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A Quest for the Historical Socrates:
The Applicability of Historical Jesus Research
in Historiographical Approaches to Socrates
by
Andrew Messing
June 2011
1. Introduction
One of the few certainties in the historiography of ancient persons is uncertainty.
No matter what biographical sketch is outlined or detailed, and regardless of the
individual in question, it is certain that this biography will fail to wholly encapsulate the
historical reality of that individual. Any modern historical account or biography of
Socrates, therefore is necessarily limited. Socrates as he actually was is beyond the
reach of any historian. Before proceeding, however, this view must be differentiated from
two other claims.
The first is that all historiography is a construction which not only inevitably fails
to reconstruct historical reality but which is in actuality little different from fiction.1
Although few historians or scholars in general wholly adopt this extreme position, a
common theme within modern (or rather post-modern, a term which situates this view in
its cultural context) historiography is expressing the ultimately fictitious nature of
historical writings and the conception that any historiography is closer to a construction
than to a reconstruction.2The position adopted at the outset here is that while historical
reconstructions are just that, good historical methods make it possible for these
reconstructions to approximate historical reality. Thus, a modern biography of Socrates
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may be more than simply (or mainly) a construction, and proper historical methodologies
can provide an account of the person which best approximates Socrates as he lived.
The other important distinction which must be made is not historical but
psychological: no one, not even Socrates himself, could tell us who Socrates was. Even
were it possible to capture on film every moment of Socrates life, including an in-depth
interview asking the man himself who he is, the nature of the Self is simply too
complex to capture, no matter the available evidence. Socrates own answer, for example,
would vary not only depending upon when in his life he was asked, but even as his mood
changed within a given day, or when a particular conversation, event, etc., made more
salient in his mind certain aspects of his character. In other words, any biography, no
matter the evidence available, will fail to encapsulate the Self of that individual simply
because the Self is neither a stative nor constant entity. It is not simple enough that who
an individual is (in her or his entirety) may be answered in any coherent fashion.
We do not possess, however, anything close to a videographic recording of
everything Socrates said and did. Nor are any of his thoughts, words, or descriptions of
his actions directly available to us through his own writings. What remains are
fragmentary and disagreeing accounts of what Socrates said and did and what he
believed, a historical issue referred to as the Socratic problem.3The essence of the
Socratic problem is determining how to combine the varying representations of Socrates
in ancient history into a single biography which best approximates (in every detail or
generality it claims) the historical reality of Socrates. Providing a solution to this problem
is not the point, nor within the scope, of the present paper. Rather, what I argue here is
that there is another historical figure whose reconstructed biography presents challenges
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and issues similar to those who face the Socratic problem. No single individual has been
the subject of greater historical scrutiny than Jesus of Nazareth, and if there is any merit
to biographical historiography at all, especially as it pertains to ancient persons, then the
best (and worst) methods are to be found by examining the Quest for the historical Jesus
while absorbing what is useful, and rejecting what is useless.4
2. The Socratic problem
Sources for any event or person in history are wont to diverge. Even modern
biographies and historical writings of living individuals, such as former presidents Bill
Clinton and George W. Bush, disagree. What makes Socrates, and the disagreement
between our sources for information of him, so different? The first part of the answer to
this question is simple. It is no coincidence that perhaps the only other individual to have
more scholarship devoted to his historical reconstruction is Jesus: in the case of both
the historical figures whose influence on the life of humanity has been profoundest, Jesus
and Socrates, indisputable facts are exceptionally rare5The more interesting,
influential, and relevant to society a person is, the more people will want to know about
them. The name Socrates, as Jol poetically puts it, is ein Namehochgetragen von
der Liebe und Ehrfurcht der JahrtausendeiOf the three philosophers whose names
stand out from all others in the history of Western intellectualism (Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle), Socrates may have contributed the least to this tradition, but in his capacity as
Platos teacher he made possible all that came from the other two. In fact, the lack of
direct contributions to Western intellectual discourse seems to have made Socrates more
interesting, simply because the absence of any copies of Socratic autographs makes
ia namecarried high by the love and awe of millennia p. 730.
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Socrates character more mysterious. This sense of mystery is only compounded by the
long tradition (originating particularly in the works of Plato)6of viewing Socrates death
as an unjust execution of the most just and noble of men. What emerges is an individual
who not only founded the most important philosophical tradition in the West (by teaching
Plato), but who gave his life for his beliefs and for his fellow citizens, whom he refused
to allow live unexamined lives.
All of the above lays the groundwork for a long and rich history of widespread
interest (not simply scholarly) in understanding Socrates life. The Socratic problem,
however, involves more than just an interesting figure and the typical problems with
sources (e.g., scarcity of data, divergent traditions, disagreeing sources, late and/or
pseudepigraphical sources, etc.). Actually, compared with many of Socrates rough
contemporaries for whom we have some historical evidence (e.g., Euripides, Antiphon,
Aristophanes, etc.), the extant texts which refer to Socrates are unusually numerous.
