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Hi, I'm David Makinster.
This is a lecture on Socrates, the back story.
It's applicable for a number of my courses.
I'm doing it specifically, though,
for the online Intro Philosophy course.
This is material that normally I would cover in lecture
in the first few face-to-face meetings
for a traditional class.
I thought that a video was probably
the best way to do this.
This is going to have a lot of information.
And it's fairly short, because I know
not everyone likes to sit and watch a long video.
So you may want to watch this video more than once.
Or watch it, stop it, take some notes,
write down some questions, and then watch it again.
OK.
To begin with, I'm going to tell you
a story about ancient Greece, actually
pre-dating what we think of as Greek civilization.
There is a rich and very, very old goddess tradition
that predates the Greek culture that you're probably
most familiar with.
It certainly predates Socrates by thousands of years.
At Delphi, in Greece, there was a temple
dedicated to the goddess Gaia, the most powerful goddess.
The goddess who gave birth to the Earth
and to all the other deities.
Eventually, as Greek culture rose,
they built a temple to Apollo on the top of that--
actually on the top of that temple.
But there was a sort of merging of the two religions--
the Gaia religion of the mother goddess,
and Apollo, who was associated with intelligence, with reason,
with enlightenment, with illumination,
and for the later Greece, came to represent divine unity.
At Delphi, there was a temple.
The chief priestess was an Oracle.
In fact, probably the most famous oracle in the ancient
Mediterranean.
An oracle-- you probably already know
that word-- remember in "The Matrix"
there was a woman called the Oracle who smoked a lot,
and made cookies, and so forth.
What she could do is tell the future,
although she didn't always do so in a straightforward way.
In the movie "The 300" there was an Oracle, very
melodramatically presented.
The notion of an Oracle-- someone
who can tell the future, normally not
because of their own powers, but because they
are able to channel for a deity-- that's
universal an ancient religions.
Moses is worried about going back to Egypt
and trying to persuade the Pharaoh to let the Jews go,
and persuade the Jews to follow him out into the desert
even though he doesn't know where he's going.
And he says, how am I going to do this?
I'm slow of speech and slow of tongue.
And his god tells him-- You don't have to.
I'm going to speak through you.
There are many instances of people
being Oracles throughout world religions.
OK, the Oracle at Delphi was especially
well known in the ancient Mediterranean.
She was supposed to be channeling for the god Apollo.
Now there's been a lot of nonsense written
about the Delphic Oracle in the last 10 years.
Someone discovered that there's a cave
behind the location of the ancient temple.
If you go back far enough in the cave, there are fissures.
And every now and then, fumes out-gas through those fissures.
If you were to kneel over the fissure,
and you were too hot-box-- I'm sure you know what that is,
it's just inhaling very rapidly-- those fumes,
you would eventually hallucinate.
So, having discovered that, some people have decided,
well, you see, that explains the Delphic Oracle.
She was just going back to the cave, hot-boxing gases
until she flipped out, and then she would come and babble,
and people would think she was divinely inspired.
Classicist jumped on that immediately, and said,
that's a solution without a problem.
All the accounts of the Delphic Oracle
have her speaking in a very matter of fact way--
never in a trance state, never an ecstatic state,
never talking in tongues.
This just doesn't fit the facts we
know about the Delphic Oracle.
I make no judgment about how she saw the future,
or if she saw the future.
But these things, I am going to tell you--
She would give you a very cryptic reply to your question.
How you interpreted that reply was a test of your character.
It would either, if you understood it, save you,
or if you misunderstood it, possibly destroy you.
I'm going to put a few terms on the board, here.
She never went to people, like an Old Testament prophet,
and said, I have something really important
for you to know.
She simply answered questions that were put to her.
And people did not come to her with trivial questions.
This is not like reading your daily horoscope.
On the old X-Files TV show, Agent Mulder used to say,
don't open a door unless you really
want to know what's on the other side.
OK, well, you didn't ask her questions trivially
because she would tell you things
that you maybe didn't want to know.
