The Present State of the Socratic Problem Author(s): C. J. de Vogel Source: Phronesis, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Nov., 1955), pp.

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problem state Thepresent oftheSocratic

C. J. DE VOGEL
few years ago Gigon's Sokrates1 with its provocative thesis that of the son of Sophroniscus hardly anything can be known - in any case not that he was a philosopher nor what kind of philosophy was his -, gave rise to various reactions. At Paris, E. Brehier in his Postwar Chronicle welcomed it as "a very important book".2 And when, at about the same time and in the same milieu, J. Patocka protested against Gigon's theory 8, remarking that, though a doctrineof Socrates may be unknown to us, yet we do know his philosophicalattitude (which, in his opinion, is a far more important thing), he too seemed to be much impressed by Gigon's philological method and he supposed that others whose approach to the question was from this side would be similarly impressed. That in fact the method as employed by Gigon is liable to serious objections was shown by different critics 4, most thoroughly perhaps by myself.5 Meanwhile others attacked the problem almost simultaneously. Bruno Snell found a trace of Socrates' philosophical doctrine in Euripides' 6; Hippolytus WolfgangSchmidt7 (following A. E. Taylor, R. Philippson, E. Angelopoulos and myself8) reconsidered the portrait of Socrates in the Cloudsand found confirmation in the words of Aristophanes of some essential characteristics of the Platonic Socrates. Finally E. de Strycker ' adduced three passages of unquestionable historical value by which Plato's testimony on Socrates in the Apology,Critoand Phaedois confirmed. While this debate was in progress, an important new contribution to the problem was made by a scholar who had been working at it quite independently for several years: Mr. V. de Magalhaes-Vilhena, a his Portugese member of the Paris Centre of Research. In I949,
A
'

0. Gigon, Sokrates, sein Bild in Dichtung u. Geschichte,Bemne I947. Philosophic (Chronique des ann6es d'apres guerre, 1946-'48) pub1iWpar l'Institut pp.

internationalde Phil., vol. XII P. 7. 8 J. Patocka, Remarquessur le probleme de Socrate, in Revue philosophique I949,
186-2 13.

in p. i8 f.; Von Ivanka Erasmus1949, p. 393; E. Broch ' J. Tate in Class. Review I949, in Archir ur Philosophic III (x94.9), pp. 3 16-323. 6 Une nouvelle interpritation du problemesocratique in MnemosyneI95I, p. 30-39. 6 Dasfrbhste Zeugnis uber Sokrates in Philologus XCVII I948, pp. 125-134. 7 Das Sokratesbildder Wolkenin Philologus 1948, pp. 2og-228. (under 203 b). 8 See my GreekPhilosophyI (19So), p. 11 * La timoignages historiques sur Socrate, in: Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves, X (19S0) =Me'langes Gre'goire p. 199-230. II, 26

soutenancede these took place in the Sorbonne. In 1952 two volumes de appeared, the one (Le ProbThme Socrate)embodyinghis these, the other I (Socrateet la ligende platonicienne)his thUse compldmentaire.

If one considered only the author's stated 'conclusions' one might suppose that this enormous work had produced little really new; but if one judgesit to be of only secondaryimportance,one would be decidedly wrong. The author himself limits its scope modestly, saying that his largerwork is only meant to be a 'historicalintroduction'to the problem and his smallerone a first attempt at a solution of it. But anyone who is at all acquaintedwith the literature on Socrates from the eighteenth century (let us say) to our own day will know what is involved in such an 'introduction'. The author's way of 'introducing'the problem is first of all to go through all previous interpretationsand solutions. Next he shows the problem to be a special case of the general problem of History. Then he enquires into the value of the different sources, continually recalling earlier valuations of them. Finally he sifts this enormous bulk of material to see whether any strict knowledge of a 'historical Socrates' is possible. His bibliographyis of nearly a hundred pages and in many footnotes he gives a complete bibliographical orientation going back to the eighteenth century and earlier. His knowledge of what he calls the 'history' of the problem is extraordinarilyvast, both in time and in extension: he neglects no aspect of the problem and scarcely omits any publication in any language. What has been achieved by all this? As the author intended, a solid foundationhas been laid for all further studies in this field. By the very knowledge of past views and theories, even if they were mainly errors, the width of the problem is better seen and its depth is better fathomed. Vilhenais also right in pointing out that the Socraticproblemrepresents all that is problematicalin the historical method as such, and presents the difficultyin its sharpestform. For the 'facts' with which we have to do here are alreadyinterpretations. Does this mean that, in this case, no historical truth can be reached? It would be showing a very simplified conception of history to answer in the affirmative.For what are "historicalfacts"?- Our author replies: historical facts are the constructions history.Not that there is nothing of objective behind them. But what is behind is an infinitelygreat complex which is in continuousmotion. The intellect cuts off, so to say, a piece of it and tries to explain it. Historical facts are therefore noumena constructed by the mind of thehistorian. The real motion of history lies
I

Both volumes were published by the Presses Universitaires.