Additionally, several individuals who personally knew Socrates, namely Xenophon,
Aristophanes, and Plato, appear to give rather detailed accounts of the man himself in
some of their works. Relative to the normal paucity of data available to the ancient
historian, a lack of sources for information is clearly not the issue.
This is in fact the heart of the Socratic problem. Given the sources we have, and
their nature, it is hard to imagine that anyone who knew of them could conclude man
mag in dieses Problem sich lange Jahre und immer wieder versenkenund kann doch am
Ende von Sokrates sagen, was er von sich selber bekannte: wir wissen, da wir nichts
wissen.iiYet Jol reached this conclusion, which other scholars have shared or do share,
ii [o]ne can immerse himself in this problem for many years, but can at the end only say of Socrates what
he admitted himself: we know that we know nothing. p. 731.
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after decades of study and several previous volumes on the subject. The Socratic problem
results from the desire to know as much about Socrates as possible, a lengthy history of
scholarly optimism concerning the difficulty of this task, and an increasing realization
that the disagreements and historical accuracy of our sources are not problems easily
surmounted. The figure of Socrates presented by Xenophon is just as different from that
of Platos and Aristophanes as theirs are from one another. Moreover, the very idea that
any of these individuals ever intended to represent the historical Socrates is questionable.
Duprel, for example, declared of the Socratic figure that cest la creation littraire
and that [a]u moral pas plus quau physique, la figure socratique ne constitue un portrait
d'aprs nature; elle est une composition trs travaille.iii
Gigon likewise referred to all
the sources or works on Socrates (including modern ones) asDichtung or poetic (literary)
compositions.7Realizations like these were what caused Jols despair in any attempt to
find a solution to the Socratic problem.
Yet we have skipped ahead too far, as Gigon and Jol are both fairly recent
contributors to scholarship on the Socratic Problem, and in doing so we have prevented
any proper understanding of the context for this despair. One of the first biographers of
Socrates provides both a starting point at which we may begin exploring the sources, and
also perhaps the earliest historical consciousness of the Socratic problem. Diogenes
Laertius, a historian from the third century CE, wrote a number of Lives (orBioi, early
biographies)8of various philosophers, including Plato and Socrates. In his Lifeof Plato,
Diogenes reports that Socrates happened to hear someone reading PlatosLysis(a
dialogue in which the main character is Socrates) and exclaimed
iiiit is a literary creation p. 334 The Socratic figure is not a life-like sketch, mentally anymore than
physically; it is a well-wrought composition. p. 333.
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.
.ivThe historical accuracy of this account is debatable, but
it does indicate that by Diogenes Laertius time at least Platos depiction of Socrates had
been questioned.9What, however, was this depiction anyway, and what was the basis
for questioning it?
2.2. Platos Socrates
If anything from ancient history can be known, we can be certain that Plato was a
student of Socrates, or at least spent a great deal of time around him listening to what he
had to say.10
In his own words, from perhaps the most unquestionably authentic of his
letters,11
Plato calls Socrates vand in most of his
dialogues Socrates is the main character. Clearly, then, Plato knew at the very least a
good deal about what Socrates taught and believed in his later years, and the doubt
expressed at or before Diogenes Laertius that the Socrates in Platos dialogues is not an
accurate depiction of the historical Socrates appears to be baselessprima facie. However,
even without comparing the Socrates of Plato to that of Xenophon or that of
Aristophanes, there are serious problems in equating Socrates in Plato with the historical
Socrates, for Plato himself does not appear to offer a singular Socrates upon whom a
historical reconstruction may be based.
There is a person named Socrates in many of Platos dialogues. In many, such as
theRepublicorApology, Socrates is the main character in that he that he is not only
active in the dialogue but he appears to more or less direct its subject matter. In others,
ivBy Hercules, how many times that lad [Plato] has lied about me! DL 3.35.vMy elderly friendApology324c-324e.
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such as the Sophistesor Timaeus, Socrates is present but oddly does not take part in the
discussion. Given Platos depiction of Socrates elsewhere (see esp.Apology21b-23b) as
a man who can hardly resist questioning everyone and everything, his lack of
participation in some dialogues is peculiar. Even more troublesome, however, is the
apparent disparity, in thought and character, between Socrates as he is depicted in some
of the works in which he is a central character and others. In the memorable words of the
late scholar Gregory Vlastos, in various dialogues Socrates pursues philosophies so
different that they could not have been depicted as cohabitating the same brain
throughout unless it had been the brain of a schizophrenic. They are so diverse in content
and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy
you care to mention12
In other words, we can either accept that at least in some places
the Socrates of Plato is not the historical Socrates, or we will be forced to conclude that
the historical Socrates held such divergent beliefs that he might as well have been crazy.
