A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy

by Herbert Ernest Cushman

The Logical Expedients of Socrates. The examination of concepts by Socrates was an attempt to find a logical “Nature,” just as the Cosmologists had searched physical phenomena to find a physical “Nature.” This makes Socrates the first to teach by induction and one of the first to use definition effectively. In contrast to the Sophists, he tried to give words exact meanings; for the Sophists fixed artificial meanings to words with reference to particular objects. In seeking for the exact meaning, Socrates was looking below the changing particulars to the “Nature” of the fact and the universal principle. Thus he was making his hearers conscious of the logical dependence of the particular upon the universal. The universal is that which is common to all particular conceptions or opinions. It lies beneath them and binds them together. Thus, by logical analysis, Socrates is taking steps in the educational process of gaining the universal. Provisional definition would be given by him in some dialogue; this definition would be tried by many facts; thus an advance would be made toward a true definition and a universal principle. This process is that of induction. It leads to generic concepts by comparison of particular views and individual perceptions, by bringing together analogous cases and allied relations. The subordination of the particular under the universal thus became a principle of science.However imperfect and childlike was Socrates’ method of procedure, whatever lack of caution in generalization and in the collection of material, however hasty oftentimes his judgments, he nevertheless made the subordination of the particular to the universal a principle of logical procedure. Xenophon says that Socrates was untiring in his efforts to examine and define goodness and wickedness, justice and injustice, wisdom and folly, courage and cowardice, the state and the citizen.

Socrates and the Lesser Socratics. The death of Socrates proved to be his transfiguration. His influence, widespread and profound, came more from his personality than from his formulated theory. He was a revelator without a revelation. An absolutely true end of life, the Good, he firmly believed to exist; but it was an ideal to be won by each and all. After him, therefore, there was opportunity for various interpretations of his doctrine, and several schools were founded by his disciples. His truest and most discriminating pupil was Plato, who is in a class by himself as developing the philosophy of Socrates to a systematic perfectness. The philosophy of Plato stands with that of Democritus and Aristotle as one of the three systematic philosophies that Greek civilization produced. Besides Plato there were the Lesser Socratics: Euclid (not the mathematician), Phædo, Aristippus, and Antisthenes. Each of these was respectively the founder of a school. These four Lesser-Socratic schools were that at Megara founded by Euclid, the Elean-Eretrian founded by Phædo, the Cynic founded by Antisthenes, and the Cyrenaic founded by Aristippus. The influence of the Megarian and Elean-Eretrian schools was unimportant. It may suffice to dismiss them by saying that Phædo was the favorite pupil of Socrates,and that Plato was a member of the Megarian school for a short time after the death of Socrates. The two other Lesser-Socratic schools had an important influence upon contemporary and later civilization and will be mentioned here. These are the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools. In these two schools two great types of ethical theory that have since existed were formulated. All four of the Lesser Socratics pretended to be the true development of the teaching of Socrates; and these two, as well as the other two, differ in the accentuation that they place on some phase of the master’s doctrine.

Socrates’ own definition of ideal excellence being incomplete, the Cynics and Cyrenaics tried to define it, to give it content and to show a practical way of reaching it. They attempted

(1) to answer affirmatively that there is a universal validity;

(2) to show in what it consists;

(3) to show how man must prepare himself in order to reach it.

Both schools are individualistic and eudæmonistic. They maintained that to affirm that the Good is good for its own sake is to leave the Good contentless; and to affirm that the Good is insight into the Good is to go in a circle. The one unambiguous answer to the question of Socrates, What is ideal excellence or the Good? is this: Goodness is happiness. This gives a content to the otherwise contentless ideal of Socrates. The difference between the two schools consists in the ethical way in which this happiness may be obtained.

It will appear, therefore, that the Lesser Socratics were more Sophistic than Socratic. They were diametrically opposed to Socrates’ theory of the universality oftruth. The excellent Good must be sought by each in his own way. This is individualistic virtue, and not that of humanity. Civilization was valued by them only as it satisfied individual needs. The common problem of individualistic happiness limited the efforts of both schools, while the results that they reached in solving it were quite different.

There are two ways of achieving happiness; one is by satisfying the desires, the other is by cutting off the desires. For happiness is the perfect proportion of desire and satisfaction. A living creature is happy if his desires are satisfied, whether those desires be few or many. In the theory of the Cyrenaic school, happiness is gained by increasing the satisfactions; in the theory of the Cynic school, happiness is gained by decreasing the desires.

The Cynic School was founded by Antisthenes, and numbered among its adherents Diogenes, about whom so many curious stories have been told, Crates of Thebes, his wife Hipparchia, and her brother, Metrocles. Virtue in the eudæmonistic sense is the only end, and this school agreed with Socrates that this end is to be attained by knowledge. That is to say, virtue or knowledge is only a means of gaining happiness, and all other possessions the Cynics affected to despise. Virtue as knowledge is therefore to be sought; ignorance is to be shunned; all else is a matter of indifference. Riches, luxury, fame, honor, sense-pleasure and pain, and later with logical consistency all shame, convention, family, and country were objects of contempt. Man must make himself independent by cutting off the desires which he cannot satisfy or the desires that seem superfluous. He should keep alive only such desires as are necessaryto existence. In independence of all outward circumstance the Cynic conceives himself to be the Wise Man, in contrast to whom the mass of men are fools. The Cynic is, therefore, the equal of the undesiring gods. He has independent lordship and does not need the artificialities of civilization. Natural law was contrasted by him in a Sophistic way with statutory law, and in the midst of the refinements of society he preached a return to a state of nature.