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Socrates and the Socratic Method: In Socratic Greece, there was a void that needed filling and that void was filled by Socrates and his contemporaries, they had numerous discussions on such topics as the nature of the soul, a philosopher’s goal in life, and what does it mean to know and how can you be sure that you truly know it? With each of these open discussions Socrates and his followers would ask a questions who’s answers had plagued them for some time, they would look for the “eidos” or ultimate form of whatever the topic at hand, through these discussions they came to a mutual agreements of what wisdom, among other things are.
For Socrates and his followers in earlier dialogues like Euthyphro and The Apology, we see the beginning of where the ideas of how wisdom is obtained start to take form. In these earlier dialogues (Euthyphro and the Apology), wisdom is obtained by searching for the “eidos” or form of an abstract thought. If you can find a ‘model’ that will fit for all cases of a particular subject then you can determine what or how the Gods feel about the particular subject and can act accordingly. For example, in the Euthyphro, Socrates asks Euthyphro “what is piety?” To which Euthyphro replies that him persecuting his father for leaving a slave who is accused of murder tied up in a field to die to be pious. To which Socrates replies that he did not ask for an example of piety but for what piety truly is. Euthyphro tells Socrates that what makes the Gods happy is pious and that what makes the Gods unhappy is impious. The dialogue continuous for quite some time with Socrates rigorously asking questions in hope of finding an ultimate form that will apply to all cases of piety and Euthyphro giving answers that do not meet the criteria. Bear in mind then that I did not bid you tell me one or two of many pious actions but the form itself that makes all pious actions pious, for you agreed that all impious actions are impious and all pious actions pious through one form, or don’t you remember? Tell me then what this form itself is, so that I may look upon it and, using it as a model, say that nay action of yours or another’s that is of that kind is pious, and if it is not that it is not. (Euthyphro 6E) Unfortunately those who cannot accept that they might know the answer to every question, they will never know anything because their heads are already filled with convoluted preconceived notions of how things are.
For Socrates and his contemporaries in the later dialogues wisdom is obtained through the recollection of the knowledge you gained from your previous lives, which is lost upon being reincarnated. (Phaedo 70C) Socrates believed that every man had this knowledge inside him and that that it could be brought out through rigorous question and answer sessions because the body would be overwhelmed and would give way to the mind’s purity and reason and thus the man would produce a true answer. A means for recollecting this knowledge is by going through a process of rejecting the body and all of it’s attachments and trying to grasp objects using only your “psyche” or mind. “Then what about the actual acquiring of knowledge? Is the body an obstacle when one associates with it in the search for knowledge? When then, he (Socrates) asked does the soul grasp truth? For whenever it attempts to examine anything with the body, it is clearly deceived by it.” (Phaedo 65A-B) For Socrates and his followers you must try to grasp things without using your senses because your senses are deceitful because there are an attachment of your body. They also believed that you cannot trust your own perception because your perception is attuned to your body and will only function in the manner in which it will best serve the body, which only functions in a selfish manner. “Then he will do this most perfectly who approaches the object with thought alone, without associating any sight with his thought, or dragging in any sense perception with his reasoning, but who using pure thought alone, tries to track down each reality pure and by itself, freeing himself as far as possible from eyes and ears and, in a word, from the whole body, because the whole body confuses the soul and does not allow it to acquire truth and wisdom whenever it is associated with it.” (Phaedo 66A)
In order to understand what wisdom is you must first understand that you know nothing because it upon realizing that that you will begin to see that you are wiser than many people because they believe they know that which they do not know, and can then look for the signs from the Gods to what wisdom is. Socrates believed that the unexamined life is not worth living for this very thought because if you examine your life you will see that you do not know anything and that you cannot know anything you can only be sure or have a “strong reason to believe” in something. Once you start using this pattern of thinking you will see that the possibilities for the advancement of wisdom are endless.
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Socrates About to Drink the Poison Hemlock |
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The Ancient Greek, In Particular Plato's View of Women:
The ancient Greek view in particular Plato’s view towards women is that women are inferior and are incapable of rational thought. For Plato it would dishonorable for a man to act like a woman in so being so as it pertains to letting his emotions, which are known to be feminine, to get the better of him. “What is this strange outcry? He (Socrates) said. I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not misbehave in this fashion, for I have been told that a man should die in peace.” (Phaedo 117D-E) For Plato anything that is feminine is bad, and should be treated as such because it is a waste of time, women have been placed on the planet by the Gods to serve men. And a man should revel in his maleness instead of acting in disgrace like a woman who is being foolishly controlled by her selfish body.