It is not possible to examine every divergence or seeming contradiction of
Socrates character in Platos dialogues, but some important examples will suffice. In
PlatosApology, Socrates asserts that he is accused of
vior of being a natural philosopher. Socrates then claims
.viiYet in other works, Platos Socrates appears not
only interested in natural philosophy but a natural philosopherpar excellence. Socrates,
in theRepublic (616b-617c), gives an account of the structure and movement of celestial
bodies. In thePhaedo,13
Socrates gives an extraordinarily rich and detailed explanation of
the form of the earth and that which is beneath it. A similar contradiction exists between
viinvestigating the things under the earth and celestial thingsApology19b.viiconcerning these things [i.e. natural philosophy] I know nothing, neither great nor small.
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Socrates statements on the immortality of the soul in theApologyand his view on the
same in theRepublic. In theApology, Socrates appears not to know what happens to a
person after death:
,
.viiiThis agnosticism stands in sharp contrast to the
view Socrates expresses in theRepublic: ,
?ixEven within Platos dialogues, then, Socrates appears to
think radically different things, making it difficult in the extreme to decide what aspects
of Platos depiction are even intended to represent Socrates.
At least part of this is due to the extent to which Platos writings represent
original thought. An enormous hurdle, therefore, which prevents us from using Plato to
understand the historical Socrates, is the necessity of separating Plato (his thoughts,
theories, etc.) from Socrates. That is, how much of what Plato wrote was simply Plato
himself speaking through Socrates mouth? Platos theory of Forms (or ), for
example, is perhaps his most influential and the most well-known of his contributions to
Western thought.14
In several places in his dialogues15
Socrates espouses and/or develops
this theory. Simply put, according to the theory of Forms all things (even abstract
concepts like Beauty) exist independently and in an ideal Form or Type. However,
according to Aristotle
.xAristotle did not have firsthand knowledge of Socrates, but he did know
viiiFor either it is such that [death] is nothingness, and the dead have no awareness of anything at all, or it
is as is oft said, that [death] is a change and rehabitation of the soul from this place to another.Apology40c.ixDont you [Glaucon] know[that] our soul[s are] immortal and never destroyed?Rep. 10.608d.xSocrates did not grant independent existence to universals or definitions.Metaphysics 1078b. cf. 1086b.
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Plato very well and was certainly in a position to know the history and development of
Platos theory of Forms.16
It is difficult, therefore, to ignore Aristotles differentiation
between the historical Socrates and Socrates as he appears in Platos dialogues. After all,
according to Gomperz (among others) Aristotles testimony is zwar knappen, aber
unbedingt verllichen Zeugnisse...xi
We can hardly conclude, then, that everything
Plato puts on Socrates lips may be traced back in some form to Socrates himself.
This position, however, has its proponents. Burnet and Taylor in particular argue
that Plato is not simply the primary source for the historical Socrates, but that the ideas,
views, and theories of Platos Socrates are almost entirely intended to represent those of
the historical Socrates, not Plato.17
This includes the theory of Forms,18
despite
Aristotles testimony. In support of this view, Taylor (agreeing with Burnet) notes that
Plato shifts from Socrates as the key speaker and center of the dialogues to a Socrates on
the sidelines and finally to dialogues in which he is absent altogether (e.g. Laws).19
The
explanation for this can only be that Plato did not wish to put ideas on Socrates lips
which werent his.20There are several issues with this position, including the
discrepancies in Platos Socrates mentioned above, and the differences between this
figure and other depictions of Socrates (such as Aristotles). In addition, as Copleston
points out, if Plato never uses Socrates as a spokesperson for his (Platos) views, then
there is no reason to think he does so with any other character either (e.g., Timaeus).21
It
seems extremely unlikely that one of the greatest philosophers in Western history, and the
founder of the Academy, said almost nothing original in his writings and only reproduced
the thoughts of others. Furthermore, there is the issue of genre to consider. Plato was not
a historian, and as noted by Gigon and Duprel, the dialogues are literary creations. We
xiadmittedly scarce, but undoubtedly reliable evidence. 1896, p. 52.
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must view them as such, rather than as primarily biographical depictions. Finally, even if
there are points in his dialogues where Plato intended his Socratic figure to resemble the
historical Socrates, nous sommes en face d'interpretations.xii
We are limited not only by
Platos intentions, but also by his understanding of his teacher. If we had some reliable
means to discern where Plato intended to represent the historical Socrates, we would still
be left with the problem of deciding whether Plato was right.