27

behind them just as the objective reality of nature lies behind our physical notions and theories. Something in an objective order corresponds with what we call historical facts. They are subjective and objective at once, neither identical with the moving complex of history nor purely mental conceptions. So in the Socratic problem the facts are already interpretations and there can never be a verifiable solution: nevertheless one solution is more plausible than another, and we must seek the most plausibleamong them. By these methodological reflections Vilhena's attitude is determined. At first he seems to be close to Gigon, for he holds that everythingwe hear about Socrates - not only from Maier, Burnet, Taylor or Zeller but also from Plato, Xenophon or Aristotle - is constructed. The legend took hold of Socrates in his own lifetime: Socratesbecame a historical reality to us by losing his 'authentic existence'.' We see him under different masks, in different disguise, and without these we cannot MAyo% apprehendhim. For us Socratesand the ZXwxpac=xoL are one. The 'real' Socrates we have not: what we have is a set of interpretations each of which represents a 'theoretically possible' Socrates.2Thus we that in speakingof past theories (of Dupreel, for example, can understand or of Nietzsche) Vilhenadoes not indicate the essentialmistakeor defect of the interpretationbut simply declares that their authors'addeda new legend' to the existing Socrateslegends.3 Yet Vilhena's intention is not to lead us to scepticism. At the end of his first historical exploration he concludes by rejecting the two extremes - the strict historicity of Plato's Socrates maintained by Burnet and Taylorand the extreme denial of any possibility of knowing who Socrates was are alike dismissed as past hypotheses. There is no privileged testimony in the sense that there is a testimony capableof restoring 'the real Socrates' to us; but there may be a testimony containing more of the truth than any other. It may even be capableof showing us the essential characterof Socratesas a philosopher.
1 Le problUme Socrate, p. 100. de
2

1 take the expression "unSocratetheorique possible" on

p.

103

(op. cit.) as a misprint

for 'thioriquement possible".

3 Socratcct la idgende platonicienne, p. 2 7 (on Dupriel): Cette thhse mEmen'aboutit-elle pas I fonder une nouvelle 1gende, celle d'un Socrate plagiaire des grands sophistes? ib. p. SS (on Nietzsche): L'interpr6tationdu Socratismequ'a donn6e Nietzsche est lc de contre-pied de la ligende habituelle, des traditionsinterpr&tatives Platon,d'Aristote, de Cic&ron,de Hegel et de Zeller. Mais I son tour eile n'en est pa moins une fagon personnelle de r^flichir la pens& d'un philosophe. Voulant en finir avec une lkgende, Nietzche ne fait qu'en commencer une autre.

28

Mr. Vilhena thinks, after all, that such is the case with Plato's dialogues, - if only the historian knows to distinguish the author's individual motives. And these, he thinks, must be found not exclusively in speculative philosophy, but as well in the political situation of his time, and in the social and ideological struggle connected with it. Thus in the present situation of historical research, a preciser criticism can lead to a better founded view - not indeed to an absolute and verifiable truth, but to a high degree of probability, capable of demonstration. As Vilhena's introductory chapter is most useful for preventing rash and simplified solutions concerning the possibility of knowing the historical Socrates, so a following section of his greater work 1 is of special value for the understanding of the philosophical meaning of Socrates' thought. It is certainly an excellent thing to see what Schleiermacher, what Hegel found in Socrates, how Zeller, reacting against this, defined the essence of his philosophy; to learn what exactly Grote's position was and what the views of Oliveira Martins and of Nietzsche; how Dilthey, Boutroux and Brochard understood Socrates, and how the historian J. B. Bury, followed by many others. Vilhena treats the question of the sources amply. As to Xenophon, his conclusion is negative. Von Arnim's endeavour to restore the authority of the author of the Memorabilia is judged by him to be a failure. Aristophanes is reserved for consideration in a future publication and the so-called minor Socratics receive only privisional attention. Though Vilhena devotes four chapters of his larger work to the testimony of Aristotle, his conclusion is negative and rather excessively so. After stating that Aristotle views all foregoing philosophy only as a preparation for his own, he turns to examine Aristotle's texts on Socrates in detail and to analyse his possible sources of information. He concludes - as Burnet and Taylor did - that Aristotle cannot bring us any nearer to Socrates by his testimony since this contains nothing essential which we did not already know through Plato. We come therefore to Vilhena's main position, the primacy of Plato's testimony on Socrates. He does not think it possible to divide the dialogues into Socratic and non-Socratic ones. According to him Aristotle, who himself depends on Plato, cannot supply us with the grounds for making such a distinction, and therefore we should abandon the effort to make it. Furthermore, since Aristotle was no historian, we must also abandon the traditional view, based on Aristotle, of
1