One of the things-- one of the ice breakers
I asked you was, if you could know the time
and date of your own death, would you
want to know it in advance?
And many of you said, no-- I would just obsess about it.
It would be too upsetting for me.
Well, OK.
So that's an illustration of why you would not just
ask any old question of the Delphic Oracle.
There are things that maybe you'd
rather find out for yourself.
You'd rather learn from your experience.
So as you went in to see the Delphic Oracle,
there were two mottoes carved at the entrance.
You were supposed to keep those mottoes in mind
as you ask the question, and as the question was answered.
One was-- Know yourself.
Know who you are.
Know your strengths.
Know your weaknesses.
Know your limitations.
Know your situation.
Know your possibilities.
And then-- Act in appropriate measure.
Some people want to translate that
as-- all things in moderation, or act in moderation.
The Greeks did not believe you should always be moderate.
If there was ever a people on the face of the Earth who
believed that sometimes you should be bold,
even to the point of being reckless,
sometimes you should throw yourself headlong
into a battle that can't be won simply
because it's the right thing to do,
surely the ancient Greeks believed that.
Act in appropriate measure.
How do you know what is appropriate measure?
You know yourself.
You know who you are.
Your strengths, your weaknesses and your situation, and then
act appropriately.
You had to pass between those two mottoes
to go in to see the Oracle and ask your question.
If you kept these two things in mind,
what Oracle told you might in fact save you.
If you misunderstood them, probably it
was because of the vice of hubris.
Some people want to translate hubris as pride.
I think that is very, very misleading.
The Greeks did not believe that pride was a sin.
It's post-medieval Christianity that people
think of pride as being a vice.
Because it was one of the seven deadly sins
for the medieval Christians.
The Greeks didn't think pride was a vice.
In fact, if you weren't proud of your own achievements,
of your own virtues, they would think
something was wrong with you.
How are you going to appreciate excellence in other people
if you don't appreciate it in yourself?
Today we simply call that self-esteem.
OK?
So pride is not a good translation for hubris.
Hubris is always a vice.
Pride is not always a vice for the Greeks.
Hubris is something more like arrogance.
You are so full of yourself that you don't know yourself.
You don't know your limitations.
You misjudge your situation.
And so you act in a way that is excessive and destructive,
or self-destructive.
OK, hubris will be your undoing.
Now an example of that-- an example
of that-- One of the most famous ones
was a Greek general who went to the Delphic Oracle
because he had decided, you know,
there's a possibility I could attack
this Persian military force.
The ancient Greeks and ancient Persians
were always fighting each other on and off
for very, very long time.
But this Greek general did not have the numbers.
He didn't have the strategic advantage.
He didn't have any reason to believe
that he could defeat the Persians if he attacked them,
except the element of surprise.
Element of surprise isn't necessarily enough.
If I walked up to Mike Tyson and slapped him in the face,
he certainly be surprised.
After that point, it would go very, very badly for me.
Actually, only if he noticed it.
This general went to the Delphic Oracle
and asked her, what will happen if I attack the Persians.
And the Oracle very matter-of-factly
replied, a great army will be destroyed.
Well, this Greek general was full of himself.
He was thinking, oh, a great army will be destroyed.
That means I'm going to win.
They'll build statues to me.
They'll name cities after me.
My name will be sung in ballads for centuries after I'm dead.
So he attacked the Persians, and a great army was destroyed.
But it was his own.
If he had kept the mottoes of the Delphic Oracle in mind--
Know yourself, and all things in appropriate measure--
he would've asked, OK, a great army will be destroyed.
She didn't say whose.
What should I suppose about this?
Do I have the strength?
Do I have the numbers?
Do I have the experience?
Do I have any reason to believe I actually
will beat the Persians?
No, I just really want to beat the Persians.
Or as we might say in modern pop culture lingo,
well, it's true for me that I can beat the Persians,
because I really believe it, and I want to believe it.
Well unfortunately, that wishful thinking
doesn't make anything true.
It would be very, very, very different world.
So, why am I telling you all this
as back story for Socrates?
There's a very specific reason.
