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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
The collision between the philosopher and his fellow citizens is the central dramatic event that ties together all three of our primary sources on Socrates. According to the literary, or Straussian, approach to the Socratic problem this collision was paradigmatic of a permanent tension between political life—which is founded on cherished opinions, and philosophy—which tries to replace opinions with knowledge. Socrates dies because he arouses pious indignation. This article concurs in part and dissents in part. Political life is represented not by one but two speeches—the Just and the Unjust. And while the tension between philosophy and the piety that sustains cities and families is quite real, it is not this tension that kills Socrates. He offends not the piety of the Athenians, but their sophism.
1 Cropsey, Joseph, Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. ix.Google Scholar
2 By the “conventional approach,” I have in mind Vlastos, Gregory, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Smith, Nicholas B.Socrates on Trial (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Benson, Hugh ed., Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
3 Strauss, Leo, The City and Man (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; and “The Problem of Socrates,” in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed., Pangle, Thomas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989)Google Scholar. See also Pangle's, Thomas introduction to Leo Strauss, Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983)Google Scholar and “Socrates in the Context of Xenophon's Political Writings,” in The Socratic Movement, ed. Waerdt, Paul A Vander (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994)Google Scholar. See also West, Thomas G., Plato's Apology of Socrates (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979)Google Scholar, and his introduction to Four Texts on Socrates, ed. and trans., West, Thomas G. and West, Grace Starry (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984)Google Scholar. All quotations from Plato's Apology are from the West translation.
The literary approach and its insights belong primarily to those schools of thought that have branched out from the writings of Leo Strauss. But there are exceptions. The basic view of Socratic thought as subversive was also noticed by Barker, Ernest, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle (New York: Dover, 1959), p. 53Google Scholar: “The intense solidarity of a city-state could not admit religious nonconformity; and he had to die. While in his religious opinions he had undermined the solidarity of the city-state, in his ethical tendencies he was ultimately the enemy of its stability, however loyal he may have been in practice and even in his immediate preaching⃛. To defend the State's law and institutions on the ground of their utility to the individual is ultimately to lay them open to being rejected or at any rate reformed on the ground of inutility.” And at least one scholar working within the analytic tradition has attempted a literary reading of the dialogues. Rejecting both the view that the early dialogues were the work of Plato the historian, and the view that in the later dialogues Socrates was merely the mouthpiece of Plato, he argues that the “dialogues are works of dramatic art, and in most cases of dramatic fiction. As works of art they produce the effect of literary ‘distancing’ between author and audience which prevents us, even in works as late as the Parmenides and Theaetetus, from simply reading off the author's thoughts in any straightforward way from what is said by some character in the dialogues” (Khan, Charles H., “Did Plato Write Socratic Dialogues?”, in Benson, , Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates, p. 35Google Scholar). Curiously, Kahn does not cite a passage which is well known, and which says much the same thing that he is saying above. “In none of the dialogues does Plato ever say anything. Hence we cannot know from them what Plato thought. If someone quotes a passage from the dialogues in order to prove that Plato held such and such a view, he acts about as reasonably as if he were to assert that according to Shakespeare life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (Strauss, The City and Man). The reason for Kahn's lapse of academic etiquette is that, for the most part, scholars trained within the analytic tradition are simply not on speaking terms with Strauss and his students. This is most unfortunate, for both traditions are clearly capable of attracting students to the classics and for this reason alone ought to value one another's company.
4 Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, [1953] 1971), p. 86Google Scholar, and What Is Political Philosophy? (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1959), p. 80.Google Scholar
5 Strauss, Leo, Socrates and Aristophanes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 1–53, 311–14Google Scholar; Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, pp. 103–133; and Neumann, Harry, “Civic Piety and Socratic Atheism: An Interpretation of Strauss' Socrates and Aristophanes,” in The Independent Journal of Philosophy 2 (1978):33–37Google Scholar. It is of course necessary to make a judgment concerning the authenticity of the Aristophanic Socrates before deciding what light the Clouds sheds on Socrates' fate. See Dover, Kenneth, “Socrates in the Clouds,” in The Philosophy of Socrates, ed. Vlastos, Gregory, (New York: Doubleday, 1971), pp. 64–73Google Scholar. Dover outlines three possibilities. First, the Socrates of Aristophanes may be a complete misrepresentation, the true Socrates being very close to the person described by Plato and Xenophon. This is Dover's view. Second, the Clouds may be an accurate description of a young Socrates; the dialogues of Plato, an equally accurate description of the mature Socrates. This is the position taken by Waerdt, Paul A. Vander in “Socrates in the Clouds,” in The Socratic Movement, p. 48–86Google Scholar. Finally, it may be Aristophanes who is telling the truth and Plato and Xenophon who are, more or less intentionally, concealing it. This, if I understand it, is the Straussian position described by Pangle, Thomas in his introduction to Strauss's Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, pp. 13–18Google Scholar. I suspect that Vander Waerdt is closest to the mark, because this argument can be supported by certain remarks in the phaedo, as well as by al-Razi's “Book of the Philosophic life.” But I agree with Pangle as well, atleast to this extent, that the essential characteristics of the Aristophanic Socrates can be understood as comic exaggerations of Socratic traits that are fully attested to by Plato and Xenophon. It is not hard to see, for example, how Socrates' iron-man self-discipline is twisted by the poet into the misery and squalor of the Thinkery.