partie, ch. I, section B. Premi&re

29

Socrates as 'the founder of a philosophy of concepts'. Here Vilhena's view approximatesto that of H. Maier, save that he does not accept the contention of Maierthat Aristotle's view is wrongbecauseit'isincorrectly based on Xenophon.' Vilhena believes that this view is more of a construction by modem Aristotelianslike Zeller or by those who, like E. Boutroux, begin with Xenophon and interpret him on the principles of Aristotelianlogic. He does not believe that Aristotle's own testimony on Socrates (the passagesin Metaph. A 6, M 4 and M 9) necessarily requires to be understood as attributing to him this 'philosophy of concepts'. But the crucial question is whether Aristotle's testimony can be legitimatelyused in criticising the dialoguesof Plato. Ross, for instance, thinks that this testimony should prevent us from ascribingthe theory of Ideas to Socratesin the way Burnet and Taylor did. Robin and DiEs were of the same opinion as Ross. Burnet countered their objections by claiming that 'those who first maintainedthe existence of Ideas'are the c'tg3vyL)oL of Sophistes248a, and that these were Socratesand his Pythagorean friends. Vilhenajoins Robin, Field and Ross in findingthis explanationfar from naturaland in rejecting it.2 He refuses, however, to follow the traditionalline of the others and to attributea 'philosophy of concepts' to Socrates. He would rather 'platonize' Socrates than 'aristotelize' him with Zeller and Boutroux. In general, he says, we have no serious reasonto prefer Aristotle's testimony absolutelyto anyother. In particular, what Aristotle says of the famous xcopwtL6~ which, according to him, separatesPlato from Socrates, can be explained in fact in such a way that Socratesin not so very far removed from Plato. We are accustomed to the belief that Plato in his dialogues made Socrateshis supporter; but is it not quite as possible that Aristotle, for the same psychological reasons, tried to detach Socrates from Plato? In any case it is clear that Socrates and Plato had much in common. Both of them admitted t& xa.0'6)ou. What does this amount to? Does it not mean that Aristotle admits that, in a sense, Socratesheld a theory of Ideas? Up to this point we maywell agreewith Vilhena, at any rate 'in a sense'. But he goes on to an argumentthat is not so certain, and an argument which leads one to doubt his method of following the Platonicdialogues without any check from the Aristotelian evidence. Plato, he says, was
1 The passage in question is Memorabilia IV 6. Here Xenophon does indeed reduce Socrates to a seeker of definitions. 2 It is evident that in Metaph. M 4 Socrates is opposed to Plato. 30

brought to 'separate' his Forms from sensibles by the Heraclitean doctrine of the perpetual mobility of the sensible world. (This is, of course, precisely what Aristotle affirms.) But there is more in the text according to Vilhena: without HeracliteanismSocrates would never have come to assume stable essences either. This is not in Aristotle, though Vilhena seems to want to read it into his statementsin Metaph. 6 and A M 4. I am afraidthat, in fact, this view comes from the Platonic dialogues - for examplefrom the end of the Cratylus.Our unreadiness accept it 1 to should warn us of the extent to which we do indeed check Plato by Aristotle. On the question of the nature of Socrates's doctrine Vilhena reaches two conclusions: (i) Since Socrates's thought implied a theory of Ideas - not of separatedIdeas, it is true, but yet of Ideasimmanentin sensible things it is proved that he cannot be called the fatherof the theory of concepts. The Form inherent in the individual thing is something other than a concept. Therefore the traditional conception of Socraticism, due to Zeller, is to be overturned. (ii) What Aristotle called the Socratic 'induction' is other than the Aristotelianinduction. The Socratic Forms can only be apprehendedby intuition, and this more in the sense of the intuitusmentis Descartes of than in the sense of the process of abstractionas describedby Aristotle. Neither conclusion will be readily accepted. For it is very difficult (for most people) to see how "immanentforms" can be anything but concepts. Moreover, Aristotle explains the act of abstractingthe intelligible Form from concrete things in fact as nothing but a process of intuition: nous is able to seize the universalfrom the concrete data2 by direct apprehension. Certainly Descartes' intuitus as expounded in III, Regulae VI and VIIis far from beiinga mere opposite of 'scholasticism' as Vilhena appears to suppose 3, when he would make the difference
1 Crat. 44.oa-d. Cf. Phaedo goc, Theaet I52C, i66a, i67d, cited by Vilhena op. cit. p. 426 fn. 2. 2 Anal. post. II i9, the end. 8 Vilhena, Op. cit. p. 43I n. 6. Apparently the author thinks that Descartes' intuitus, which is defined in Regula III as mentis purae et attentae conceptus, qui a sola rationis luce nascitur must by its rationalistic characterbe opposed to Aristotle's abstractiontheory