A young friend of Socrates went to him-- went to the Delphic
Oracle, rather, without the knowledge
or permission of Socrates.
Went to the Delphic Oracle, and asked
the Oracle-- is Socrates the wisest man in Greece?
The Oracle very matter-of-factly replied-- No man is wiser.
Well, this young friend of Socrates was very excited.
He ran back to Athens.
Socrates, you're the wisest man in Greece!
That's impossible, Socrates said.
I know I'm an ignorant man.
How can I possibly be the wisest man in Greece?
No, no, really.
The god spoke through the Oracle and said
you're the wisest man in Greece.
Now, many people, hearing that, would be exuberantly happy.
Oh my word, I'm as smart as I hoped I was.
The gods have said so.
You'd maybe even hang out your shingle.
"Socrates, wisest man in Greece."
Start charging people to talk to you to get your advice.
"Endorsed by Apollo."
That's not Socrates.
Socrates instead said to his young friend-- Tell me,
what exactly did you ask the Oracle?
And what exactly did the Oracle say to you?
Well, I asked her-- Is Socrates the wisest man in Greece,
and she said, no man is wiser.
Well, then you see, said Socrates.
She didn't say I was wise.
She just said nobody was any wiser than I am.
Oh.
Great.
You know what you just dropped in my lap, my friend?
Through you, the gods have just told me
that no one is any wiser than I am.
Why is that important?
At this time, the educational system, the political system,
the legal system in Athens was being dominated
by people who were called sophists.
I'm going to put that on the board.
Sophist literally means "wise man."
These were people who were professional wise men.
If that seems like an odd profession,
I'd say go to any Barnes and Noble,
and walk down the aisles, and see how many people
are willing to tell you that you, in fact, don't know how
to run your own life unless you pay $29.95
and get their book in hard cover.
And then you're going to want the desk calendar
so you have daily reminders.
And then you're going to want to spend several thousand dollars
to go to their workshop, where they essentially will simply
recap parts of the book.
We do have professional wise men.
But expand that.
We have political analysts-- political advisers--
who consult the people who are, in fact, supposed
to be our political leaders, and tell them what they ought
to say, what they ought to do, how they ought to court
the public, how they ought to try to shape public opinion,
how they ought to make policy.
These people are professional wise men,
and that's one of the things, indeed,
that's the sophists of old did as well.
We have people who profess to educate you.
OK.
What are those, if not professional wise men?
In Athens, you were required by law to educate your sons.
Most people did not educate their daughters.
But you were required by law to educate your sons.
If indeed you had the money, you would
hire a sophist to educate your sons.
And in addition to that, if you had to argue a case in court,
you would hire a sophist to either teach you to do it
yourself or speak on your behalf.
Now of course the sophist charged a goodly sum
for their services.
They made a very good living, just
as people in similar circumstances
in our own society might, in fact, make a very good living
if they got a good reputation.
However, if your income depends upon being perceived
to be a wise man, you can't very well admit you're wrong.
And the more wrong you are, the more you have to dig your heels
and, if you will, fight dirty an argument
to try to make it look as if you're right.
In other words, the attempt to figure out what's true,
the attempt to find and expose your own errors,
has to be abandoned for the sake of
your professional reputation.
Now Socrates, on the other hand, always said,
if you show me where I'm wrong, you've
done me the best favor you can do me.
You've saved me from my own error.
Similarly, in the Old Testament, I
believe it's in book of Proverbs.
There's a verse that says-- If you rebuke a wise man,
he will love you for it.
Why?
Because, if you really do love wisdom,
you're going to want to find out your own errors,
to expose them, and to correct them.
Socrates, historically, is actually
the forefather of modern science.
Socrates believed that, rather than simply stake a claim
dogmatically, and defend it at all costs,
or speculate about what's right and what's not right,
you make a hypothesis, you test it.
If it doesn't bear up to scrutiny,
you go back and revise it.
You continue to do that until you
get something that stands up to scrutiny.
And if you can't reform your initial hypothesis
to make it conform to reality, then you abandoned it.
