Socrates: A New Type of Greek Hero

Bertrand Russell Wrote

“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”

“Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy.”

Plato saw Socrates as a living embodiment of goodness and wisdom, which Plato considered the crucial foundation of a good society.

Protagoras According to

Sophists such as Protagoras, “Man was the measure of all things”

The ultimate value of any belief or opinion could be judged only by its practical utility.

Socrates believed that the act of questioning was itself a power for good in that it freed us from superficial opinions and attitudes.

How one should live, and how to think clearly about how one should live, became his abiding concern.

Socrates said: “God is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”

Socrates “affirmed the Delphic motto: ‘Know thyself,’ for he believed that it was only through self-knowledge, through an understanding of one’s own psyche and its proper condition, that one could find genuine happiness.”

No one ever does wrong knowingly, for it is the very nature of the good that when it is known, it is desired. In this sense, Socrates held, virtue is knowledge. A truly happy life is a life of right action directed according to reason. The key to human life happiness, therefore, is the development of a rational moral character.

Socrates is a gad-fly, given to the state by God

Questioning is at the heart of Socrates methodology.

It was in the course of pursuing genuine reality that Socrates developed his famous dialectical form of argument that would become fundamental to the character and evolution of the Western mind:Reasoning through rigorous dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation intended to expose false beliefs and elicit truth.

Genuine knowledge was not something that could simply be received from another secondhand like a purchased commodity, as with the Sophists, but was rather a personal achievement, won only at the cost of constant intellectual struggle and self-critical reflection. “The life not tested by criticism,” Socrates declared, “is not worth living.”

It was his presence that so marked those who followed him. They believed that his process of questioning led him to a profound self-knowledge that gave what he taught such authority and forcefulness.

Contemplation, the power of the mind to ponder, think, and question, was seen by Socrates as a vital force for seeking and finding the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.