which starts from percepts. This may be granted. But in this same RegulaDescartes opposes intuition to deduction, much more than to perception: he argues thatfirst
are known to us per intuitionem tantum. This is pure Aristotelian doctrine as

principles

found in Anal. Post. I 1-3, I0o- i; 11 I9 ad fin. Cp. also the simplicesnaturae of Regula VI (ed. Adam and Tannery vol. X, p. 383) with Aristotle, Metaph. 0 io, ioSs b 17-30 (see De Vogel, GreekPhil. II, nr. SS9b and what is saidthere about "simple apprehension'). 31

between Socratic and Aristotelianinduction analogousto the difference between Descartesand the scholastic doctrine. But the essentialpoint is this: what is in Vilhena's mind when he suggeststhis analogyis not, in seeking a definition of virtue (as it was for Aristotle), but fact, Socrates Platoand his theory of ideas, taken generally. and the For Vilhena is reading the Phaedo,the Cratylus, Symposium the without makingthe distinction between Plato and Socrateswhich Meno most readers make, in subservience to Aristotle's indications in the For Metaphysics. instance, it seems to him 'a somewhat strange kind of story of Socrates in the interpretation' to accept the 'autobiographical' sqq.) as authentic and yet to reject the theory of Forms or Phaedo (gSe Ideasas expoundedby the same Socratesa few pageslater. But this is not so strange after all, unless Vilhena is preparedto attribute to Socrates something much more than a theory of merely immanentForms, for it must be evident that PhaedoI00 c sqq. is in fact much more than this. It is clear, however, how he intends to solve the problem. Socrates,he says, believed in a theory of immanentForms. The dialoguespresent us with an earlier and a later form of the theory of Forms, the one more restricted, the other deepened and enlarged.Is not Socratesrepresented by Plato repeatedlyas uncertainabout the meaningof 'participation'I? In such passageswe see Plato criticising his master. This, then, is the conclusion reached by Vilhena is his first volume. It is, for an importantpart at least, a rehabilitationof BurnetandTaylor. For though he regards them as mistaken in their theory of the strict historicity of Plato's dialogues, he believes that they led the way to the better understandingboth of Socrates and of Plato. Only on the basis of the testimony of the Platonic dialoguescan we reconstruct the figure of the historical Socrates. They are not strictly historical evidence but they are by far our most important testimony which under its literary form contains all the essential features of the philosopher Socrates. Plato's portrait, though not identical with the original, is an idealization of and an enlargementbut not in any essentialmatter a falsification what was. the historical Socrates In his second work Vilhena is especially concerned with this 'Socrates legend' of Plato; and since accordingto him it is the taskof the historian to enquire into motivation, he is mainly occupied with showing how both Plato and Socrates were influenced by the political and social situation of their time. What is the essence of the EwxpocLx6; x6yoq, Vilhena asks. He replies that its essence is not that Socratesis its chief
l E.g. in Phaedo iood,

102b-ioSb.

