Socrates, Xenophon, And Plato.pdf

SOCRATES, XENOPHON, AND PLATO

Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

SOCRATES, XENOPHON, AND PLATO

Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato

Empedocles

Socrates

Xenophon's Socrates

Defense of Socrates

Memoirs of Socrates

Symposium

Oikonomikos

Xenophon

Cyropaedia

Hiero

Ways and Means

Plato's Socrates

Alcibiades

Charmides

Protagoras

Laches

Lysis

Menexenus

Hippias

Euthydemus

Meno

Gorgias

Phaedrus

Symposium

Euthyphro

Defense of Socrates

Crito

Phaedo

Plato's Republic

Plato's Later Work

Seventh Letter

Timaeus

Critias

Theaetetus

Sophist

Politician

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

SOCRATES, XENOPHON, AND PLATO

Philebus

Laws

In the fifth century BC the Pythagorean school continued, and Parmenides in Elea contributed to

metaphysics. Zeno also of Elea let his mind trap himself into thinking one could never get

somewhere, because by going half-way there each time one would get closer but never arrive. Of

course if one continually goes halfway, one will never get there; to get there one must go all the

way. However, Antisthenes credited Zeno with courageously challenging a tyrant by informing

on the tyrant's friends. When interrogated by the tyrant, the only one he would implicate was the

cursed tyrant himself. Zeno accused the bystanders of cowardice for not enduring what he was

suffering. Finally he bit off his tongue and spit it at the tyrant before he was beaten to death in a

mortar. This affected the citizens so strongly that they later stoned the tyrant to death. Melissus

of Samos as a general defeated Athenians led by Pericles in a naval battle in 441 BC; but his

transcendental logic brilliantly pointed out that the infinite must be one, because if it were two,

the two would limit each other and not be infinite.

Empedocles of Acragas wrote two poems, On Nature and Purifications , about the middle of the

fifth century BC. He saw the universe as shifting between Love and Strife and composed of the

elements of fire, air, water, and earth. With Love comes concord and joy; Aristotle interpreted

Love as the cause of good and Strife as the cause of bad. Aristotle also said that he had been a

champion of freedom and was averse to all rules. Others said that Empedocles declined the

kingship offered to him, because he preferred to live frugally. When a tyrant insisted that all the

guests drink wine or have it poured over their heads, Empedocles the next day accused the host

and master of revels which led to their condemnation and execution. This began his political

career, and it was argued that he must have been both wealthy and democratic, because he broke

up the assembly of a thousand three years after it was set up. Late in his life the descendants of

his enemies opposed his return to Agrigentum; so he went to the Peloponnesus, where he died.

As Pindar, in one of his many poems praising athletes, his second Olympian ode, saw a return to

a heavenly kingdom so too did Empedocles describe the soul that realizes its divinity.

Empedocles gained renown for reviving a woman who had been unconscious for thirty days.

Empedocles asked humanity, "Won't you stop ill-sounding bloodshed? Don't you see that you are

destroying each other in careless folly?"1 He saw foolish fathers sacrificing their sons and

children their parents. He wished he had died before he began eating flesh. Poetically he

described how by an oracle of Necessity, anciently decreed by the eternal gods, a demi-god with

long life, who has defiled his hands with bloodshed and strife or a false oath, must wander for

thousands of seasons far from the blessed, being born through time in many mortal forms in one

deadly life after another, pushed on by all the elements. Such a fugitive from the gods who had

trusted strife did Empedocles claim himself to be. After many different lives such souls

eventually come to earth as prophets, poets, healers, and princes to share with other immortals.

Empedocles wrote that after much wandering he now went among the people as an immortal god

honored and revered for his wisdom and healing powers.

Leucippus founded the atom theory of natural philosophy refined by Democritus, who also

taught that the cheerful person eager for justice and right actions is strong and free of care, while

those who do not care about justice and right find everything joyless and in memory are afraid

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

SOCRATES, XENOPHON, AND PLATO

and reproach themselves. Happiness, said Democritus, is not found in gold or cattle but in the

soul. For Democritus the goal of action is tranquillity, which is not the same as pleasure but a

state of well-being in which the soul is calm, strong and undisturbed by fear, superstition, and

other feelings.

Protagoras, the greatest of the sophists, studied with Democritus and lived 481-411 BC. He is

famous for the statement, "The person is the measure of all things."2 He was the first to charge a

fee for his lessons and the first to define the tenses and moods of verbs. He instituted debates and

taught the art of arguing, including verbal quibbling. In one of his books he stated that he did not

know whether the gods existed or not; for this he was expelled from Athens, and his books were

burned in the marketplace.

Socrates

Socrates was born 469 BC in Athens and was the son of a stone-mason and a midwife. It was

said that he did stone-work on the draped figures of the Graces on the Acropolis that was

commissioned by Pericles. One account says that Crito took him out of a workshop to educate

him because of the beauty of his soul. Socrates admired the theory of Anaxagoras that the mind

is infinite, self-ruled, and unmixed with anything but itself, controlling and causing all things.

