Abstract
Taking her bearings from Socrates’ remark in Apology that “I always do your business, going to each of you privately, as a father or an older brother might do, persuading you to care for virtue” (31b), Weiss argues that Socrates’ relationship with Alcibiades exemplifies Socrates’ freedom to care. Freedom to care means, in large part, freedom from the desires that might lead a teacher to sexually exploit his student. As Alcibiades testifies, Socrates exhibits the kind of self-control that is an absolutely necessary condition for being genuinely able to help others toward virtue.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The image of philosophy, and particularly of Socrates’ way of practicing it, is compared by Alcibiades in the Symposium to the bite of a snake or the venom of a viper that attacks his heart or his soul (218a).
- 2.
Although this special relationship seems to obtain primarily between Socrates and specifically the Athenians, Socrates asserts at Apology 30a that he will reproach whomever he happens to meet, whether foreigner or townsman—though more so his townsmen. Perhaps we can say that his divine mission is to Athens, but he will not withhold his services from foreigners whom he happens to encounter. We know from the Crito (52b) that Socrates rarely traveled, that he almost never left Athens except to serve in the army.
- 3.
See Crito 46b: “I, not only now, but always, am such as to obey nothing else of what is mine than that argument which appears best to me upon reasoning.”
- 4.
As Alcibiades notes, it is Socrates who charms (ekēlei—215c1)—even without musical instruments, that is, with words alone (215c).
- 5.
In Alcibiades I , Socrates observes that Alcibiades believes he has “no need of any man in any matter” (104a).
- 6.
“Lover” (erastēs) is ambiguous and need not imply a relationship that includes overt sexual activity. Although Alcibiades uses this term for Socrates in the Symposium, it is clear, at least in the Symposium, that he and Socrates had never been sexually intimate (218c). And this is so despite Socrates’ saying of himself In Alcibiades I that he was Alcibiades’ first lover (103a). In the Protagoras , Socrates says of Protagoras that he sought to “preen himself” (kallōpisasthai—317c7) on Socrates’ and Hippocrates’ having come to him as “lovers” (erastai), where the intent is probably something like “fawning admirers.” “Suitor” might be a better translation in many cases. (The Greek term for suitor, mnēstēr, as it appears in the literature, refers specifically to the suitors in Homer’s Odyssey .)
- 7.
Alcibiades is apparently a failure as an older brother. As we learn in the Protagoras at 320a, when Pericles became the guardian of the two sons of Cleinias , he sought to protect the younger son, Cleinias , from the corruptive influence of the older son, Alcibiades, by keeping them apart: Alcibiades certainly did not take care of his younger sibling or work to improve his character.
- 8.
Socrates will talk to anyone and never charges a fee (Apology 31c)—a fee, one may assume, of any kind.
- 9.
Alcibiades takes note of Socrates’ indifference to money: “he was far more invulnerable to money than Ajax was to iron” (219e1–2). Interestingly, Socrates returns the compliment in Alcibiades I at 104a–c. Here Socrates observes that, insofar as Alcibiades is endowed with beauty and stature, is well-connected on both sides of his family and to Pericles as well, and is wealthy, he believes himself to need nothing, “yet you seem to presume least of all” on wealth (104c1).
It is possible that Alcibiades’ reference to his own money and that of his friends is Plato’s reminder that both in the Apology (38b) and in the Crito (45b) what Socrates’ companions offer in order to save his life is their own money and that of their friends. Even in the Republic (1.337d), Glaucon offers Socrates’ friends’ money as well as his own to pay Thrasymachus for his enlightening instruction about justice.
- 10.
Homer, Iliad 6.236. The reference to bronze may call to mind that Socrates, at Prot. 329a, compares orators who go on and on to bronze bowls that continue ringing once they are struck until they are stopped. Perhaps Socrates sees Alcibiades in this context as just such an orator—one who will go on and on unless he is silenced.
- 11.
In the Euthyphro Socrates suggests that, in any business transaction between human beings and gods, the gods would be getting a raw deal (Euthyphro 14e–15a). The implication there as here is that there can be no fair exchange when only one party is needy: there is nothing the gods need that we human beings can supply; there is nothing Socrates needs that Alcibiades can supply. Socrates may enjoy speaking with the young; indeed, he may enjoy conversing with others generally. Moreover, conversation with others may enable him, generally, as he frequently says it does, to examine his own views as he examines theirs—to reassure himself both that he is not professing to know what he does not know and that his belief set is a coherent one. Nevertheless, there is no specific interlocutor from whom he stands to, or hopes to, learn—even when he pretends otherwise (as in the case of Euthyphro , Protagoras , Gorgias , and many others). On the rare occasion when Socrates traces the source of his beliefs to a particular person (as, e.g., to Diotima ), it is not to someone whom he has subjected to examination. He has no doubt learned much from many when he was a young man, but his divine mission, which concerns “the greatest things” (ta megista—Apology 22d7), is one in which he benefits particular others, while those particular others have nothing to teach him. In the Charmides , Socrates assures Critias that his concern in refuting him is the same as it would be if he were investigating his own statements, namely, fear of thinking he knows what he does not (166c7–d2), and although he goes on to say that he is now examining the argument mainly for his own sake (166d2–3), he immediately adds: “But perhaps also for the sake of my friends” (166d3).