32

person, but rather that one special style of life is defended and another is rebuked. The YwxpatLx6& is M6yo4 a reflection of the political and social struggle at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the fourth - the struggle of the haves with the have-nots, of the faltering aristocracywith the rising democracy. Socrateswas the leader, Vilhena says, of the aristocratic party. It is eloquent testimony of this that his pupils came from these circles and it is sinificant that the oligarchic work AhvaxYwv Ho?tvrex comes down to us under the name of Xenophon. Socrates himself did not write anyth'ing, according to Vilhena, because in his time prose-writing was not yet in use in aristocratical circles in Athens. A passage in Plato's Phaedrus (2s7d) shows that it was even disliked because to write in prose was thought to make a man like the sophists. All this is very insufficiently established. First the reasons given for regardingSocratesas the head of a political partyare unsatisfactory.The historical testimonies (the story of Arginusaein Xenophon 1, that of Leon of Salamis in Ep. VII 2, also told in the Apology3) do not show us Socratesasa partypolitician: they show a Socratesabovethe parties, simply refusingto do anythingagainstlaw and justice. It is rathercomical, after Popper's picture of Socratesas a democratand opposed as such to Plato, to find Vilhena making them both party politicians and both politicians of the aristocraticparty. There may be some justificationfor regarding Plato thus, though in fact the description 'partypolitician' is misleading in his case too. In the case of Socratesit is simplyfalse, as De Stryckerhas recently pointed ont.4 Moreover, we can feel sure that, if Socrateshad really felt the need of writing, he would have written, whether a proseliterature existed or not. Does Vilhena propose a similar explanation for other philosophers who did not write - Pythagoras, Pyrrho, Carneades? The political character, then, of the Socratic litterature is strongly emphasized by Vilhena. The l;xpOcx'rLo'l XyoL, he says, have been considered up till now far too exclusively from the point of view of the history of literature. In fact they are not exclusively or primarily a literarygenre. At bottom they are alwaysconcerned with the conflict of aristocracy with democracy and have a political and social character. This, he claims, is true of the Socratic literature generally, but it is especially true of the Platonic dialogues. It is not true, as Burnet and Taylor supposed it was, that Plato wrote his dialogues only to give a
'2 Ep.

1 Hellenica 17; I4.,IE. VIl 324 e-32SC.

3 Ap. Socr. 32cd. 4 In Milanges Greigoire pp. 207-221. II

33

portrait of a past generationand that he did this in order to escapefrom his own time and his own political situation. On the contrary, Plato is deeply involved in the political struggle of his own day and never seeks to escape it. His philosophy has an explicitly political character.His school was a centre of politics as well as a scientific centre. Wilamowitz is to be praisedas the first to bring the political aspect of Plato's work into the foreground. For Plato was no abstractmetaphysicianleadinga 'P(o6 Oewp'rwX6 far from real life: he was, and be remained to the end,
a politician. The Gorgias makes this evident more than any other dialogue, for its primary content is a violent condemnation of democracy. Here and in many other dialogues we see that for Plato art and philosophy cannot be detached from the reality of life. Art is for him a weapon to strike with and philosophy is politics. Vilhena returns in his final chapter to the question of the historicity of the dialogues. He denies that they are historical in the sense in which the speeches in Thucydides are historical.1 A philosopher is not a historian. In speaking of another philosopher he does not interpret him arbitrarily but according to a higher standard - the moral and intellectual order of his own thinking. This is how Plato acted, as also did Aristotle or Hegel or - for instance - Natorp. Though the dialogues are not "'a highly realistic kind of composition" as Taylor thought, the portrait of Socrates must have real resemblance to the historical Socrates. Plato was in fact using the historical Socrates to and introduce his own philosophy. He did this in the Euthydemus the and the Cratylus. Socrates put the Euthyphro,in the Meno, the Symposium problems and Plato gave the answer by his elaboration of the doctrine of the Ideas. This explains the re-appearance of Socrates in the Philebus. The dialogue effects precisely a link between Socrates' posing of the problem and Plato's solution of it. Because of the more perfect training in dialectic which the great Parmenides had enjoined, the miracle of Parmenides I 29 C sqq. is fulfilled and Platonism is presented as ideal Socraticism.
1 This seems doubtful. For surely the dramatis personae of the dialoguesare remarkably true to history where we can check them. As in the case of Socrates, we can 'control' many features in his portraits of the great sophists - Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias - and these are found to be historically exact. It should be noted here that Voligraff's recent study on Gorgias' Epitaphios (L'oraison funebre de Gorgias, Leiden I9q2) confirms this very strongly. We must grant to Vilhena that Plato went beyond the philosophy of Socrates in the dialogues without giving a clear indication of the border-line; but this does not affect historical exactness in the cbaracterof the speakers and they may well have as much of this as the speeches of Thucydideshave.

34

Vilhena's work is a striking example of a study whose merit chiefly lies in the details adduced to build up his arguments. His conclusions, as we have seen, are at many points open to question; but his method and his presentation of evidence are such that he has laid a solid basis for any further study on the problem of Socrates. It is for this cason-because he has re-introduced the problem which Gigon would abolish-that a study of his two works has been made the basis of our discussion of 'the present state of the Socratic problem'. Utrecht.

35