Socrates' conception of philosophy
Socrates' conception of philosophy
Essay
“Socrates’
conception of philosophy”
Ivanov Arkady
1 group
Icef
Socrates’
conception of philosophy.
Socrates, perhaps, the most interesting figure in the
philosophy of antiquity, and also a world-famed personage. If shortly recall
the periods already passed over, could be found that the ancient Ionic
philosophers certainly thought, but without reflecting on the thought or
defining its product as thought. The Atomists made objective existence into
thoughts, but these were to them only abstractions, pure entities. Anaxagoras,
on the other hand, raised thought into a principle which thereby presented
itself as the all-powerful Notion, as the negative power over all that is
definite and existent. Protagoras finally expresses thought as real existence,
but it is in this its movement, which is the all-resolving consciousness, the
unrest of the Notion. Socrates expresses real existence as the universal ‘I,’
as the consciousness which rests in itself; but that is the good as such, which
is free from existent reality, free from individual sensuous consciousness of
feeling and desire, free finally from the theoretically speculative thought
about nature, which, if indeed thought, has still the form of Being in which “I
am not certain of my existence”.
Socrates herein adopted firstly the doctrine of
Anaxagoras that thought, the understanding, is the ruling and self-determining
universal, though this principle did not, as with the Sophists, attain the form
of formal culture or of abstract philosophizing. Thus, if with Socrates, as
with Protagoras, the self-conscious thought that abrogates all that is
determined, was real existence, with Socrates this was the case in such a way
that he at the same time grasped in thought rest and security. This substance
existing in and for itself, the self-retaining has become determined as end,
and further as the true and the good. The freedom of self-consciousness in
Socrates breaks out. This freedom which is contained therein, the fact that
consciousness is clearly present in all that it thinks, and must necessarily be
at home with itself. Thus Socrates’ principle is that man has to find from
himself both the end of his actions and the end of the world, and must attain
to truth through himself. True thought thinks in such a way that its import is
as truly objective as subjective. But objectivity has been the significance of
substantial universality, and not of external objectivity; thus truth is now
posited as a product mediated through thought.
Since Socrates thus introduces the infinitely important
element of leading back the truth of the objective to the thought of the
subject, just as Protagoras says that the objective first is through relation
to us. The battle of Socrates and Plato with the Sophists cannot rest on the
ground that these, as belonging to the old faith, maintained against the others:
the religion and customs. Reflection, and the reference of any judgment to
consciousness, is held by Socrates in common with the Sophists. But the
opposition into which Socrates and Plato were in their philosophy necessarily
brought in regard to the Sophists, as the universal philosophic culture of the
times, was as follows: — The objective produced through thought, is at the same
time in and for itself, thus being raised above all particularity of interests
and desires, and being the power over them. Hence because, on the one hand, to
Socrates and Plato the moment of subjective freedom is the directing of
consciousness into itself, on the other, this return is also determined as a
coming out from particular subjectivity. It is hereby implied that contingency
of events is abolished, and man has this outside within him, as the spiritual
universal.
After this Socrates accepted the Good at first only in
the particular significance of the practical, which nevertheless is only one
mode of the substantial Idea; the universal is not only for one man, but also,
as end existent in and for itself, the principle of the philosophy of nature,
and in this higher sense it was taken by Plato and Aristotle. Of Socrates it is
hence said, in the older histories of Philosophy that his main distinction was
having added ethics as a new conception to Philosophy, which formerly only took
nature into consideration. The teaching of Socrates is properly subjectively
moral, because in it the subjective side, perception and meaning, is the
prevailing moment, although this determination of self-positing is likewise sublimed,
and the good and eternal is what is in and for itself.
According to Cicero Socrates’ most eminent characteristic
was to have brought Philosophy from heaven to earth, to the homes and every-day
life of men. This would seem as if the best and truest Philosophy were only a
domestic or fireside philosophy, which conforms to all the ordinary ideas of
men, and in which we see friends and faithful ones talk together of
righteousness, and of what can be known on the earth, without having penetrated
the depths of the heavens, or rather the depths of consciousness. But this last
is exactly what Socrates, as these men themselves indicate, first ventured to
do. And it was not incumbent on him to reflect upon all the speculations of
past Philosophy, in order to be able to come down in practical philosophy to
inward thought. This gives a general idea of his principle.
According to Plato’s “Apology” Socrates’ behavior to
others was not only just true, open without rudeness, and honorable, but also
Socrates is an example of the most perfect Attic urbanity; because he moves in
the freest possible relations, has a readiness for conversation which is always
judicious, and, because it has an inward universality, at the same time always
has the right living relationship to the individual, and bears upon the case on
which it operates.
After all this, it could be said that Socrates can be considered
not only as the ideal men, but also as the ideal philosopher.
Socrates’
virtue.
Virtues of
Socrates are certainly to be looked at as his own, and as made habitual to him
by his own will. To him virtue is perception. Aristotle criticizes (Magna Mor.
I. 1) on the quality of virtue expounded by Socrates. He says: “Socrates made
virtues into a science. But this is impossible, since, though all knowledge has
some basis this basis only exists in thought. Consequently, he places all the
virtues in the thinking side of the soul. Hence, it comes to pass that he does
away with the feeling part of the soul, that is, the inclination and the habits.”
Or Aristotle (Eth. Nicom. VI. 13), supplementing the one-sidedness of Socrates,
says of him: “Socrates in one respect worked on right lines, but not in the
other. For to call virtue scientific knowledge is untrue, but to say that it is
not without scientific basis is right. Socrates made virtues into perceptions,
but virtue exists with perception.”
Could be seen that Aristotle misses the side of subjective
actuality in the determination of virtue in Socrates, which now called the
heart. Understanding the reality of the good as universal morality,
substantiality is wanting to the perception; but matter, regarding the
inclination of the individual subjective will as this reality. This double want
may also be considered as a want of content and of activity, in so far as to
the universal development is wanting; and in the latter case, determining
activity comes before us as negative only in reference to the universal.
Socrates thus omits, in characterizing virtue. As to Aristotle himself, he
thought that virtue is that, what makes people feel good. It means that the good
perceived should be virtue, it must come to pass that the whole man, the heart
and mind, should be identical with it, and this aspect of Being or of
realization generally.
Bibliography:
1)
www.san.beck.org (was taken on the
3d of December)
2)
www.istina.ru/philosofy
(was taken on the 4th of December)
3)
Bertrand Russell “the history of
western civilization” (Russian edition, 2003,part I and part II ch XI XII XIII)
4)
www.historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000019/st034.shtml
(was taken on the 3d of December)
5)
www.filosofia.ronl.ru/1319_1.shtml
(was taken on the 3d of December)
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