When we talk about the great teachers in history, when we think of China, we think of Confucius, and when we talk about the West, we think of Socrates.
Unlike Confucius, Socrates left no writings, and his ideas were passed on to future generations, relying on paraphrasing from students such as Plato and Xenophon.
What makes future generations relish, in addition to his exquisite words, is also a strange appearance.
Marble statue of Socrates in the Louvre's collection. Nietzsche considered Socrates to be extremely ugly and belonged to the "lowest man".
Image source: Wikipedia
The English writer Alain de Botton described Socrates' appearance this way:
"He was short, bearded, bald, and strangely swaying as he walked, his face had been beaten by acquaintances in various analogies: crabs, orangutans or monsters, and he had a flat nose, a big mouth, a pair of bulging eyes under his messy eyebrows."
The Oracle of Delphi says that no one is smarter than Socrates.
Socrates, on the other hand, said, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing."
Why is he called the wisest man in ancient Greece? What exactly did Socrates contribute?
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="121" > Socrates and his city-state</h1>
Socrates was born into a family of citizens in Athens, and it is said that his father was a carver, his mother was a midwife, and his wife, Xanthippe (Xanthippe/Xantippe), was known for her fierceness.
Asked why he married her, Socrates replied that horse trainers needed to practice on the fiercest horses, and likewise, if zanepe's temper was tolerated, then they could deal with anyone.
After an argument, Zanethipe threw water on Socrates. There is a joke that Socrates hangs out in the streets every day because he has a wife.
He grew up in the golden age of the rule of the ancient Greek statesman Pericles.
At this time, the rapid economic development of Athens and the high prosperity of classical culture attracted people with lofty ideals from all over the world.
At the time, the Sophists were known for teaching rhetoric and speech, bringing a new trend of free debate.
The young Socrates was influenced, consulting the famous sage Protagoras, and later making a living imparting knowledge.
Unlike the wise men, Socrates did not charge tuition, but went to the streets and alleys to discuss problems and explore the most useful truths and wisdom.
It can be said that the climate and city-state layout of Athens contributed to the philosophy of Socrates.
Athens has a typical Mediterranean climate, with warm weather about half of the year, making it ideal for spending time outdoors.
The city-state was small, with about 240,000 people living in the city and port of Athens, and it took only an hour's walk from the port of Piraeus to the gate of Ekias on the other side.
In ancient Greek bazaars, chatting with strangers was a common and natural thing.
Image credit: école nationale supérieure des Beaux-Art
Socrates went around asking people for advice because his friend Chaerephon had gone to the Temple of Delphi to ask if anyone was wiser than Socrates.
The oracle replied that there was no one.
Versailles, the master of Versailles, wondered why he was the wisest man who knew nothing.
The oracle could not be wrong, and in order to find the true intentions of the oracle, he found people in athens who were recognized or self-confessed to be wise people to chat, discuss important issues such as beauty, justice, and the existence of gods, and rely on heuristic questions to obtain answers.
Thus, the "dialectic" of great significance to Western thought was born.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="128" > Socratic questioning</h1>
If you're walking down the street and suddenly someone comes up to you and asks, "Hey, what do you think is the meaning of life?" Presumably half of the people will choose to ignore this strange person, and the other half will answer patiently.
But the man went on to ask, "If that's the case, why do you think that way?" Can't you do that?" Most people feel offended, and those who think further down become their students.
This man is Socrates, and this method is called "Socratic questioning", which is the earliest form of dialectics:
Taking a common sense thesis that is generally recognized by the world, assuming it as wrong, looking for counterexamples to overturn the original definition, and still standing after a round of questioning, is the truth.
In the process, Socrates' questions seem to be a must-have quote for the Internet: Why do you say that? Is this common? Is there reason to doubt this evidence? Is there another understanding? What other effects are there? Why is this question important?
The teacher can use a series of questions to draw conclusions, to generalize knowledge from specific examples to universal principles, and to realize that there is something wrong with so-called "common sense".
