Socrates
Plato’s Teacher
Socrates
Life
Socrates 469-399 BCE was an Athenian philosopher and veteran of the Peloponnesian War. The persona of Socrates comes to us from the dialogues of his student and successor Plato.
As the star of many of Plato’s dialogues such as Gorgias, Meno, Timaeus, and The Republic. In each case, Socrates lays out a philosophy very much reminiscent of Tahuti’s method, with an emphasis on universal law, and on choosing to tend toward the good and doing things for the sake of the good above all else.
In Plato’s Republic books VI and VII, in conversation with Glaucon, the character of Socrates presents method of determining truth mirrors that of Tahuti but his description of the mental process and his understanding of its relationship to the lawful universe absolutely unique.
His principle of hypothesizing the higher hypothesis in book VI, and his description of the journey from total ignorance into enlightenment in book VII with his cave parable. Taken together, books VI and VII of Plato’s Republic form an adequate encapsulation of the Socratic method of pursuing the truth and thus the good.
Death
The life story of Socrates is brought to us Plato in a series of dialogues centered on his teachings. His death is portrayed most notably in Plato’s dialogue Apology, where Socrates despite the continual appeals of his followers forsakes his life for the sake the the Good much in the same way the Jesus of Nazareth would go on to do several centuries later.
In the dialogue Socrates is given many chances to take the route of Gorgias absolving himself of the actions of his students but on every occasion he refused and so in 399 BCE he was executed by poisoning.
theory of Forms
“Then also understand that, by the other subsection of the intelligible, I mean that which reason itself grasps by the power of dialectic. It does not consider these hypothesis as first principles but truly as hypotheses-but as stepping stones to take off from, enabling it to reach an unhypothetical first principle of everything. Having grasped this principle, it reverses itself and, keeping hold of what follows from it, comes down to a conclusion without making use of anything visible at all, but only forms themselves, moving on from forms to forms, and ending in forms.
— Socrates, Plato’s Republic VI, Plato Complete Works - John.M. Cooper (1997)”
“The orator has the ability to speak against everyone on every subject, so as in gatherings to be more persuasive, in short, about anything he likes, but the fact that he has the ability to rob doctors or other craftsman of their reputations doesn’t give him any more of a reason to do it. He should use orator justly as he would any competitive skill. And I suppose that if a person who has become an orator goes on with this craft to commit wrongdoing, we shouldn’t hate his teacher and exile him from our cities. For while the teacher imparted it to be used justly, the pupil is making the opposite use of it. So it is the misuser whom it’s just to hate and exile or put to death, not the teacher.”