Born 470/469 B.C., in Athens; died there 399 B.C. Ancient Greek philosopher. Son of a sculptor.
Socrates taught in the streets and public squares, combating the ideas of the Sophists and educating youth. He died by drinking hemlock after having been condemned to death for, in the words of the official sentence, introducing new divine powers and corrupting the youth in the new spirit. Socrates left no writings, and the main sources of information about his life and teachings are the writings of his students Xenophon and Plato; he is the main character in most of Plato’s dialogues.
Socrates was one of the founders of philosophic dialectics, in which truth is sought through conversation—the posing of certain questions and the systematic search for answers. K. Marx called Socrates the “embodiment of philosophy” and “philosophy personified” (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 99, and Iz rannikh proizv., 1956, p. 199). Not satisfied with ancient natural philosophy, Socrates turned to the analysis of human consciousness and thought. According to Aristotle, Socrates tended to objective idealism, but he was still far from hypostatiz-ing general concepts as independent essences.
Aristotle attributed to Socrates an inductive theory that posits a transition from unstable reality to general concepts and a theory of the definition of concepts that made it possible for the first time to inquire into the essence of any given object; this can be compared with the characterization of Socrates in the early Platonic dialogues. The acknowledgment of the effect of generic essences on surrounding reality was transformed by Socrates into a theory of general and universal reason or a theory of various divinities of reason. In spite of Xenophon’s assertions, Socrates’ teachings had little in common with popular religion, even though Socrates did not reject the latter. Socrates’ teachings on providence marked a decisive break with naive polytheism and took the form of philosophic teleology.
Socrates’ main ethical thesis stated that virtue is knowledge (wisdom) and that the individual who knows what good is necessarily acts virtuously; those acting in an evil fashion either have no knowledge of virtue or perform evil acts to bring about the final triumph of virtue. According to Socrates, there can be no contradiction between reason and wisdom.
Socrates was the target of unfounded accusations that he was inimical to democracy. In reality, he criticized all forms of government, including monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, plutocracy, and democracy, if these forms of government violated justice. Socrates was considered in later times to be an ideal personification of wisdom.
A. F. LOSEV