Socrates believed that knowledge was not instilled, and that students already possessed wisdom. Just as a midwife helps women give birth, he asks questions to pique students' interest and guide them to think spontaneously.
Socrates always emphasizes that he is ignorant, thus inducing the other party to define the concept, pointing out loopholes and prompting them to refine their own definitions, and finally obtain a correct understanding.
Because of this, Socrates is not a "lever", but rather the opposite: his method allows those who think they are wise to discover their ignorance.
The ancient Roman statesman Cicero believed that it was Socrates who pulled philosophy back from heaven to earth.
While previous philosophers focused on the phenomena of the world around them, Socrates realized that man should use reason to seek knowledge and think about his soul.
As a teacher, Socrates had many students, among whom Plato founded the Academy of Athens, which had an important influence on the development of Western colleges. Pictured here is Raffaello Santi's painting Scuola di Atene (Academy of Athens).
Image source: museivaticani.va
This teacher planted a seed, which was watered by generations and developed a detailed and perfect philosophical system in later generations.
The stream, which symbolizes the human mind, has become a vast ocean today.
Socrates was one of the greatest thinkers of ancient Greece.
Later generations generally believed that "know thyself" and "virtue is knowledge" were the essence of Socrates' philosophical thought, emphasizing the importance of the human spirit and morality, and its dialectics emphasized inductive reasoning and universal definition, providing methodological guidance for subsequent philosophical thinking.
His academic system was not as grandiose as Plato and Aristotle's, but his death affected Western civilization as a whole and was seen by later generations as a model of "martyrdom for ideals".
Socrates was proud of his citizenship all his life, and his death was caused by Athenian democracy.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="134" > why Socrates was sentenced to death</h1>
If there is anyone in Western history whose death has the greatest impact, then the first is Jesus, and the second is Socrates.
At the end of the 5th century BC, the Golden Age of Pericles had passed, and Athens fell into the Peloponnesian War with its fierce enemy Sparta, which ended in defeat.
Sparta sent thirty tyrants to rule the Athenian city-state, which included Socrates' former students.
After the Athenians struggled to drive out foreign rule, they thought Socrates was also guilty.
In fact, Socrates' "bad reputation" has a long history.
In Cloud, the dramatist Aristophanes portrayed Socrates as a neurotic figure who loves to ask questions.
He denied the existence of gods and taught sophistry to young people, instigating them to rebel against those in power.
Influenced by the work Cloud, the Athenians saw Socrates as an enemy of the city-state democracy.
In 399 BC, a jury of the Athenian city-state sentenced Socrates to death on charges of "disrespect" and "corruption of Athenian youth" and .
The French painter Jacques-Louis David's painting La Mort de Socrate depicts Socrates saying goodbye to his students and friends before his death.
Image source: metmuseum.org
Is this really the case?
Socrates discusses the ethical propositions of "bravery" and "justice", pointing out that people's tacit concepts are flawed, which is actually a question of the traditional moral system of Athens.
The young people who followed him found that traditional morality could not stand up to logical scrutiny, and some people's beliefs were destroyed.
Coupled with the failure of the Peloponnesian War, which hastened the collapse of the moral system of the city-state, the death of Socrates was undoubtedly "the king who caught the thief first".
In addition, the Athenian city-state was known for its direct democracy, and every citizen was expected to participate in all the actions and affairs of the city-state.
But Socrates believed that politics should be done by people who understood politics, not random elections by lottery, and his ideas were completely contrary to the principles of the city-state.
The democratic politics with which he disagreed eventually led to his death—the rule of majority as the basis of democratic politics was beyond doubt, and it was a groundbreaking attempt by Athens.
But the risk of "tyranny of the majority" also exists, and the will of the majority is only a quantitative advantage, not always correct.
The mere enshrinement of the will of the majority, without other institutional checks, will encroach on the rights of the minority. This shortcoming may be the reason for the rapid decline of Athenian democracy after its glory.
According to Xenophon and Plato, Socrates could have escaped—the students had bribed the prison guards and ordered a chariot and horse to take him away.
But Socrates thought he had to obey the laws of the city-state, and to flee was to violate his contract with the city-state.