2.3. Socrates in Xenophon
Thankfully, however, we are not left with only Plato to reconstruct the historical
Socrates. Xenophon also devoted a great many lines in his corpus to Socrates (in e.g., his
Oeconomicusand Symposium), including an entire work explicitly dedicated to his
recollections of Socrates (Memorabilia). Xenophon, like Plato, was a young friend of
Socrates. Moreover, unlike Plato, Xenophon was a historian, and even if his dialogues are
less concerned with history than some of his other writings, he is still a man to whom
historical recollections are important. His historical consciousness was, in fact, central to
Boutrouxs argument to restore Xenophon as a principle source for the historical
Socrates. Against Schleiermacher and his followers, Boutroux notes that it is Xenophon
seul de nos tmoins qui ft historien de profession... and that therefore lhistorien
a le droit aujourdhui, non seulement dinvoquer le tmoignages de Xnophon ct de
ceux de Platon et dAristote, mais encore de le mettre en premire lignexiii
Once more,
then, we might expect to find a great deal of unproblematic information on Socrates, his
xiiWe are faced with interpretations. Robin, 1947, p. 211.xiiialone of our witnesses who was a professional historian & the historian has the right today, not only
to invoke the testimony of Xenophon alongside those of Plato and Aristotle, but, moreover, to put it first.
Boutroux, 1908, p. 17.
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life and thought, in these sources. Indeed, there are some who have said that Xenophon,
not Plato, Aristotle, or Aristophanes, is whom we should turn to for a depiction of the
historical Socrates. As Hegel put it, wir uns in Ansehung des Inhalts seines Wissens,
und des Grabes, wie sein Denken gebildet war, vorzglich an Xenophon zu halten
haben.xiv
Unfortunately, just as with Plato, problems with Xenophon abound. In fact, in one
of the earliest modern attempts to solve the Socratic problem, Garnier declared that while
we could perhaps find in Xenophon le grand principes de la morale Socratique it is
not in Xenophon but dans Platon quil [Socrate] vit, quil respire
xv
The problems
with Garniers conclusion have already been exposed. What, however, is wrong with
using Xenophon as a source? An early and persuasive argument, originating with
Schleiermacher,22
against using Xenophons Socrates as the foundation for the historical
Socrates is how boring his Socrates appears to be. The Socrates in Xenophon is more or
less a moralizing preacher. His chief concern appears to be givingmoral instructions,
rather than investigating morality, and he is uninterested either in metaphysics or other
philosophical concerns.23
If the historical Socrates was essentially equivalent to
Xenophons depiction of him, so the argument goes, it is hard to imagine how anyone
could have ever thought him to be an important and influential philosopher.
Nor is Xenophons work without the same problems found in Platos. As with
Platos Socrates, the Socrates in Xenophon is difficult to differentiate from Xenophon
himself.24
Whatever Xenophons skill as a historian, his writings devoted to Socrates are
xivWe have, principally, to look to Xenophon, with respect to the content of [Socrates] knowledge, and of
the end point of the development of his thought. Michelet, 1842, p. 69. cf. Pfleiderer, 1896,Schlussbemerkung zum 1. Buch.xvThe central tenets of Socratic morality & in Plato that he [Socrates] lives, that he breathes.
Garnier, 1768, p. 163.
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not histories but are just as much work[s] of art as the dialogues of Plato.25
And if
Platos depiction of Socrates is but his interpretation of the historical Socrates, then so
is Xenophons. Plato, however, was himself a philosopher, and therefore in a much better
position to understand Socrates thought than was Xenophon.26
Once again, without the
proper methodological approach, Xenophons writings are too problematic to use as a
source for the historical Socrates.
2.4. Aristophanes and Socrates
While the literary, rather than historical, nature of Plato and Xenophons writings
were revealed only through modern scholarship, the last important contemporary witness
to Socrates required no such analyses. Aristophanes, unlike Plato or Xenophon, clearly
wrote about Socrates while the latter was still living.27
Also unlike the other two
witnesses, Aristophanes plays portray Socrates in a negative light. Yet unfortunately
Aristophanes writings are quite clearly artistic rather than historical. They are comic
plays, and cannot therefore be used as a primary means for reconstructing the historical
Socrates.
