Was Socrates man or myth?

Applying historical Jesus criteria to Socrates

Filed under: HISTORIOGRAPHY Neil Godfrey @ 10:48 am Tags: Aristophanes, Jesus, Plato, Xenophon It might be interesting to see how the criteria used for the quest for the historical Jesus might work with another figure of comparable stature in the ancient world. A comparison like this might help us assess their real value as determinants of historicity. Multiple Attestation We have the writings of the philosopher Plato. These dramatize the teaching career, trial and death of Socrates in dialogue form. But was Plato writing about a real person or was Socrates only a literary character he chose through whom to express his own philosophical teachings? We have the writings of Xenophon. Xenophon
A scene including Socrates in Aristophanes' play The Clouds. Image via Wikipedia

was known as a historian but his writings about Socrates are not histories. They portray a very different sort of teacher from the one we read about in Plato. Both Plato and Xenophon are clearly writing as devoted followers of Socrates, and classicists have often remarked that the teachings they attribute to Socrates are really their own and not those of a real Socrates at all. So we are still have one source type represented by both of these authors, and historicity cannot be settled by appealing to their multiple attestation alone. This reminds us of Schweitzers complaint about the nature of the evidence for Jesus: [A]ll the reports about [Jesus] go back to the one source of tradition, early Christianity itself, and there are no data available in Jewish or Gentile secular history which could be used as controls. Thus the degree of certainty cannot even be raised so high as positive probability. (Schweitzer, Quest, p.402) But we do have another source that appears to be quite independent of the above pair of Socrates disciples. We have the writings of Aristophanes, another apparent contemporary. Now far from writing as an admiring follower of Socrates, Aristophanes wrote plays in which he lampooned Socrates. Socrates appears in his works as a wastrel, dirty, leading people astray though deceitful, self-serving cleverness. But even if Aristophanes had been kinder to his portrayal of Socrates, he would still have been writing as one relatively independent of those claiming to be personal followers.

So it appears we have a strong case for Socrates being a real person after all. Aristophanes is certainly not using Socrates as a literary figure through which to express his own philosophy. It is not perfect or watertight. Multiple independent attestation as a principle does not guarantee the factness of what is reported. Alien abductions are reported by many people who have nothing to do with each other. Likewise reports that the White House and Israel were involved in a conspiracy to destroy the Twin Towers on 9/11 are encountered by apparently quite unconnected people. Likewise, we cannot be completely certain that Socrates did not originate as a literary or other form of cultural construct that was exploited by Aristophanes, Plato and Xenophon. And some classicists do raise the question whether or not Socrates was such a construct or a historical person. But till further work is done by those who raise this question it appears we have reasonable grounds for accepting the probability of the historical existence of Socrates. Embarrassment There is plenty about Socrates to cause all sorts of embarrassment to followers and others who may have known him. He had a shrew of a wife. He neglected his family in preference to talk in the marketplace and drinking sessions with his mates. Even one of his followers accused him of neglecting his own young sons by choosing to die rather than to live. But none of these can seriously be used to affirm Socrates historical existence. All such details are part of the literary portrayal and many are used as foils from which to present new teachings as likely as not the teachings of Plato or Xenophon. Did he really corrupt the morals of the youth? Well of course the answer to that depends on ones perspective. Plato used such an embarrassment as a foil to condemn the state he despised; Aristophanes used it to write a very clever play. Embarrassing details can be found to function in many different ways that serve the interests of those reporting them. In other words, the embarrassment is not really cringing personal embarrassment. It is a foil to be taken up and used, or not, as served different authors interests. It cannot be used as an indicator of the historicity of Socrates. Dissimilarity In the dialogues of Plato we read about ideas and questioning of values that often appear to be innovative. Others at the time, such as the playwright Euripides, were also questioning traditional values. Socrates was not the only sophist of the day. But it is possible to single out distinctive sayings attributed to him that were not quite exactly like anything in the earlier extant record. But it is, of course, impossible to know if these really were created by Socrates or by Plato or by someone else yet again. All change and innovation in society is the work of many sources, and where one person takes the credit for something, that one person is always indebted to what has gone before. Whether any new saying, or more often, an old idea wrapped up with a new twist, originates with a Mr X or Ms Y is generally impossible to say. We cant assume that an attribution to Socrates (or Jesus) is

really original to them and then use that assumption as evidence for the very existence of Socrates or Jesus. That way we could rationalize the historical existence of every literary character to whom a saying is attributed. We need, of course, to first establish the existence of such a person. Thats the first step. (We may say we have a strong probability that Socrates existed by virtue of multiple independent attestation.) But the second step is even harder: Were they or were they not really the first to say what is attributed to them? Coherence The story of Socrates is coherent, like any passable plot in any passable fiction. A well-meaning man unsettles many by asking uncomfortable questions and is scapegoated as a corrupter of youth and all that is wrong with the times. It also coheres with what we know of subsequent events: the teachings of Plato and establishment of his Academy and all the philosophical schools that branched off from that. That does not prove the historicity of the account, though. Many religious and national myths can claim some sort of coherent origination tale. But at least in this case coherence does lend some added weight to the probability that has previously been offered us by the independent attestations. Plausibility The story of Socrates is plausible. There is no resurrection at the end, no turning water into wine when they ran out of the good stuff at the symposium, no offers to release Darius or Xerxes in exchange for Socrates at his trial. The only heavenly ascent and descent is in a basket held up by a prop on a theatre stage. But it is the very plausibility of it that enables us to reasonably ask the question in the first place about whether or not it is also literally true. A child listening to a bed-time story finds it plausible enough to ask the question, Is it true? Without plausibility we dont even ask the question. Well, thats not quite true with the Gospels. Some people even seriously ask if Jesus really were raised from the dead, etc. But I am not interested in getting into that sort of discussion. I usually politely close the door on missionaries who try to raise it with me with a firm Not interested, thank you. All plausibility does is offer us a justification for asking if a story is historically true. It is not a sufficient reason to believe in historicity. It is a necessary condition, but every criminal constructing an alibi to escape detection knows this. Conclusion I have said enough. I leave it to others to draw their own conclusions.