However, when he studied with Anaxagoras, he found that he introduced many physical causes

into his explanations of nature. Such ideas challenged prevailing religious beliefs in Athens, and

Anaxagoras was condemned to death; but his friend Pericles got him out of prison. Socrates then

became a student of Archelaus, who was said to have begun the speculation on ethical questions

of law, justice, and goodness; Socrates improved on this so much that he was considered by

Greeks the inventor of ethics. Some said that Socrates helped Euripides write his plays.

Socrates fought as a hoplite at Potidaea in 432 BC and handed over his prize for valor to

Alcibiades. He later served again at Amphipolis and at Delium. He invested his money and lived

very simply, though he had three children, having taken a second wife to help Athens increase its

population. He never asked a fee from anyone, and when observing the products in the

marketplace he would observe that he had no need for so many things. He said that most people

live to eat but that he ate to live. Charmides offered to give him some slaves for income, but he

declined the offer. He refused to accept gifts from tyrants in Macedon, Cranon, and Larissa, and

did not visit their courts. He had a supernatural sign which would warn him what not to do. His

questioning often perturbed people so much that they would attack him with their fists; but he

would refuse to fight or bring legal charges, saying it takes two to make a quarrel or that he

would not sue a donkey for kicking him either. His wife Xanthippe was known for being a

shrew; but he argued that just as by mastering spirited horses a trainer could handle others easily,

so he could learn how to adapt to anyone.

Socrates was satirized by Aristophanes in the comedy The Clouds in 423 BC; but he did not

object, because if his faults were shown it would do him good, and if not it would not affect him.

However, two dozen years later at his trial he was still being accused of making the worse

argument appear better and investigating things under the earth, partly because of that play.

When eight Athenian generals were illegally tried by the assembly for not picking up the lost

sailors at Arginusae, Socrates refused to preside over the illegality. When the vicious oligarchy

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

SOCRATES, XENOPHON, AND PLATO

of Thirty ordered him to arrest the wealthy Leon of Salamis, Socrates did not obey even though

he might have died for it. This oppressive government also forbade teaching the art of words

because of him.

Finally in 399 BC the resentful Anytus, Lycon, and Meletus charged Socrates with corrupting the

youth and with refusing to recognize the gods of the state while introducing new divinities.

Lysias wrote a speech of defense for him, but Socrates rejected it as unsuited to him, just as fine

clothes would be. The vote to condemn him was 281-220. Then as a penalty he offered to pay a

small fine, though he believed that the state should provide free meals for him. This alienated

even more jurors, and he was condemned to death by a majority of eighty more votes. Believing

in the laws of the state, he refused to escape from prison. After his execution by hemlock poison,

it was said that Athens felt such regret that they put Meletus to death and banished the other two

accusers. Socrates was said to be the first philosopher (in Greece) to discourse on the conduct of

life and was the first to be executed.

Xenophon's Socrates

Although Socrates himself left behind no writings for us, his disciples Aeschines, Antisthenes,

Aristippus, Cebes, Crito, Euclides, Phaedo, Simmias, Xenophon, and Plato wrote Socratic

dialogues portraying his teaching in literary form. Of these only the extensive works of

Xenophon and Plato remain intact. The relationship between these writings and the real Socrates

is controversial; but in this work that examines the ethics implied in literature as well as history

and biography, we can simply look at how Socrates is portrayed in these various dialogs, and

then readers can draw their own conclusions. Both Xenophon and Plato were born in Athens

about 428 BC and thus had the opportunity to observe Socrates in his later years. It seems to me

that they each brought out different aspects of a very complex man.

When Socrates was tried and executed, Xenophon was on the Persian military expedition made

famous in his Anabasis . When he did write about his teacher a few years later, his main motive

appears to have been to defend Socrates from the charges that led to his execution. His short

work called the Defense of Socrates gives Socrates' view of his trial as reported by Hermogenes.

Socrates believed that his whole life had been a preparation for his defense, because he had

consistently done no wrong, and his "little divinity" (daimonion) warned him twice not to

consider preparing it. Socrates also felt that dying then would prevent him from suffering the

decline of old age. In answering the charge of introducing new deities, he said his daimonion was

like the divine signs other prophets and priestesses experience. This spirit also helped him to

advise friends and was never found wrong. This statement caused an uproar at the trial, as many

did not believe him, while others resented the implication that he was closer to the gods.

Socrates told how Chaerephon asked the Delphic oracle about him, and Apollo declared that he

was the most free, upright, and prudent of all. Socrates then asked the jury if they knew anyone

who was less a slave of his desires or more free, since he did not accept payment from anyone.

Socrates asked if any youth had developed bad habits because of him, and Meletus charged that

he had persuaded the young to listen to him instead of their parents, which Socrates admitted in

regard to questions of education that he had studied. Socrates was not upset by the result of the

trial and compared himself to Palamedes, who had been unjustly accused by Odysseus. When

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: