The Objectives of Socrates With Doubt
Well, The first goal of Socrates in the apology is simple… to save his ass by discrediting his accusers. He starts the apology by stating that he is not a good speaker and that his accusers are liars, good start. Basically he tries several different ways to work on the jurists, he even says something along the lines of, “I won’t talk about my family, but my family is thus…” What a guy. He also needs to refute the accusation that he is an atheist. Though that might be seen as a good thing for a philosopher to be, in ancient Greece it’s a bad thing and punishable by law. But without saying I believe Melatus. He says it’s impossible to not believe in something that was brought about by the gods without believing in the gods. Kinda smooth way of saying if you believe what you believe and I do too, how can I believe in this without believing in the gods?
The Socratic dialectic is a way of introducing doubt to people who didn’t have any doubt of what they believed, first one has to respond to the question as though it were the answer and continue in that line until the questioner has doubt in his mind. Once doubt is established try to use questions to get to the answer already in the person’s mind. Like Socrates trying to figure out what virtue is with Meno; first Meno thinks he knows what virtue is and how it is established and then after talking to Socrates for a while he begins to doubt and together they decide that virtue is in everyone and cannot be gained, but is continued through anamnesis (or memory from a past life). It is an odd belief that Socrates has that anamnesis is a thing which actually exists and continues belief, though the idea is not altogether crazy except for that Socrates was a sort of monotheistic person and most monotheistic persons which we still have few of today because most Christians are dualists which believe that there’s a god above and a devil below. Monotheists believe that all things good and bad come from one god and that is the belief system that many people believe that Socrates held to.
Basically the reason that in “the Meno” that Socrates brought Meno to such a point of doubt so that he had no more understanding of what was virtue than what the surface of the sun was made of, Socrates brought him to his wits’ end to retrain his mind and to bring him to the same place Socrates was in, because he himself explained in the Meno that he does not know the answer to what is virtue and wishes to explore that with Meno and in order to do that he has to be at the same level.
In the Crito Socrates talks about social agreements and things like the law, and our agreement to abide by it. The conscience of Crito is bugging him because of the fact that he believes that Socrates doesn’t deserve to die, and offers an escape from prison.
And though I know those don’t necessarily flow in a certain way or toward a certain goal, I feel that those are some good points to know about Socrates.
October 18th, 20098:47 am at
Though I do like Socrates and many of his ideas, I never liked his use of manipulation to sway people to his point of view. Although manipulation cannot be avoided whenever someone expresses their point of view… (in that any new information that another person receives does alter their view if even just slightly), the level of manipulation is dishonest even if it is beneficial.
October 18th, 20095:45 pm at
Though his tactics were plain to people who studied them, the socratic dialectic is seen as a way of bringing people to the same viewpoint so they can both find the answer together. It is entirely likely that Socrates was a very persuasive man I see his methods as simply bringing people to his level and not to sway them one way or the other.