Welcome to The PATH (Monday Meditation): A weekly reflection of timeless lessons for modern living. Today’s meditation continues our Perennial Lives series — The Art of Living: From Socrates to Aquinas.
Perennial Lives | Stoics, Saints, and Sages
The Perennial Lives series explores the life of philosophy of 12 figures (one per week), from Socrates (470—399 BC) to St. Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274). To assist us in our journey, we’ll turn to the Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius along with more recent works like Examined Lives by James Miller, Socrates’ Children by Peter Kreeft, and finally, Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman.
How to Live — Like Socrates
Although Socrates never wrote anything down. “Socrates was probably the second most important and influential human being who ever lived, next to Jesus,” writes Peter Kreeft in Socrates’ Children.
According to Kreeft,
The foundation of most Western philosophy (and science) is Aristotle. He is to the West what Confucius is to China. As later generations called Confucius simply “the first teacher,” the medievals called Aristotle simply “the Philosopher.” The foundation of Aristotle is Plato.
Aristotle was the first footnote to Plato. Without Plato, no Aristotle. And without Socrates, no Plato. Socrates was the first man to be renowned as a philosopher. He was born in Athens around 469 B.C., and “although he grew up in a golden age in a great city,” writes James Miller in Examined Lives, “the ancient sources agree that there was nothing glittering about his pedigree or upbringing. He was the son of Sophroniscus, a stonemason, and of Phaenarete, a midwife.”
The biographer, Diogenes of Laertius, described Socrates “as so orderly in his way of life that on several occasions when pestilence broke out in Athens, he was the only man to escape infection.” Similarly, Miller explained that Socrates prided himself on living plainly and “used to say that he most enjoyed the food which was least in need of condiment, … and that he was nearest to the gods when he had the fewest wants.”
The Oracle at Delphi
According to legend, when the Oracle was asked if anyone was wiser than Socrates. The answer was no. According to Plato in his Apology, Socrates reacted to news of this oracle as any pious Greek would. The God never lied. But Socrates did not regard himself as wise. So what could the oracle mean?
Miller writes,
From this point forward, the life of Socrates became a consecrated quest—an epic inquiry meant to unriddle a message from a god. His search for wisdom became an obsession. … The longer that Socrates struggled to know himself, the more puzzled he became. What, for example, was the meaning of his inner voice? Was there any rhyme or reason behind the audible interdictions he experienced as irresistible? Did Socrates, in fact, embody a good way of life?
As Plato put it, Socrates’ dissatisfaction with teachers like Anaxagoras and Gorgias led him to go his own way and raise questions independently about the best way to live. Hoping to learn how to live the best life conceivable, Socrates began to query anyone with a reputation in any field for knowledge.
The Wisdom of Questions
“Socrates would sometimes stop and stand wherever he happens to be,” reports a friend in Plato’s Symposium. Later in the Symposium, Plato depicts another friend recalling an even more striking episode,
One time at dawn he began to think something over and stood in the same spot considering it, and when he found no solution, he didn’t leave but stood there inquiring. It got to be midday, and people became aware of it, wondering at it among themselves, saying Socrates had stood there since dawn thinking about something. … He stood until dawn came and the sun rose; then he offered a prayer to the sun, and left.
Socrates observed that although craftsmen knew a thing or two about their crafts and were even able to train their children to follow in their footsteps. And most had nothing coherent to say about justice, piety, or courage—the virtues that Socrates, like most Athenians, supposed were crucial to living a good life. As Socrates searched, a conviction took shape: craftsmen had no more wisdom than Socrates himself, and neither did poets, politicians, orators, or the other famous teachers he queried.
In fact, unlike Socrates, writes Miller, most of them were complacent, not disquieted; vainglorious, not humble; and arrogantly unaware, unless irritated by the “gadfly,” of just how limited their knowledge really was.
The Wisdom of Not Knowing
Socrates realized that the primary obstacle to true wisdom was false confidence. This realization led Socrates to set out to destroy such confidence, not by writing books or establishing a formal school, but rather through his unrelenting interrogation of himself and others, no matter their rank or status.
In his book The Socratic Method, author Ward Farnsworth explains,
The practitioner of the Socratic method thinks in questions, is at home with uncertainty, and knows how to value a search that doesn’t end.
Socrates stressed the wisdom of not knowing to help us break our love of holding on to opinions. Farnsworth observes that it feels good to know what you think, and often when people turn to philosophy, they usually want more of that pleasure. Socrates diagnosed that our most urgent problem is that we are certain when we shouldn’t be and think we know what we do not.
For this reason, the philosophy of Socrates is not a set of beliefs — it’s an activity. “The Socratic method does not replace our opinions with better ones. It changes our relationship to our opinions. It replaces the love of holding them with the love of testing them,” writes Farnsworth.
Final Thoughts
What was the philosophy of Socrates? In his series Socrates’ Children, Kreeft explains that Socrates believed and taught at least the things. Here are four of the ten put briefly: (1) The task of philosophy, and life is to “know thyself.” (2) To know the human self, you must know its telos (or greatest good). (3) The greatest good is not wealth, pleasure, or honor but virtue. (4) The key to the good life resides in the soul. […]
Although we’ve merely scratched the surface of how to live — like Socrates. Hopefully, this series on perennial lives — The Art of Living: From Socrates to Aquinas will inspire you to follow the adage that one should “never stop learning how to live.”
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
P.S. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or make suggestions!