2.5. Turning from (Historiographic) Despair
This does not mean we may not use Aristophanes as a historical source to
understand Socrates. None of the problems outlined above preclude the use of these three
witnesses in reconstructing the historical Socrates. Other sources too, such as Aristotle
and Diogenes Laertius, though problematic, are nonetheless of great value. Our problem
is not one of a lack of available data, but an inability to separate out fact from fiction in
the data that we possess. Since the Socratic problem was first identified in modern
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scholarship over two hundred years ago, the tendency among scholars has generally been
one of selection. That is, most of their arguments consist of reasons to favor one source
over another, especially by pointing out problems with competing sources. The end result
of these efforts was a vast series of arguments (some small part of which we have seen
above) against using any and all sources, and once these became widely known, the
combination of these arguments left no source available. And with the realization that no
source was the magical key to unlocking the historical Socrates came despair:
But the Socratic question, as it was debated from the time of
Schleiermacher to the beginning of the twentieth century, is not only an
unsolvable problemas is shown by the lack of any agreementbut also
a pseudo-problem. If the logoi Skratikoi are works of fictions, allowing
their authors considerable scope for invention not only in the setting but
also in the ideas expressed by the characters including Socrates, then it
seems hopeless to try to reconstruct the thought of the historical Socrates
on the basis of the logoi Skratikoi.28
This despair, already expressed above by Jol, is echoed elsewhere.29
Other scholars,
rather than dealing with these problems, appear to reject all previous scholarship on the
Socratic problem and proceed to use the sources as if the past two and a half centuries of
historical Socrates scholarship had never been.30
Neither approach is useful, nor
intellectually defensible. Both are simply different versions of the same easy out: if the
sources are rejected utterly or uncritically accepted, we dont have to deal with the
penetrating analyses which are the nexus for the current state of the Socratic problem.
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What is lacking is a methodological approach capable of sifting through all the
sources and determining holistically what pieces of the various portrayals of Socrates we
possess are likely to represent the historical Socrates. Luckily, however, the
methodologischen Schwierigkeiten for which Kuhn could not offer a Vorzeigung
eines Geheimschlssels31
have already been addressed, though not as they pertain to
Socrates. Questers for a different historical figure have already developed the necessary
criteria with which the historicity of any aspect of the Socratic figure may be evaluated.
The Quest for the historical Jesus has yielded hidden key to unlock the historical
Socrates. If we examine the history of the Quest for the historical Jesus, where it has
failed and where it has triumphed (or at least been productive), the applicability of
historical Jesus quest methodologies will become apparent.
3. Von Reimarus zu die Fnfte Phase32
: A brief history of historical Jesus Quest
Jols declaration that the historical Socrates is unknowable has its parallel in the
Quest for the historical Jesus: Denn freilich bin ich der Meinung, da wir vom Leben
und von der Persnlichkeit Jesu so gut wie nichts mehr wissen knnenWas seit etwa
anderthalb Jahrhunderten ber das Leben Jesugeschreiben ist, ist.phantastisch und
romanhaft.xvi
This oft quoted statement by Bultmann was a reaction against a long
tradition among historical Jesus scholars. Their approach and results were similar to those
of historical Socrates scholars: advocate one view, method, interpretation, and/or text
while criticizing alternative proposals, finally resulting in intellectual bankruptcy.
xviI am certainly of the opinion that we can know almost nothing of the life and personality of Jesus. What
has been written over the last roughly century and a half is fantastic and romantic. Bultmann, 1926, 10f.
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3.2. Erste Phase: Reimarus zu Strauss
The period of time Bultmann was reacting against was not the first stage of the
Quest. It is, in fact, often referred to as the second phase.33
Although Albert Schweitzer,
in his now famous survey of historical Jesus research (whence the title Quest for the
historical Jesus originates), began with Hermann Reimarus (1694-1768),34
there were
earlier and important historical-critical approaches (e.g., Thomas Chubb).35
What
differentiates these from the posthumously published writings of Reimarus is mainly the
scope of Reimarus work. While early critical approaches had challenged specific aspects
of the Christian tradition (e.g., miracles in the Gospels),
36
Reimarus intended to attack
Christianity at its roots by exposing it as a tradition built on a historical distortion.37
The
method he used to achieve this goal began with an attempt to show that the historical
Jesus was not the Jesus of the Gospels. The historical Jesus was a political revolutionary,
a fanatic who desired and promoted radical change in Judaism and Israel, but who failed
and was executed. Next, Reimarus argued that Christianity resulted from the disciples
despair. These, he claimed, when they lost their leader, declared that he was raised and
would return. They thus transformed the conception of messiah from a largely political
and cultural one (someone who would restore the rule of Israel to the Jews) into a
spiritual and purely religious one. The first Christians, then, in an effort to solidify their
new religion, had transformed Jesus into something he wasnt: a Son of God who was
supposed to have died, and therefore who had not failed. Although Reimarus central
goal was to show the invalidity of Christianity by exposing the lies upon which it was
built, in attempting to do so he offered a thorough and historical-critical (rather than
religious) reanalysis of Jesus.
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The publication of Reimarus writings quickly resulted in numerous attempts to
rescue the historicity of the traditional view of Jesus and the historical reliability of
the gospels.38
Despite their reactionary and defensive nature, these contributions are
important because they were historically grounded.39
History is concerned with what
most likely happened. Miracles, by nature, are unlikely, and therefore are precluded from
any historical analysis.40
After Reimarus, attempts to reconcile Jesus and the Gospels
with the historical-critical mindset of the day consisted of historical explanations for the
miracles within the gospels.41
The end of the first phase of the Quest is marked by the
devastating attack of D. F. Strauss (1808-1874) on these attempts.
