The Three Personas of Socrates
An examination
By Chris Hibbard
The Three Personas of Socrates
Despite having never written or recorded a single one of his words on paper, the ancient Athenian philosopher known as Socrates is undoubtedly one of the most influential thinkers of his time. His history is quite well-known, with stories of his wisdom and teaching being passed down through the ages via the recollections and dialogues immortalized by his most famous students – Plato and Xenophon. The Socrates that we know today is remembered for three distinct Personas.
Persona I
The first Persona is that of the Mythic Hero. According to historical tale, Socrates’ life as the martyr and victim or Athens began when a friend of his asked the oracle at Delphi if there was anyone wiser than Socrates. When the oracle responded with a no, Socrates took it to be a riddle and set out on a mission to seek out men wiser than himself. After putting questions to the men of Athens about knowledge of good, of beauty, and of virtue, Socrates found that many men believed themselves to know so much, yet seemed to know very little. Socrates then came to the conclusion that he was wise only in that he was aware of his own lack of knowledge. This response irritated prominent Athenians, many of whom were Sophists, a highly regarded group of scholars learned in philosophy and rhetoric in Greece at the time. Socrates’ seemingly superior intellect made these Sophists look and feel quite foolish and so they turned against him, charging him with heresy and eventually executing him despite an eloquent and brilliant speech that Socrates gave in his own defense. Having knowingly agreed to live under the laws of the city, Socrates subjected himself to the possibility of being accused of crimes by its citizens and judged guilty by its juries. So it is that Socrates was immortalized as a Mythic Hero, one who was in constant pursuit of wisdom. After his demise he was revered even more as a “dialectic hero”, while the term Sophists became a rather derogatory one, meaning essentially ‘purveyors of B.S.’
Persona II
The second Persona of Socrates was that of the perpetual inquisitor, asker, explainer, orator and critic. Socrates believed that among humanity, everything was considered equal except knowledge and ignorance. Since this was so, knowledge became the only virtue worth possessing. In his subsequent quest to gain more of it, Socrates asked many questions of his students, tying them up in conversation and debate for days at a time. Some of these conversations focused on questions like these: can virtues be taught, or are they ingrained as luck, gifts from the gods? Is virtue knowledge, is it a learned habit, or simply an inexplicable quality? Is virtue a true opinion or an unproven belief? In answering his own questions, Socrates came to believe that virtue can not be taught, for there are no teachers who possess the knowledge in great enough amount. He found that virtue is knowledge, and to know the good or the right thing to do is to do it. Since he held that self-control was nothing but lack of knowledge, he felt that akrasia, or doing that which you know and believe is wrong, is nothing but a lack of self-control and therefore, ignorance and vice. To deny the good that is known as good, is symptomatic of weak will. Therefore, with ignorance being vice, all seemingly ‘evil’ acts are involuntary, due to ignorance. Socrates also concluded that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it, as to hurt something is to create a state of fear and pain temporarily; but to harm something is to hinder or impair it permanently – leaving it worse off forever, thereby making it less virtuous, which in turn makes he or she who causes the harm less virtuous as well – permanently.
Persona III
The third and final Persona of Socrates, was that of conjecture and contribution. One of his most famous conjectures can be found in the book of his work, Meno. This conjecture is: how can one know anything about X, if they do not know what X is; or vice versa; if you don’t know what X is, how will you ever arrive at knowledge of it? This paradox is one of Socrate’s most famous and time-enduring. If you know what X is, then you already possess the knowledge of it and can not search for it. If you do not know what X is, you can not search for it because you do not know what it is you are searching for. If one takes this paradox seriously it raises huge epistemological problems, making it impossible to truly come to know about anything. The closer one gets to an answer, the further removed they are from the question, and the closer one gets to the right question, the further removed they are from learning the solution. Essentially, the third persona of Socrates died comfortable in his own ignorance with more questions than answers; believing that there was no such thing as true or absolute knowledge.
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