- 12.
See, for example, Phaedrus’ speech in the Symposium: “I cannot say what greater good there is for a young boy than a gentle lover, or for a lover than a boy to love” (178c).
- 13.
See Republic 3403b-cm where a law is to be set down in the city that is being founded that a lover may kiss, be with, and touch his boy as though he were a son, “for noble purposes” (tōn kalōn charin) if he persuades him, but it may not go any further.
- 14.
Alcibiades notes that Socrates is the only person who has made him feel shame ( Symposium 216b).
- 15.
Alcibiades even seems aware that Socrates’ cool indifference, like his ability to endure harsh weather conditions, is effortless or certainly appears so. Alcibiades remarks that at the retreat from Delium, it was Socrates’ composure (emphrōn) and calm (ērema) (221b) that kept the enemy at bay and saved both him and the general Laches.
- 16.
Robert C. Bartlett , in his Sophistry and Political Philosophy: Protagoras’ Challenge to Socrates (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 10, notices that Socrates does not directly set his friend straight, and suggests that this is “perhaps because the truth of the matter would be less intelligible, or less acceptable, to the comrade.”
- 17.
In the Charmides at 154d, when all who are gathered at the palaestra of Taureas swoon at the entry of the extraordinarily beautiful Charmides, what interests Socrates is whether Charmides happens to have “one small thing in addition.” What Socrates wishes to know is “whether his soul is beautifully formed” (eu pephukōs). Socrates’ confession that he is smitten—indeed aroused—at the sight of Charmides’ private parts needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Is he as discombobulated by his accusers, as he claims to be at the beginning of the Apology (17a), that he “nearly forgot himself”? Is he so entranced by Protagoras’ speech, as he professes to be at Protagoras 328d, that he could “barely pull himself together” and manage to ask about the “one small thing” that troubles him (329b)? See Rep. 3.402d8–11, where it is said of the musical man that he would love (erōiē) those who are without defect in their souls and would be patient and would delight in one whose defect was bodily.
- 18.
The first six references are to Meletus’ putative but not actual caring about the young.
- 19.
At 29d–e, Socrates explains how he deals with those who profess to care about prudence, truth, and how their souls will be the best possible.
- 20.
Here Socrates expresses his worry that his children might care about “money or anything else before virtue.”
- 21.
In most of these instances the term is some cognate of epimeleisthai, although a few other terms or expressions are used, such as kēdomenos at 31a7. It is significant, and ironic, that Socrates’ main interlocutor in the Apology is Meletus, whose name is a play on the Greek term for “care”: Meletus is shown not to care at all about the moral state of the youth.
- 22.
Cf. Gorgias 522c, where Socrates uses this term mockingly.
- 23.
Socrates presents his spending his life doing something that does not seem human as proof that he was sent by the god to awaken, persuade, and reproach. Immediately following his representation of himself as a gadfly sent by the god to alight upon and awaken the sluggish horse that is Athens (Apology 30e), Socrates says: “That I happen to be someone of this sort you might apprehend from this: it does not seem human …” (31a–b).
- 24.
Socrates later calls the kind of political engagement to which Callicles summons him “flatterer’s work” (kolakeusonta—521b). Cf. Crito 53e, where the Laws caution Socrates against escaping to Thessaly, where he would be living by “fawning upon all human beings and being their slave.”
- 25.
See Gorgias 509b: “For my speech is always the same.” Indeed, in the Gorgias, Callicles berates Socrates for always saying the same thing (491b). In the Crito, Socrates insists on the importance of not abandoning the beliefs one has always held, even in the face of impending death (48b–49b).
- 26.
The same term, misthos, is used for “wage” in both the Republic (see, e.g., 1.346d) and the Apology (see 31b–c).
- 27.
Caring for the city itself entails caring for the moral improvement of the citizens rather than for the gratification of the citizens’ appetites. On this, see Gorgias 517b–c and 521d–e. This is “the true political art” (521d). See, too Euthydemus 291c–292c, where “the kingly art” (hē basilikē) or “the political art” (hē politikē) is “that by which we make others good.”