42
Strauss showed that
the miracles could not simply be explained away, because they were vital components of
the texts.43
By removing them or attempting to explain them away, one did not rescue
the texts but destroyed them, because this method failed to recognize the centrality of
non-historical elements in the texts.44
3.3. The LiberalLivesand the Lies of Liberalism
Thus began attempts to write biographies of Jesus. These are often referred to as
liberal livesbecause of the liberalism of the day which, according to these biographies,
the historical Jesus somehow embodied centuries earlier. This phase in the Quest, which
Bultmann and Schweitzer reacted against, did not simply try rescue the traditional
Jesus from critical analysis but attempted to uncover Jesus as he actually was.45
Alas, the
liberal questers faired no better than those who wished to uncover the historical Socrates.
Despite notable improvements in historical-critical methodology, historical Jesus questers
still lacked any coherent valid framework from which sound analyses could be
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conducted. Schweitzer and Bultmann, among others, convincingly demonstrated that the
tools used to build the liberal lives of Jesus in the second phase were inadequate.46
3.4. The current phase
The reason the Quest for the Historical Jesus is so important to historical Socrates
research is not simply the problems faced by would-be biographers of both. The longer,
vaster, more nuanced, and more wide-ranging (in terms of both approaches and opinions)
nature of the historical Jesus Quest meant that the equivalent to the current state of
historical Socrates research was reached almost a century ago in the Quest for the
historical Jesus. The lack of defensible results from the initial stages of the Quest forced
scholars to borrow findings across fields and subfields (sociology, orality, psychology,
literary theory, etc.) and combine these with an increased understanding of the cultural
and historical context of Jesus and the sources for we have for him.47
This combination
allowed scholars to construct a firm methodological foundation for analysis.
3.5. Applicability to historical Socrates research
In order to see how these methods may be borrowed (or stolen) to reconstruct the
historical Socrates, we must first understand how the problems historical Jesus scholars
faced and overcame in a way never achieved by historical Socrates scholars were similar
enough to those facing historical Socrates scholars. There are, after all, clear differences.
The Gospels are religious texts, and therefore Jesus (unlike Socrates) is shrouded behind
the miraculous and theological purposes of the primary sources for him. The Gospels
were also written anonymously, while the primary sources for historical Socrates research
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were written by people who knew him. Despite these and other differences, the problems
faced by those who would historically reconstruct the lives of Jesus or Socrates are
similar enough that certain methods (as well as the general approach) may be borrowed
from the current phase of historical Jesus research and applied to Socrates. First, as Navia
points out, neither Jesus nor Socrates themselves wrote anything we know of.48
Our
understanding of both Jesus and of Socrates is filtered through texts written by others.
Second, these texts were not intended solely or even primarily to represent the historical
figures in question. Genre, authorial intent, literary concerns, etc., are therefore all at play
in the primary sources for Jesus and Socrates, and a proper framework for understanding
each text and author is necessary before any historical content can be culled.
Disagreements among sources require methods which allow historians to determine
which source or sources are more likely to accord with history given any disagreement.
Finally, any historical reconstruction of either Jesus or Socrates requires a holistic
approach to the sources grounded in a cultural and social understanding of the period and
place in which they were written and to which they refer.
4. Lessons Learned: Successful methods and their application to the Quest for the
Historical Socrates
Given the similar problems facing questers for the historical Jesus and the
historical Socrates, what methods might a historical Socrates quester borrow from the
Quest for the Historical Jesus? We may leave for another time the comprehensive
application of useful historical Jesus methodology and the resulting reconstruction of the
historical Socrates, but simply pointing out the possibility that this application would be
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fruitful is not enough. By way of compromise, let us therefore investigate some specific
examples of problems for historical Socrates research which might be resolved by
applying methods already used in historical Jesus scholarship. We may also divide these
into two broader categories: macro-level strategies and micro-level strategies. The former
help to lay a solid foundation for historical reconstruction by providing a way to approach
the texts, while the latter consists of the methodological framework for determining
historicity in the texts.
4.2. Texts, historicity, and genre
When looking for a solid foundation from which one may evaluate the historicity
of aspects or components of a text, it is only natural to begin with the proper
understanding of the texts themselves. Perhaps the most devastating attack on the validity
of the sources for the historical Socrates has been to identify them as literary, rather than
historical documents. This was a determination of genre: histories, like those of
Thucydides or even Xenophon, were valid sources for historical inquiry in a manner
impossible for literary works (whatever that might mean). A similar determination
dominated the Form-critical (orFormgeschichte) approach to the Gospels. Scholars like
Bultmann and Schmidt explicitly rejected not only the possibility that the Gospels are in
some sense biographies, but also that their authors were even interested in the historical
Jesus.49
The problem with these treatments, both that of Xenophon and Plato on the one
hand and the Gospels on the other, concerns a lack of proper understanding of genre and
of textual theory.
