wrong, good or bad, must always be considered in relation to a person’s
needs. On being asked whether he believed in the Greek gods, he answered,
“The question is complex and life is short.” A person who is unable to say
categorically whether or not the gods or God exists is called an agnostic.
The Sophists were as a rule men who had traveled widely and seen
different forms of government. Both conventions and local laws in the city-
states could vary widely. This led the Sophists to raise the question of what
was natural and what was socially induced. By doing this, they paved the way
for social criticism in the city-state of Athens.
They could for example point out that the use of an expression like
“natural modesty” is not always defensible, for if it is “natural” to be modest, it
must be something you are born with, something innate. But is it really innate,
Sophie—or is it socially induced? To someone who has traveled the world,
the answer should be simple: It is not “natural”—or innate—to be afraid to
show yourself naked. Modesty—or the lack of it—is first and foremost a
matter of social convention.
As you can imagine, the wandering Sophists created bitter wrangling in
Athens by pointing out that there were no absolute norms for what was right
or wrong.
Socrates, on the other hand, tried to show that some such norms are in
fact absolute and universally valid.
Who Was Socrates?
Socrates (470-399 B.C.) is possibly the most enigmatic figure in the
entire history of philosophy. He never wrote a single line. Yet he is one of the
philosophers who has had the greatest influence on European thought, not
least because of the dramatic manner of his death.
We know he was born in Athens, and that he spent most of his life in the
city squares and marketplaces talking with the people he met there. “The
trees in the countryside can teach me nothing,” he said. He could also stand
lost in thought for hours on end.
Even during his lifetime he was considered somewhat enigmatic, and
fairly soon after his death he was held to be the founder of any number of
different philosophical schools of thought. The very fact that he was so
enigmatic and ambiguous made it possible for widely differing schools of
thought to claim him as their own.
We know for a certainty that he was extremely ugly. He was potbellied,
and had bulging eyes and a snub nose. But inside he was said to be “perfectly
delightful.” It was also said of him that “You can seek him in the present, you
can seek him in the past, but you will never find his equal.” Nevertheless he
was sentenced to death for his philosophical activities.
The life of Socrates is mainly known to us through the writings of Plato,
who was one of his pupils and who became one of the greatest philosophers
of all time. Plato wrote a number of Dialogues, or dramatized discussions on
philosophy, in which he uses Socrates as his principal character and
mouthpiece.
Since Plato is putting his own philosophy in Socrates’ mouth, we cannot
be sure that the words he speaks in the dialogues were ever actually uttered
by him. So it is no easy matter to distinguish between the teachings of Soc-
rates and the philosophy of Plato. Exactly the same problem applies to many