The traditional Greek views highly influenced Plato’s and ultimately, most later thinking that follows all the way up to modern thinking in America, to come to the conclusion that women are not capable of practicing rational thought i.e. philosophy, and should be viewed as a man’s property because they aren’t good for anything else and should do as they are told. “And can you mention any pursuit of mankind in which the male sex has not all these gifts and qualities in a higher degree that the female? Need I waste time in speaking of the art of weaving, and the preparation of pancakes and preserves I which womankind is generally thought to have some skill, and in which for here to be beaten by a man is of all things the most absurd?” (Republic V 45 5B-C)
Because anything that is feminine is viewed as inferior Plato strickened emotions and ultimately all perception from being used in his method for obtaining wisdom, which is the rejection of the body and trying to grasp knowledge using only the mind so that one might ultimately see something purely for the first time, which cannot be done using the body because it lives in sin and is only capable of acting in a way that best benefits it, whereas the mind is free and will look for the purest forms so as to further it’s own wisdom by ascertaining more true knowledge.
For Plato, emotions are irrational and women who seem to be more emotional than men must therefore be inferior to men as well. Emotions can drive people to do very drastic and most times very irrational things for example in Sophocles’ tragedies Oedipus Rex and Antigone, the main characters each suffer great down falls after they let their emotions get the better of them, in particular hubris. These tragedies along with his own observations of how women act probably helped lead Plato to his conclusions that women are not capable of rational thought and that any thoughts that they carry on must also be completely irrational. That is why he deemed emotions irrational because they cause people to act foolishly.
For Plato, since women are incapable of rational thought and it is not possible for them to think using only their minds, they will only think using their bodies and the senses allotted to them which will lead them to selfish, sinful, and irrational conclusions. Men who are capable of rational thought, will think using their minds instead of their bodies and will find the ultimate form or “eidos” whereas the women will just carry on worrying about silly bodily thoughts.
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Eidos, What is it? Eidos is an ancient Greek term used to describe the ultimate look or shape of an abstract thought which in turn provides a standard meaning for that thought which can be applied to all examples of the subject at hand. Socrates and his followers spent all their time trying to come up with a universal model that could be used in discussing paradoxes, which they believed could be obtained through rigorous question and answer sessions for the purpose of clarification. It is through the clarification of any given topic such as what is human? That leads to an ultimate area of agreement of what constitutes a human and in turn gives you the eidos, a human is a living, finite creature that is almost entirely made up of water, and is capable of rational thought; this is the eidos of a human.
Once you have the eidos you can easily describe an object or thought to anyone in such a way that they can understand, this makes it very easy to further a discussion because everyone can start from the same place and better their odds of ending up in the same place too. Upon being able to grasp what eidos is you can totally reevaluate your life because you instantly have standards to compare how you live your life to. It was with the birth of the idea of eidos that morality first stepped out of the shadows and gave us laws and regulations to live by. Once you have the regulations provided to you by following the pattern of thinking that eidos
requires you will live your life in a moral manner which is what all philosophers especially those in ancient Greece would want to do. Even though the term morality did not exist in Ancient Greece the idea did, it existed in the form of living in accordance with the Gods and their divine laws. One should always want to be moral for one can rest assured that if you are living morally you are more than likely making the right decisions when a situation that requires action presents itself.
One would want to be able to comprehend what eidos is because you should always strive to be the best that you can be and to live the best life possible. For Plato, looking to the forms for answers is the only option because the forms are unitary, pure, and unchanging. The forms ascribe standards for living a life in accordance with the Gods. Eidos enables it’s user to further his search for knowledge, which at the time is believed to be a recollection of passed lives. For Plato and his followers, in using eidos you are able to describe something using the psyche, which is free unlike the body which is tied to the material world and because of this only sees things in a way that best benefits it instead of in a way that best serves philosophy. “Then what about the actual acquiring of knowledge? Is the body an obstacle when one associates with it in the search for knowledge? When then, he (Socrates) asked does the soul grasp truth? For whenever it attempts to examine anything with the body, it is clearly deceived by it.” (Phaedo 65A-B) It is only through using the mind that one will truly be able to grasp the forms. For Plato, since one would want to live the best life possible they would also want to awaken others so that they too might experience the purity that the forms provide. It is the job of those who have been awakened to awaken the others, this where Plato comes up with his idea of how the world should be ruled by philosopher-kings because they will rule the world with a hesitant hand because they will be cautious and will not let their judgment be clouded by their selfish bodies, instead they will rule using their freed minds which will apply an eidos to all circumstances. (Luce Trigaray 520A-E)
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