing Socrates to serve his own purposes. And his ability to portray Socrates credibly may allow him also to reinvent Socrates to adapt him to Plato’s own objectives — to hijack his legacy, as it were.
Yet at this point a third consideration comes into play: the historical Socrates is so radically different from everything we know about Plato that it is almost incredible that Plato was so devoted to him. Socrates was a man of the people who, while comfortable hobnobbing with the rich, cultured, and well-educated elite of Athens (including Plato and Xenophon), he was also content to spend his time conversing with the poor and uneducated, as well as children and youth.
Socrates seems to have hung out with rude mechanicals such as Simon the shoemaker (of Phaedo’s dialogue) as well as with Callias and Plato and Alcibiades the aristocrats. In the Euthydemus we see Socrates fawning over two second-rate sophists in such a way that observers are embarrassed for him.[28] Socrates was interested in the views of people Plato would never deign to speak to, and at least feigns to be thrilled to listen to sophists and other self-appointed experts such as Euthyphro. What is striking is that Socrates’ democratic attitudes did not disqualify him from being a wise man in Plato’s eyes. He was endlessly fascinated by Socrates, and, if he did not endorse all of his attitudes and predilections — and cringed at his populism — Plato nonetheless idolized him as a thinker and a man of integrity.
And that is what makes Plato the perfect author to recreate Socrates. In many ways Plato’s mentor was his diametric opposite. Socrates lacked polish, culture, elegant manners, savoir faire. In appearance he is short, squat, and ugly, his dress shabby at best. In behavior he was affable and gregarious, but in a crude way. He could cut to the heart of an inquiry, or lose himself in his own thoughts. Intellectually he lacked the refinements of a liberal education and he claims to have no special knowledge. Yet somehow when he walked into a room, he emerged as the smartest man present, even if he feigned otherwise, and one perfectly capable of reducing the pretended experts to a state of speechless quandary. Moreover, he was capable of turning conversations around to really important matters and of inspiring his listeners to emulation of his own sterling moral character.
What Socrates offers to Plato, and to the world, is the stunning insight that nothing is more important the moral character. Nothing. Not prestige, power, wealth, social status, good looks, not even encyclopedic knowledge. The one thing that seems to separate Socrates from other men is his conviction that virtue is knowledge, that only virtue matters in the end, and that we should occupy our lives in attaining moral virtue. What we see in Plato’s Apology of Socrates is an individual who, on the rare occasions when he takes off his comic mask, shows us that he is completely committed to the work of promoting and practicing virtue. He has an endorsement from the Oracle at Delphi and a mission to share his message with the world.
What we see in the Crito is an individual who, in the face of a death sentence from his beloved city, will not escape from prison, will not defy the government that has wronged him, but will take his allotted punishment — as a matter of moral principle. Whatever paradoxes Socrates’ moral philosophy discovers, Socrates has a moral code that suffices to tell him what to do in any situation. And he has the integrity to live by that code even when he is faced with his own execution. Somehow his apparent ambivalence about definitions of virtue does not confer upon him uncertainty about his own moral obligations.
What we find in Plato’s dialogues, particularly his Socratic dialogues that stay within the limits of Socrates’ method and practice are three features: 1) Socrates is a tireless pursuer of definitions of moral virtue. He enlists friends, acquaintances, and even strangers in his inquiries, claiming that only in association with them can he arrive at the truth he is seeking. 2) He is a devoted crusader for the relevance and indeed supremacy of moral excellence. It is the acquisition of this and this alone that makes life worth living, and that confers value on the intellectual pursuit of moral knowledge. 3) Socrates practices what he preaches. He recognizes moral principles that should guide human action, he appeals to them in making his own decisions, and follows them rigorously, recognizing no valid impediment to moral action, not even the risk of his own freedom and death.
[27].See Graham 1992.
[28].Plato Euthydemus 305a.