- 28.
The identical distinction is drawn, and in the same way, at Alcibiades I 127e–128a, between caring (epimeleisthai) for oneself and for one’s things. Socrates goes on to identify one’s self with one’s soul at 130c. See Phaedrus 229e5–230a3: Socrates will look into himself (emauton) rather than into alien things (allotria). At Charmides 173a, Socrates insists on the importance of examining rather that ignoring the ideas that occur to one, “if one cares even a little about oneself.”
- 29.
I shall return to the question of Socrates and his children at the end of this essay. The implication, however, of this passage, is that Socrates did not neglect his family or, for that matter, himself, but only their things. He sought to become as virtuous as possible and no doubt wanted that very thing for his children.
- 30.
Compare the similar expression at Apology 33a: “speaking and doing my own things.” Rather than caring about or tending to his own things, Socrates does them, does what he is supposed to be doing, the business that is his, viz. encouraging the moral improvement of others. Cf. Charmides 161–162, where temperance is surely not doing one’s own business in the sense of providing only for oneself. See, too, Republic 2.369e–370a, where doing one’s own, when understood in this way, is rejected in favor of division of labor.
- 31.
Socrates, in seeking an appropriate counterpenalty to recommend in his own case, considers what he most needs, namely, “leisure to exhort you” ( Apology 36d). The activity of exhorting, which was formerly his occupation (ascholia), leaving him no leisure to care for the things of the city and those of his family, is suddenly a leisured one: in the face of the prospect of death, exile, or imprisonment, the freedom to exhort becomes a luxury.
Leisure is, of course, something of which the wealthy young people who follow Socrates around have far too much (Apology 23c).
- 32.
In Alcibiades I , Socrates’ goal is to get Alcibiades to recognize about himself, that, given a choice between living with what he currently has (echōn ha nun echeis) and dying immediately if he cannot acquire greater things, he would choose death (105a).
- 33.
Socrates sees himself in just such a role in the Gorgias at 521d. He says of himself that he is in fact the only one to try his hand at the true political art and to practice politics—though not, to be sure, in the approved public way.
- 34.
Socrates often offers lists of “goods,” as, for example, at Meno 87e–89a, and at Euthydemus 279a–c. Unless, however, the goods listed are genuine virtues, they are not necessarily good but are generally the sorts of things people regard as good. There is one good in particular other than virtue which may be thought to matter to Socrates, viz. bodily health and fitness. After all, he asks in the Crito whether “life is worth living for us with a wretched and corrupted body” (47e) and appears to expect and to accept an answer in the negative. It seems, however, that Crito’s assent to the proposition that life is not worth living for us with a wretched and corrupted body is simply something that Socrates must secure in order to make his a fortiori argument for the proposition to which he does subscribe, viz. that life with a wretched and corrupted soul is not worth living. (“Soul” is implicit in the circumlocutions Socrates uses for it—“that thing which the unjust maims and the just profits”; “whatever it is of the things that belong to us which both injustice and justice concern” (Crito 47e–48a). He seems to be trying to avoid saying the word soul when speaking to Crito .) For his own part, Socrates asserts that to live nobly and justly is to live well and indeed that they are one and the same (Crito 48b8–9). The body does not figure at all in this equation.
- 35.
As Socrates says in the Gorgias , a true statesman leads the desires in a different direction (517b).
- 36.
Despite the frequent references in the Platonic corpus to Socrates’ being smitten by good looks, his offhand remark in the Protagoras at 309c9–10, mentioned above, about how much more attractive wisdom is to him than physical beauty, should suffice to set the record straight. In the Symposium, Alcibiades, in comparing Socrates to a Silenus, says that on the outside Socrates appears to lust after beautiful people but inside he cares not at all. Indeed, he is indifferent to the things that most people admire, not caring “whether someone is beautiful, or rich, or famous” (216d–e).
- 37.
It is likely that the reason Socrates had no objection to a fine as his penalty is precisely that money was of so little consequence to him that giving up some of it did not strike him as anything bad. Since he did not regard proposing a fine as visiting a harm upon himself, he did not think doing so would violate his principle of never intentionally committing an injustice against anyone—including himself. All the other penalties he considered were, at the very least, unpleasant. See Apology 37b–e.
Socrates rebukes those who care most about money, reputation, and honor, saying: “are you not ashamed?” See Apology 29d. And it is the possibility that his children might care specifically about money that most worries Socrates (see Apology 41e).
- 38.
