Philosophy - Socrates

PHILOSOPHY

THROUGH SOCRATES

 “The power reasoned judgment of man and with other human minds, and

practice it makes man who he is.” 

Socrates started to argue along the lines of common sense. His wide range of questions encouraged his students to think and reason. According to him, the most important thing men have in common is their capability of free judgment through the use of reason. To know who man is, first he should ask his very self “Know thy self”.

Socrates tried nothing more than to know himself, to find about man and especially about human qualities of man. Such man is that “I am and I and a possible You in myself” is a philosophical investigation of man that has to start within himself through reflective and critical judgment. Socrates believed that man’s knowledge of his non-knowledge is the starting point of his philosophical analysis or inquiry.

This knowledge that man has does not have the truth, that he is not wise, and that he can only become wiser step by step handling each case on its own merits.

Man should sit and read his own mind. At which he is opening his mind to others. But before he can read his own mind he must first clear the path to find the natural capabilities of reasoning in others. This ‘clearing of path’ is dialectics for Socrates.

Socrates believes that truth can only be approached in community. The lonely thinker may be very good but if he does not even test out his thoughts before an audience of peers who can think with him then he might fail, because reasoning and acquisition of judgment can only be done with other persons. That is his conviction and that is his practice.

Men cannot have the truth but in this ‘not having’ they can begin to judge things and to make things truer. They can become more wise and proceed creatively, through the use of their reason, that is, the power of judgment. Men have the capability of sitting together and arguing with one another about the best reason that can be found to do such and such. They can design their own deeds and if they do it according to this higher reason, then whatever proofs they are able to give in support of their own ‘reasons’ are proofs of philosophy.

This capability of man is infinite and it guarantees the establishment and creation of something in the world that is more beautiful, more just, more courageous, and more judicious than had ever existed before it. It means that men, by their deeds, can establish and create facts in the world and therefore they can create truth in the world. Truth can exist within them, even though they do not know the truth.

For Socrates, man is a ‘maker of ideas’. Man is always a free maker of ideas, an inventor. Men live by ideas. They are permanently producing ideas. They are idea producing beings. Ideas are produced by reason which is its criterion or principle.