"Suppose I am going to flee from here, the laws of Athens will question me like this: Socrates, what are you going to do?" Do you want to take action to break our laws and harm our country?"
Socrates loved his city-state, believing that the law was sacred, and that escaping the death penalty was contrary to the principle of citizenship he practiced.
Eventually, he died in front of the students.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="139" > why Socrates was great</h1>
Before Socrates died, he told his friend Crito:
"We must sacrifice a rooster to Asclepius. Don't forget."
Asclepius was the god of healing in Greek mythology, and it was the custom of the Greeks to sacrifice to the god of medicine after recovering from illness.
Socrates saw death as a cure for illness, either as a re-affirmation of the verdict, as a believer in the gods of the city-state, and second, by expressing his philosophy of life through death:
"I'm going to die, you're going to live, but no one knows who has a happier future."
In Socrates' understanding, life is a disease, and death is not a frightening end, but a "richer life."
In fact, Socrates shocked the entire history of philosophy and even the history of human thought with his words, his way of life, and especially his death, and profoundly influenced Western culture.
He was a philosopher, but also a citizen of the socially responsible city-state, and Socrates was undoubtedly a model of intellectual personality in the sense of saving society from sinking and insisting on obeying the law.
The unexamined life is not worth living, and Socrates used his life and death to argue the unity of life and philosophical principles.
The philosopher Karl Theodor Jaspers proposed the concept of the Axial Period in The Origin and Purpose of History.
Between 800 and 200 B.C., revolutionary currents emerged in China, Europe, and India.
China was in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and the sons and sons were constantly arguing.
India has a Shamanid school of thought that has developed a number of religious and philosophical schools.
The West is in the glorious and splendid period of ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
Confucius in China, Socrates in the West and Shakyamuni in India together ushered in a new era.
They do not know each other, but they are aware of "the existence of the whole, of itself and of its own limits" as agreed.
The determination of the sages was deafening:
"As long as I am alive and capable, I will never stop practicing philosophy, I will not stop exhorting you, I will not stop explaining the truth to everyone I meet... So, folks, whether or not you release me, you know that I will not change my behavior, though I will not repent."
Socrates' defense and Qu Yuan's spiritual representation of "what is good in the heart, although nine deaths are still unrepentant" are so similar, this wonderful coincidence is not achieved by political force, but the human beings of the Axial Age have jointly constructed a new world through reason and reflection.
The thinking "midwife" loved his city-state and, after accepting the verdict of the trial, calmly walked to his death. Socrates said:
"I am like a god-given city-state of cattle flies, and our city-state is like a noble and great war horse, because of its large body and unresponsiveness, it needs a bullfly to stimulate it." 」
The cattle fly that the war horse flicked its tail to drive away, but it received rave reviews in later generations.
Jobs was willing to trade all his technology for an afternoon with Socrates.
Hegel said bluntly in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, "Socrates' principles caused a change in the whole history of the world, and the turning point of this change was that the proof of the individual spirit replaced the oracle, and the subject himself made decisions... This is Socrates' way of life and mission."
Before Socrates, the Athenians who relied on reason would ask intellectuals questions when they encountered problems, and philosophers would give various types of answers.
The prevailing school of the wise men held that there was no so-called objective prescriptiveness of things, that there was no eternal and unchanging origin, and this relativism plunged Athens into the nothingness of thought.
Although Socrates was influenced by the school of the wise men and carried forward the tradition of questioning, he believed that the values of justice, wisdom, and virtue persisted.
After him, Western philosophy began to turn to ethics, and after the discussion of Plato, Aristotle and others, philosophers firmly believed in the search for truth and justice.
"Socrates" has evolved into a way of seeking knowledge, and has an unsatisfactory ending in a secular sense.
We often hear a multiple-choice question: to be a happy pig or a miserable Socrates — to live a life of chaos and pleasure in time, or to be sober and self-sustaining and face the pain of life?
No matter what choice we make, if we have experienced thinking, then we have already practiced Socrates' teaching of "know thyself."