Greece, 399 B.C.

Charges: (1) Impiety (disbelief in the Greek gods), (2) corrupting youth

Can 'mind', or else, ‘minding your mind,’ make you a better person? Can philosophy help you to actually live a better life? Socrates said it could. He grew up when the old gods of Olympus were being called into question by some of his fellow Athenians. People were wondering if virtue and good living could be taught to people. Socrates said yes, through appealing to their reason. Good, freethinking people can be molded into being from humble beginnings. They can then question the meaning of essential concepts we use everyday but rarely think about and find their essences. An essence is something that holds true no matter what, not relative to something else, but in and of itself, absolutely. In his thinking about the role of reason in a person’s ethical outlook on life, was Socrates’ outlook optimistic or pessimistic?

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Socrates was condemned to death by a jury of 501 Athenian citizens, who voted on his verdict democratically. No one man in history, except perhaps Jesus, has made more of a difference in the history of European culture. All philosophy after Socrates, as well as all science, because science is a spin off from philosophy, was inspired by him. Every single philosophical school in antiquity except materialistic Epicureanism claims lineage from him. What made him different was his whole new way of thinking. He invented a skeleton key for thinking, a power tool for reasoning: the logical argument. We use this all the time today, often without thinking. For example, when a point is proven to be true to a reasonable person, it is most likely done using logical reasoning. Reason is a thing, it is something that can be used, shared, and appealed to. The American Founders appealed to reason in stating why they wanted to separate from Britain. Socrates questioned people as a lawyer cross-examines someone in court. This is the Socratic method. If A is B, and B is C, then it must be true that A is C. It sounds like a mathematical principle. What achievements in the process of thinking and talking did Socrates develop?

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It seems simple and innate to use logic and reason, but this art had to be discovered and practiced. It awoke from its long slumber in the mind of Socrates first, who gave it expression through his words and actions. In the mind of Socrates, reason became aware of itself. He famously said: “Virtue IS knowledge, and vice IS ignorance.” If you really know Good, as in, what is Good for you and for people generally, then you will do the Good thing always. Thus, what is evil? Evil is ignorance of the Good. This does not mean ignorance of facts, but ignorance of values. Rational self-criticism can free the human mind from the bondage of poorly constructed opinions. So, what does Socrates mean by saying that virtue is knowledge and vice is ignorance? We all have the experience of knowing what is Good and yet choosing evil. Socrates is not ignorant of this fact of human nature, and his answer as to why we sometimes choose evil is found in one of the greatest speeches ever made: The Apology, given before the court of Athens. An apology is not an admission of guilt in this case, but a defense of beliefs and actions. “I would like to apologize” actually means, “I would like to explain myself.” How did Socrates define good and evil?

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In the event, The Trial of Socrates was held in the Theater of Dionysus, in which the citizens were the jury. The charges were (1) Atheism (not believing in the Greek gods) and, (2) Corrupting the Youth of Athens (by teaching them bad things). He acted as his own defense attorney. Would Socrates be on trial for those things today?

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Socrates began is defense by telling the story about how he became a philosopher in the first place, answering to the charge of atheism in the process. The story concerned his visit to the Delphic Oracle, a prophetess who gave guaranteed true answers in the form of riddles inspired by the god Apollo. Even Greeks who were skeptical of the gods (and there were many) believed in the Oracle because it always came out right. When he was a young man, Socrates’ friend Kairophon asked the Oracle, “Is there anyone in this world wiser than my friend Socrates?” And the oracle answered “No.” When Kairophon told Socrates this, he was shocked and amazed. He knew he wasn’t that wise. In fact, he knew he had little true wisdom, if any. He was a regular person, without any great insight into the nature of the universe or mankind. But now comes the part that, he argued, proved his piety. Instead of dismissing the Oracle as a fraud, Socrates made a leap of faith. He considered the possibility the Oracle was right. But if it was, he had to know why. He had to understand the meaning of the Oracle’s riddle. He decided to go out and try to find a person wiser than himself to take to the Oracle, so it would explain the riddle. But he never got to go to the Oracle with this person wiser than himself, because he never found anyone. What he found instead was that everybody who thought they were wise were not once Socrates’ cross-examined them. Socrates got better and better at cross-examination, which developed into the Socratic Method. This method of the logical reasoning exposed the flaws in their arguments. In addition, they were doubly flawed because they erroneously believed that they were wise. How, then, was Socrates able to conclude he was wiser than the other people in Athens?