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Genre is a framework of convention (often broad) which facilitates
communication.50
This wonderfully academic (and thus vague) definition, however, tells
us nothing useful. So let us move from description into exemplification. This text (the
one you are reading) is a part of the communicative process. Communication is the
relaying of information from source to receiver. Here, the author of this text is trying to
relay information about historiography, Socrates, the history of particular historiographic
approaches, and various other notions which will hopefully result in a coherent and
convincing argument. In order for this (or any) transmission to be successful, or even
possible, both sender (in this case, me) and receiver (a part played by you, and
spectacularly so, I might add) rely on shared understanding. The text you are reading is,
for example, written primarily in English. To anyone who cannot read English, this text is
meaningless, and no communication is possible. Yet shared language is not the only
necessary conventional framework for communication. Because the arguments made in
this text are academic, particular conventions are followed. Footnotes, citations,
quotations, formalized speech, particular lexical choices (e.g., the word lexical rather
than word or vocab) all result from conventional frameworks within which academic
discourse takes place. Academic is a rather broad category or genre, and we can and
should narrow it. Scholarship in the behavioral sciences, for example, utilizes few if any
quotes. As with scholarship in general, conventions in the behavioral sciences require
arguments to be bolstered by numerous in-text citations, but quoting from these same
texts constitutes a deviation from convention which erodes the communicative process.
The resulting text, no matter the content, is too unusual and unexpected to be considered
appropriate and therefore may simply be ignored. In literary studies, classics, philosophy,
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and a number of other disciplines (particularly those which rely on texts, rather than
experiments, as their primary form of data and subject matter) not only allow quoting but
encourage it if used according to convention.
Of course, in academic discourse, as within all genres and other conventional
frameworks like registers (see below), variation is possible. Many academic texts do not
use the first person pronoun. This one does. Such variation is acceptable until the
deviation is too great. If the structure of this text resembled a Socratic dialogue, even if
the arguments for the thesis offered here were many times more convincing then they are
at present, the deviation from conventional academic discourse would render the text
useless. In communication, the receiver (reader, listener, etc.) possesses a stock of
communicative frameworks from which style, lexical choice, textual (oral or written)
structure, and so forth, serve as clues to aid understanding. Like the use of a particular
language, these clues convey information to facilitate communication. Academic texts
rely on conventional use of scholarly prose, erudite lexical usage, and complex linguistic
constructions. Poetry, by convention, deviates from typical linguistic usage in order to
communicate its artistic nature. Each genre, including oral genres,51
relies not only on
language but on conventional patterns to facilitate information.52
Within and across
genres, other similar conventions further govern structural and expressive components of
texts. Register, which often overlaps with genre, refers both to the context in which
communication occurs and the conventional patterns governing allowable structures
within that context.53
Religious contexts require religious registers, informal discourse
requires informal registers, and so forth.
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The reason understanding genre and similar conventions is vital to reconstructing
the historical Socrates is due to the invalid divide between literature and history and the
conclusions drawn from this division. The Gospels are literary and religious documents.
They are clearly biased and apologetic, they include much which even ancient historians
like Thucydides would deem inappropriate to historical narratives, and are certainly not
biographies in the modern sense of the word. Nonetheless, after Bultmann and the form
critics failed to adequately account for the genre of the Gospels, a series of detailed
studies convincingly showed that the Gospels do indeed fit into a historical genre of
ancient biography orLives.
54
In other words, they accord well enough with a particular
conventional pattern (in style, structure, focus, etc.) that it is clear the authors desired
their creations to be read in a particular way and so wrote according to that (broad)
convention. While this does not mean the Gospels immediately become historically
accurate, it does mean that, contra Bultmann and the form critics, the authors were
interested in the historical Jesus and were also concerned to a certain extent with adhering
to history.
If the inclusion of mythical and miraculous accounts, as well as other artistic and
literary devices,55
does not preclude an ancient text from membership in a
historiographical genre, then neither should the use of dialogue, stories, and other literary
aspects in the writings of Plato and Xenophon. There is no reason to assume, a priori,
that just because Plato and Xenophons writings were literary and artistic creations, they
therefore were never intended to depict the historical Socrates.
Let us return, then, to a part of Dorions conclusion quoted earlier: If the logoi
Skratikoi are works of fictions, allowing their authors considerable scope for
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inventionthen it seems hopeless to try to reconstruct the thought of the historical
Socrates on the basis of the logoi Skratikoi. First, even taking for granted the
categorization of this genre as fiction, the conclusion does not follow from this
premise. Dorions use of logoi Skratikoi implies genre: certain conventions dictate and
govern patterns within these text which make it possible to call them logoi Skratikoi.