You say, you know what?
I was wrong.
There's a wonderful play by Bertolt Brecht about Galileo,
in which Galileo, in one scene, is visited by emissaries
of the Church, and is told-- stop
these experiments to observe sunspots.
We're very uncomfortable with that.
So he says, OK, fine, go away.
The Church emissaries leave, and he and his assistants
immediately get out their equipment
to begin observing sunspots again.
In this play, in this scene of the play,
Galileo's wife says to him, I can't
believe what an egoist you are.
You're willing to risk everything just
to prove you're right.
And Galileo is genuinely astonished.
He says, no, not to prove I'm right.
To find out whether I'm right.
As the Irish philosopher-- 18th century Irish philosopher,
Bishop Barclay put it-- Few men think,
yet all men hold opinions.
The ability to defend your opinion
isn't what makes you right.
The ability to persuade others isn't what makes you right.
If you've seen the film Thank You for Smoking,
you remember the figure of the tobacco lobbyist.
He's trying to explain to his son
what it is he does for a living.
And the son, somewhat horrified at first,
says, Dad, what if you're wrong?
And the tobacco lobbyist seems generally puzzled, and he said,
but if you win the argument, you're never wrong.
I thought to myself when I saw the film, Ah, this
is a portrait of a modern-day sophist.
The sophists had a sort of informal model--
I can make the weaker argument the stronger, the stronger
argument the weaker, and turn the truth on its head.
Does that sound kind of nasty?
Well, think of it this way.
Supposing you went to a lawyer, and you said, I don't know,
I really think I ought to be able to sue this person,
but my case is kind of flimsy.
Can you help me?
And the lawyer said, hey, look at my track record.
I can make the weaker argument the stronger, the stronger
argument the weaker, and turn the truth on its head,
you'd probably put down your deposit right away,
and say, you're my guy.
Because I just want to win.
If you're a politician, and you're hiring a spin doctor
to manipulate your image for the public, and the fellow said,
look, trust me.
I can make the weaker argument the stronger, the stronger
argument the weaker, and turn the truth on its head,
you would probably say, wow, valuable guy.
I should hire him right away.
There's the problem.
Probably all of you have heard attorney jokes, lawyer jokes.
Why don't sharks eat lawyers?
Professional courtesy.
And so forth and so forth.
I won't recite a whole litany of them.
Some of the most embarrassingly insulting lawyer
jokes I've ever heard we're told to me by the associate dean
of the law school at the University of Connecticut,
with a big smile on her face.
And I said, do lawyers really feel
this way about other lawyers?
And she just smiled, and her eyes twinkled,
and it was clear that-- yup.
Well, does that mean that there are no good,
principled decent lawyers?
No, it doesn't mean that at all.
What it means is that you have the power to persuade people.
You have the power to manipulate the institutions to your ends.
You have the power, either to do very constructive things
or very destructive things.
And if you don't care about questions of right or wrong,
questions about whether you're being benevolent or harmful,
then guess what?
You can be a very dangerous person.
OK.
So the people of Athens basically regarded
sophists much the way people in our society
very often regard lawyers.
I don't trust them.
They're wicked.
They're dishonest.
Boy, I wish I could do what they do, though,
because they are so successful, and they are so street smart.
So OK, back to Socrates and the sophists.
Socrates calls himself a philosopher.
Not a wise man, but a philosopher.
Philosopher literally means, "lover of wisdom."
Not someone with a particular academic degree, or someone
with particular training, or someone
of a particular profession.
Socrates himself worked as a tinker and a sandal maker.
But someone who loves wisdom, and lets that love of wisdom
guide his conduct and his life.
It is because Socrates regarded himself as a lover of wisdom
that he refused to call himself a wise man.
He said, if I had any wisdom at all,
it is only that I understand the limits of what I know,
and I don't pretend to know what I don't know.
So now, consider the situation Socrates
is in after he hears what the Delphic Oracle said.
"No man is wiser than Socrates."
That is essentially telling him that the educational system,
the legal system, the political system of Athens
is in the hands of frauds and charlatans
who claim to be wise, but don't know what they are doing,
and probably only in it for their own profit.