We see, too, in the Phaedo (64c–67b) that philosophers do not care about pleasures of the body. Pleasure and pain rivet the soul to the body and prevent it from ascending to the transcendent realm. In Rep. 6.485d Socrates observes that those who are lovers of learning and of the pleasures of the soul cannot also be lovers of pleasures of the body.
- 39.
In the Apology, Socrates frames his indifference to life itself as his not caring at all about death. See Apology 32d: “I do not even care about death in any way at all.” He is, however, not so “possessed by much love of life” (philopsuchia—Apology 37c) that he cannot think clearly about his likely reception in exile. In the Gorgias at 512e, Socrates says “the true man ought not to concern himself with living a certain length of time, ought not be a lover of life” (ou philopsuchēteon—512e2). If all that mattered were staying alive—rather than living well—the pilot’s art or the engineer’s art would be the most valuable (512b).
- 40.
Socrates’ view on the matter of children will be discussed at the end of this essay.
- 41.
I do not think Socrates has to be taken to believe in a literal divine being in order for him to be truthfully and sincerely serving the god. Socrates has reverence for something higher, something more stable and permanent than the flux and change that characterize the realm of opinion. It is out of this sort of piety that Socrates devotes his life to the moral improvement of others.
- 42.
There is a rather obvious irony here that is lost on Callicles. The person who is constantly engaged in satisfying appetites is not his own boss but his appetites’ servant: “He must be able,” Callicles says, “to serve (hupēretein) them through courage and intelligence” (Gorgias 492a).
- 43.
A person whose appetites are satisfied and do not continually increase might as well be, Callicles thinks, a stone or corpse (Gorgias 492e5–6; 494a8–b6–7).
- 44.
In the Gorgias, it is the arts that deal with the body that are called “slavish” (douloprepeis) and “unfree” (aneleutherous) (518a).
- 45.
Even Aristotle’s view of freedom, as found in the Metaphysics (I.ii.982b25–28), fails to capture the essence of Socratic freedom. For Aristotle, “we describe a free person as one who exists for his own sake and not for someone else’s.”
- 46.
Socrates’ tending to others, which is the form his political activity takes, is what is meant by his “going down.” For example, he “goes down” (katēben) to the Piraeus at the start of the Republic (1.327a), the very thing the philosophers in Rep. 7 at 520c must be compelled to do (katabateon). Cephalus complains that Socrates has not “come down” (katabainōn) in a while and ought to do so more often (328c). What Socrates will not do, however, is “go up” (anabainōn) to counsel the city (Apology 31c); Socrates advises the city only by going down.
- 47.
It is Strauss who, in “Jerusalem and Athens,” observes with the greatest perspicacity and clarity the similarity between Socrates and the Hebrew prophets. Though he may arguably have been more concerned to show the differences between them, nevertheless a case could be made that the greater contribution of his essay was its highlighting of their shared mission. See Leo Strauss, “Jerusalem and Athens: Some Preliminary Reflections,” in Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 147–173, esp. 168–173. Note how Socrates says in the Apology: “Then you would spend the rest of your lives asleep, unless the god sends you someone else in his concern for you” (31a). Striking, too, is Socrates’ awareness—so like that of many of the Hebrew prophets—that he was becoming hated (21e, 23a).
- 48.
On one occasion—in the Phaedo at 85b—Socrates calls himself a slave of the gods, applying to himself the expression “fellow-slave” (homodoulos), and noting that he, like the swans who sing sweetly as death approaches, does not fear death. Despite the expression Socrates uses here, there is no indication of anything slavish in his relationship to the gods. It is in the Phaedo as well that Socrates speaks of our being the gods’ possessions (ktēmata—62b8)—though he does so, surely, simply to make the case against suicide.
- 49.
Even Adeimantus at Republic 2.362e–363a thinks fathers want their children to be just, even if for the wrong reasons.
- 50.
The Greek is deomai, reminiscent of Republic 6.489b, where Socrates says that those who need to be ruled ought to beg those who are able to rule to rule them. Cf. Republic 1.338a, where “Glaucon and the others begged (edeonto) him [viz. Thrasymachus] not to do otherwise”—that is, to remain and teach about justice as per Socrates’ request. At 1.344d5, Socrates says: “And I, too, on my own, begged (edeomēn) him.” Cf. Euthydemus 282b2–3: “who begs and beseeches them to give him wisdom” (deomenon kai hiketeuonta sophias metadidonai).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Weiss, R. (2019). Free to Care: Socrates’ Political Engagement. In: Diduch, P., Harding, M. (eds) Socrates in the Cave. Recovering Political Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76831-1_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76831-1_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76830-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76831-1
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)