1.1 What is philosophy?
1.2 Is philosophy Christian?
1.3 Unexamined assumptions
1.4 Socrates and the Unexamined Life (this post)
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1. If I were to lead you on a journey through the primary sources of philosophy, I would probably start by having you read Plato's Apology. I always feel a little guilty about this because Socrates stands at the heart of the so-called "Western canon" of philosophical thought. What about China? For that matter, what about Proverbs?
Then again, the ancient Greeks were not Europeans. That's a historical paradigm of much later making. To me, Socrates is a great place to begin because of what he said at the time of his trial, not because he was Greek or "Western."
2. You may know the story. For decades, Socrates had made enemies of the rich and powerful in Athens. How? By embarrassing them in public. And how did he do that? By asking them questions they couldn't seem to answer and making them look like fools.
He was accused of subverting the youth by questioning the gods. In fact, he questioned everything. To be honest, I'm not sure his arguments were actually very good much of the time. He often committed the fallacy of equivocation by changing the meaning of words mid-argument.
His philosophy was that there actually weren't answers to most of the questions he asked. [1] He reminds me of a friend I had in high school who always took the opposite side of any argument. I don't think it was always because they disagreed. They just liked to argue.
Socrates strikes me that way sometimes.
3. It is also difficult for me not to hear arrogance disguised as false humility in Socrates. It seems all too familiar. A friend goes to the Oracle at Delphi. She was the prophetess that everyone in Greece went to in order to get insight into the present and future. His friend asks, "Is Socrates the wisest man alive?"
It seems like a safe enough question for her. She often gave ambiguous answers like "Go to war and a nation will be overthrown." Of course, in a sense that would be true no matter who won. It reminds me of my parents' generation trying to follow a movie. "Who's that?" "What's happening there?" In the old days, they had to show a plane traveling on a map for the viewers to understand a change of setting, as the Indiana Jones movies mimic.
Socrates' response has always struck me as "What? Little ol' me? The wisest man? I'd better find out if this is true."
So, without really believing in the gods -- at least not the conventional gods of Athens -- he now considers himself to have a divinely-given directive to embarass all the leaders in Athens by showing them they're not really as smart as they think they are.
They probably had it coming to them. But it does make Socrates look like, well, let's say a very annoying person.
In the end, he says, "Well, what do you know? I must be the wisest person in town because I at least know that I'm not wise."
Despite questions over Socrates' sincerity, that is a key takeaway from The Apology -- true wisdom usually involves what I might call epistemic humility, a great awareness of what you don't know, not a strong sense of what you think you know.
4. Plato's Apology is also a great place to start a philosophical journey because of Socrates' great dictum that "The unexamined life is not worth living." I think that's a little bit much. There's also truth in the saying that "Ignorance is bliss." I suspect I would be a lot happier person if my life wasn't so self-examined.
However, all the same, I wouldn't trade my supposed self-awareness for obliviousness. So two caveats. I think it's acceptable for someone to say, "I'm not sure I could handle complete awareness. I think I'll just keep doing my thing over here." However, maybe don't try to make any important decisions for others, and don't post your opinions on Facebook. "The unexamined life is not worth posting."
The second is that I think I would rather live all the same, even if my life were unexamined. Socrates was found guilty of corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods. His enemies proposed death. He was allowed to offer a counter-proposal. The stubborn old git, did he counter-propose a fine? No. He proposed they give him a stipend to keep doing the very thing he was found guilty of. Idiot.
Of course, his proposal was rejected. So he has friends who offer to smuggle him out of Athens. "No, he stubbornly says. I've been found guilty. I must obey the law." He drinks the hemlock. It is sometimes said that he becomes the first martyr of philosophy. Nevermind that it's really his own fault in the end. It nevertheless secures his place in the pantheon of human philosophy -- with a lot of help from Plato.
5. Nevertheless, the unexamined life is often harmful to yourself and others. It can be very harmful if you live in a place where you get to vote on your country's future. In the end, I want to believe that a life oriented around the truth is a better life than one centered in ignorance. I want to believe that a life of self-awareness is a better life for those around you than obliviousness. Perhaps there are exceptions, but I would like to think that they are exactly that -- exceptions.
If you disagree, stop reading now. Go watch that entertaining Tic Tok or YouTube short. But try not to make any decisions that affect anyone but yourself.
[1] Like Jesus, Socrates never wrote anything down. We only know his teaching through the eyes of his followers. In The Apology, we probably come close to hearing the real Socrates. But we should also keep in mind that we are hearing Socrates through Plato's eyes. The further we go into Plato's writings, the more we are likely hearing Plato's ideas rather than Socrates'.
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1.1 What is philosophy?
1.2 Is philosophy Christian?
1.3 Unexamined assumptions
1.4 Socrates and the Unexamined Life (this post)
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