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The self-fulfilling prophecy of the Oracle came to pass because the Oracle’s answer made Socrates go out and invent the Socratic method, discover ignorance versus understanding, and hone the art of cross-examination still used by lawyers, teachers and debaters today. It made him go out and become the first philosopher. The Oracle’s riddle was the catalyst that originated Western philosophy’s whole method of understanding by logical reasoning! An example of Socratic method: he found a judge who sat on juries, and asked him a question:

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Socrates went home thinking that he didn’t learn much about what justice actually was, but that he did learn a lot about what ignorance was. This man assumed he was wise, but he was not. The Sophists, likewise, were teachers in Athens who hired out their services to wealthy young men who aspired to politics. The Sophists promised to teach them the skills to help them get ahead in life- to be successful- by hook or by crook. They taught them all moral standards were mere conventions from place to place, and that all knowledge was relative. Socrates found this educational philosophy both intellectually misconceived and morally detrimental. In opposition to the Sophists’ view, Socrates strove to find a way to real knowledge that was true, which transcended opinion, and use it to inform a morality that went beyond mere convention. Would justice be the same thing in Greece as in Persia to the Sophists?

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Socrates found out that people come in one of two kinds: 1) fools who think they are wise, 2) and the wise who know they are ignorant. He therefore tried to help people become wiser by teaching them, or else getting them to understand that once they realized they were ignorant, their quest for true knowledge could begin. Those who would undertake this quest were people who loved objective knowledge so much, that they would be prepared to seek it wherever it may lead. They would become philo-sophers (those who love wisdom) and start asking questions. Only though self-knowledge can one be genuinely happy, and all human beings seek happiness by their very nature. Happiness is key to living the kind of good life that best serves the nature of the human soul and human community. If you heroically humble yourself, what does Socrates say you will find?

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During his defense, Socrates taught another paradox. He told the jury to remember: “If you sentence me to death, you are actually harming yourselves- for the eternal law makes it impossible for someone good to be harmed by someone bad.” A riddle? What did he mean? It’s baffling, really, because he means it is literally impossible for a good person to suffer at the hands of a bad one. Socrates’ answer to “why bad things happen to good people” is that they never do! Yes, Socrates is giving us a puzzle, and, in solving it, we might become wiser. Solving the puzzle: His meaning is that Apollo’s command to “Know Thyself” does not mean “recall what personal feelings and experiences you might have had in your life” but instead, it means “know what a human being is, what you are, and the nature of being human.” Put another way, it means asking, “What is the ESSENCE of mankind?” If you find the answer to this question, you will find the answer to why a Good person cannot suffer evil. The link is that evil cannot be done to a good person because of what man’s basic essence is. His essence is what is left when everything has been taken away from a person. When honor, freedom, and even life are taken away, only the essence is left. Socrates provided a great example of this at his execution, in which everything, even his life, was taken away. Everything except his essence, that is. The essence of a person is his or her virtue and wisdom, which cannot be taken away- even in death. According to Socrates, what is essential about a person?

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Where are these essential things about a person located? Not in their mind or body, but in their soul. The true self, therefore, is the soul- the inner self- the inner light- from which your personality arises. That is why bad people cannot harm Good people, because they cannot attack your soul. They do not have access to the essential part of you. Evil from outside can attack your body, and harm your mind. It can even kill those things. But the only evil that can ever be visited upon the essence of you comes from YOU. It comes from the inside of you. It comes from your folly, self-destructiveness and your vice. No one else but you can make you foolish or vicious, or, for that matter, wise and virtuous. No one but YOU is in charge of your soul, your character, and personality. Not society, but only you are the captain of your soul, and ultimately, the master of your fate. Do you agree or disagree with Socrates?

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In ancient Athens, juries were chosen by lottery, much like being called for jury duty today when your number comes up. Unlike today, however, when a jury must unanimously render a guilty verdict, in Athens it was a simple majority vote. The jurors voted 3/5 to convict. Socrates joked that with what little evidence it would have taken to prove his innocence, he should be sentenced to a great feast with the winners of the latest Olympics. That would be like one of us saying our sentence should be a state dinner at the White House with the President and a bunch of your favorite movie stars and sports heroes. When it came time for sentencing, there were a few options put forth. Socrates offered to pay a fine of 100 drachmas, which a lot but Socrates was poor, and the convention in trials like this was to pay 1/5 of the value of what you own. Socrates’ students Plato, Crito and Apollodorus didn’t think they’d go for that, so they offered to pay the city 3,000 drachmas on Socrates’ behalf. The prosecutor, however, went for the death penalty. The jury voted, without deliberating, and once again, it was majority rules. How would you vote? Why?

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Socrates was not remanded to a holding pen or even watched. He was simply let go and told to return at a certain time to ingest the poison. During this period he could have easily fled the city, but did not. His students were adamant, pleading with him to just leave, but 70-year-old Socrates did not. Instead, in one last act of provocation, and one last lesson for life, he told his followers that the citizens had spoken, and he would willingly obey their sentence. Socrates was an Athenian patriot, formerly a hoplite in the Persian Wars. He was not a man to run away. Would you have fled if you were Socrates?

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