This is the future of Athens.
Socrates is a very patriotic fellow.
He was decorated for bravery in the Peloponnesian Wars--
the wars between Athens and Sparta.
He has many times risked his life for Athens.
There was a temporary coup that seize control of Athens
at one point.
Socrates absolutely refused to cooperate.
His life was on the line.
He could have been arrested and executed at any time,
but he simply refused to cooperate.
That particular episode in the life of Socrates
has been pointed to by Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi,
Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, and others
as the invention of non-violent non-cooperation
as a means of social change.
So Socrates is willing to walk the talk.
What's he going to do now?
He can't sit on this.
If he thinks that these destructive elements are
in control of Athens, he can't just sit on this.
He's got to do something.
So he decides, this is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to publicly question these sophists.
I'm not going to claim they don't know what they're talking
about, because then I would have to claim
that I know more than they do, and I don't know if that's true
or not.
I'm just going to question them.
If they claim, I know how the government should be run,
if they claim, I know what the gods want from us,
if they claim, I know what knowledge
is, I know what piety is, I know what whatever is,
I'm going to ask them-- OK, explain it to me.
And they will have to publicly try to explain themselves,
and I will continue to ask them questions.
If they are in any way unclear, or presumptuous, or evasive,
I will continue to ask them questions until it becomes
clear they know what they're talking about,
or they don't know what they're talking about.
And I suspect it'll be the latter.
That it'll turn out they don't know
what they're talking about.
And they will convict themselves,
out of their own mouths, in front of everybody.
So the word would be out.
Indeed, the word was out.
And these aristocratic young men,
whose fathers were paying lots of good money to the sophists,
began saying-- Why is my dad paying money
to this guy, when Socrates just took him apart, for free.
I can go in the marketplace and hang around
and talk with Socrates for free, and learn
more than I'm learning from this sophist.
Not only that, Socrates seems to have much more integrity
then the sophists.
I don't want to be like this guy,
I want to be like Socrates.
So the sophists were losing their reputations,
and they were losing their revenues because of Socrates.
And Socrates was not doing this to be a smart aleck,
he was doing this because he thought the future of Athens
really depended on this.
It depended upon these young people
who he didn't want to see seduced away to unworthy ends
by people who didn't care.
So, as you might imagine, he made many good friends
who regarded him as a heroic figure,
and he also made very powerful and well-connected enemies.
Eventually, he was charged with corrupting the youth of Athens
with impiety.
Largely trumped up charges, based
on very old laws-- what we would call
"blue laws," laws that just generally even weren't enforced
anymore-- and tried, almost acquitted, and eventually
executed.
He had many chances to escape from Athens
rather than face the music.
He preferred to stand his ground,
not to compromise his beliefs, not to compromise values,
but to stand his ground, even if that cost his life.
And indeed we have gained immeasurably from his example,
and from the work that he did.
So that is the back story.
Socrates is generally credited with not only essentially
inventing scientific method-- you
take this hypothetical-- you make a hypothesis,
test it, revise it, so forth, method that Socrates used,
that I already described-- add to that Plato's notion
that mathematics is the language of nature.
Put those two together, and essentially you
have, historically, the foundations of modern science.
Also his method of questioning the sophists
is the-- historically-- the foundation
of what we call cross-examination
in our courts of law.
And indeed, if you go to law school,
they will call-- when you learn cross-examination-- they
actually call that Socratic Method.
Although there's more to Socratic
Method than just cross-examination.
So this is the back story for what Socrates is all about,
what he's doing, why he's doing it, who he is.
And he-- in the first passage you're going to read-- he
is talking with the two elder brothers of Plato, Adeimantus
and Glaucon, and Adeimantus asks him, why is it,
if philosophy is so useful, potentially so
noble an endeavor, why is it that average Joe and Jane
Toga on the street think that philosophers
are either useless or dangerous?
Socrates says, well, I don't know that I necessarily
disagree with that.
And that is the point at which we will begin the next video.