6 West, , Four Texts on Socrates, pp. 12–16.Google Scholar
7 We also note a considerable degree of formal support from Plato. He writes one dialogue, the Theages, in which a father sends his son to study with Socrates and another, the Euthyphro, in which Socrates undermines the confidence of a young man who is prosecuting his own father for murder. Both of these dialogues seemed designed, in part, to mitigate Aristophanes' criticism, and for this reason they acknowledge its force.
8 Nehamas, Alexander, “What did Socrates Teach and to Whom did he Teach it?” Review of Metaphysics 46 (12): 281–82.Google Scholar
9 Bloom, Allan, “Interpretive Essay,” in Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans., Bloom, Allan (New York: Basic Books, 1968), p. 312Google Scholar; and Strauss, , What Is Political Philosophy?, pp. 29–32.Google Scholar
10 For a contrasting view of Cephalus, see Dobbs, Darrell, “The Piety of Thought in Plato's Republic, Book I.,” American Political Science Review 88 (09): 660–73Google Scholar. Dobbs views Cephalus as a representative of false piety, a view I do not share; however, his overall argument is compatible with the one that I am making in this article. Dobbs accepts the argument that the departure of Cephalus is necessary for the genuine discussion of the Republic to begin; however, he also wants to argue that genuine piety is fundamentally akin to philosophy for it “culminates in a perception of the dearness of the unknown good.” He therefore feels compelled to prove that the piety of Cephalus—which is much more visible than that of his son—is false piety. I believe that this is unnecessary. Cephalus age alone may be relevant to his decision not to continue with philosophy, just as Socrates' age was relevant to his apparently reckless strategy in court. Cephalus has neither the need nor the stamina to remain with the group. His son has both. The passing of the torch between father and son does not illustrate a difference between false and genuine piety; rather it clarifies the circumstances under which genuine piety is open to persuasion by philosophy.
11 Blanchard, Kenneth C. Jr, “The Middle Road of Classical Political Philosophy: Socrates' Dialogues with Aristippus in Xenophon's Memorabilia,” The Review of Politics 56 (1994): 686–689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Gregory Vlastos says that Socrates' belief in the supernatural is so firmly attested to in Plato and Xenophon that “to cut it out of them would be surgery which kills the patient” (Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991], p. 158Google Scholar). This seems to me an uncharacteristic exercise of caution on the part of someone whose book was dedicated to surgically removing one half of Plato's Socrates: the half that believed in forms. It also ignores Socrates' own explanation for his attitude toward myth. In the Phaedrus, 229c–230a, Socrates demythologizes a sacred story while speaking in the name of “men of science,” and confesses that he finds such natural explanations attractive. He does not indulge in them more often, he says, because he has no time for such a business. For this reason, he accepts the current beliefs about such things. This attitude is by no means hostile to religion, but neither is it the “deeply religious” attitude that Vlastos attributes to Socrates. But of course, the Phaedrus is from Plato's “middle period” and for that reason may have ended up on the floor of Vlastos's surgery.
13 The translation is that of Nichols, James H. Jr, from The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Pangle, Thomas L. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 241–68.Google Scholar
14 Tessitore, Aristide, “Courage and Comedy in Plato's Laches,” Journal of Politics 56 (1994): 115–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Tessitore notes the confrontation between Socrates and two prominent generals in the Laches and remarks that “surprisingly, this confrontation does not result in the kind of animosity that Socrates more typically encountered.” Tessitore attributes this Plato's “uncommonly delicate way of dealing with a political issue that is problematic to its core.” This is a fair reading of the dialogue. It is worth considering, however, that Socrates may get along better with generals than with sophists for the simple reason that the former are accustomed to attacking with Socrates, and the latter being attacked by Socrates.
15 Quotations from the Greater Hippias are from the translation by Sweet, David R. in The Roots of Political Philosophy, pp. 307–339.Google Scholar
16 Quotations from the the Lesser Hippias are from the translation by Leake, James, in The Roots of Political Philosophy, pp. 281–99.Google Scholar
17 See also the Theages 126a. The young man, who is angry because his father has delayed in engaging a sophist for his instruction, says to Socrates “For my part I would pray, I suppose, to become tyrant—preferably over all human beings and, if not, over as many as possible, and so would you, I suppose, and all other human beings.”
18 Zeyl, Donald J. points out the unmistakable references here to “the circumstances of Socrates' death” in this very useful translation: Plato, The Gorgias, trans., Zeyl, Donald J. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), p. 57.Google Scholar
19 This translation is based on the Loeb edition, Plato, Vol. II, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977).Google Scholar
20 Dodds, E. R., Plato Gorgias: A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), p. 13Google Scholar. All the translation from the Greeke are based on this text.