What did Socrates teach?

'One chooses logical argument only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to nullify than a logical argument: the tedium of long speeches proves this. It is a kind of self-defense for those who no longer have other weapons. Unless one has to insist on what is already one's right, there is no use for it. The Jews were argumentative for that reason; Reynard the Fox also — and Socrates too?'  - Nietzsche.

There are a number of issues that we might try to examine at our next meeting. I shall outline these briefly so as not to preempt our discussion. I will also be sending you a relevant article which is worth reading carefully. 

(1) Socrates had an unwavering faith in reason, that is to say, in the capacity of logical analysis and discussion to uncover the truth. Nietzsche held this against him, as the above quotation shows. It seems to work with the skills and knowledge we need to survive and thrive in the world, but does it produce any results when it comes to making us realize how we might best live our lives? Can you change people by logical argument?

(2) Socratic intellectualism is summarized as: (i) a belief that virtue or excellence is a kind of knowledge; (ii) virtue or excellence of character is all that is needed for the good life, that is to say, for that kind of humanly successful life that was what the Greeks understood by eudaimonia or happiness - but what if the person you love most in all the world dies, or you find yourself unable to do the thing - say, painting because you become blind - that makes your life worth living? Aren't our lives dependent on good luck as well as good character? (iii) the belief that anyone and everyone could change himself in this intellectual manner - but the young men who go round making intellectual fun of their elders in the Socratic manner would seem to show that more is needed than a skill in logic ad dialectics. (And doesn't Socrates have some measure of responsibility for this behaviour?)


(3) If there is no techne - no knowledge that you can teach people how to change and shape their lives in the way you can teach, say, navigation or pottery - which would seem to be the conclusion of his examination of the craftsmen - what can you do? What should you do? 


(4) Socrates does not seem to to be a dogmatic philosopher. He does not seem to be withholding the answer which we might imagine he has in his head from the poor deluded fools he cross-examines - like Euthyphro and perhaps ourselves as well - but if he doesn't have any specialized moral knowledge beyond his conviction of his own ignorance, how do we explain his own remarkable moral life? (It was remarkable).


(5) Plato is the one who seems to have discovered the 'seeds' of knowledge inside Socrates' life or inside his head and in the later dialogues confusingly - from our point of view - attributes them to Socrates, drawing them out ultimately as the Forms. Socrates seems to have known nothing of them. And it was Plato who in the Republic outlined a great techne that would take at least some people towards 'moral perfection', though Plato stressed that only a small number were ever going to make the grade. We are still struggling with these fundamental problems of education today and seem unlikely ever to solve them.

Crito closing the eyes of Socrates