This is also not a modern categorization. Aristotle, who opens his discussion of poetry
with the issue of genre,xvii
mentions the lack classification when it comes to writings
.xviiiAmong these and other mixed types which
have no named genre, Aristotle includes . Ancient and
modern commentators agree, then, that the logoi Skratikoibelong at least in many ways
to a specific genre.
There is no reason to conclude that the conventions required by this genre do not
restrict or limit the invention of the authors in ways which allow historical
reconstruction of the type Dorion states is impossible. Perhaps, for example, while this
genre allows the character Socrates to do and say things the historical Socrates did not,
there may be limits to these. In other words, it may be that the character of Socrates could
not deviate from the historical Socrates in ways which completely hid his philosophy,
thought, and customary manner. The fact that Plato did not use Socrates as a character all
the time may indicate not that in all other instances he intended his character to be
Socrates, but that at these times the deviation was too great. Support for this
interpretation can be found in Diogenes Laertius. In his short biography of Simon the
xvii/concerning poetry both itself and the many forms ithasPoetics 1447a.xviiiUsing bare words alone (i.e. prose without meter).Poetics1447a-b.
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shoe-maker, whom Diogenes credits with the invention of the logoi Skratikoi genre, he
states that
, .xixWhether the story itself is
accurate is hard to determine. However, what is important is that to an ancient historian
like Diogenes Laertius, these dialogues appeared to be a historical genre, in that they
sought in some sense to record actual conversations and sayings. We should remember
that it was Diogenes Laertius who recounted a story of Socrates calling Plato a liar, and
thus was clearly capable of understanding that these dialogues could contain fiction, yet
he describes them as historical nonetheless.
Therefore, before concluding that these dialogues are pure fiction and nothing in
them is intended (or required) to represent the historical Socrates, a better understanding
of this genre in these terms(i.e. to what extent, given that ancient history does not
preclude fictional components, are these dialogues designed to represent the historical
Socrates) is required. In what ways do various depictions vary, both within the respective
dialogues of Plato and Xenophon and between them, and in what ways are they the same?
What do other characters do which Socrates does not, particularly in dialogues in which
Socrates is present but does not speak or is not present at all? If conventional patterns in
the depictions of Socrates can be identified, it may very well be that the limits to these
conventions (i.e. how Socrates cannotbe portrayed) will be instructive. Furthermore,
other methods (see below) may reveal that the fictional aspects of these dialogues are
not intended to prevent identification of the historical Socrates. As with the Gospels,
literary and fantastical elements do not, a priori, preclude historiographical intent.
xixWhenever Socrates came into his workshop and they discussed something, he would remember these
talks and would take notes.DL 2.122.
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4.3. Post-Easter Socrates
That neither Jesus nor Socrates wrote anything we possess is not the only
commonality between these two which is vital to developing a proper methodological
approach to the data. It is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of the
execution of both Jesus and Socrates. Nor is this importance limited to the impact of their
deaths in our sources. An enormous issue running through all the liberal lives of Jesus
Bultmann and Schweitzer demolished was the incongruence between their portraits of
Jesus and his execution. As Temple put it: Why anyone should have troubled to crucify
the Christ of Liberal Protestantism has always been a mystery.56
Jesus was executed,
and any biography of him must portray a Jesus who was objectionable enough to
contemporaries to be executed. The same is true for Socrates. Whatever aspects of
Xenophons writings may be traced back to the historical Socrates, it is hard to imagine
this moral preacher was ever considered harmful enough to be executed, and therefore
Xenophon left something out from, or even altered, his account of Socrates.
Our sources for Socrates, after all, were almost all written after his death, and
largely because of his death. In addition to the logoi Skratikoi genre, another entire
genre of apologies originated from Socrates death.57
These genres defined themselves
by their dedication to the memory of Socrates, and defenses against the charges he was
executed for, not to mention the trial itself, infuse them. We cannot even begin to analyze
the Socratic dialogues and texts without a conscious awareness of how the authors and
their literary products were shaped by Socrates death. Nor is the effect of his death
limited to a single trend or tendency as far as historicity is concerned:
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La nature des ,lamouretladmirationdePlaton
pourSocrate,entranentdeuxconsequences. En vertu de la nature
mme des genre littraire quAristote classe parmi les
imitations qui plaisent notre sensibilit par leur vrit et par leur
exactitude, lidalization de Socrate dans les Dialogues ne saurait trop
sloigner de loriginal. Dautre part, ladmirationmme dePlaton
pourSocratetmoigne dune certaine fidlit du portrait. Mais seulement
dune fidlit relative parce quelle se trouve contrebalance par laspect
crateur de lart potique.xx
That two of our chief witnesses, Plato and Xenophon, were in some sense disciples of
Socrates and were attempting to honor, defend, and remember him in their works, was a
direct result of Socrates execution. Montuori is among the few to fully recognize the
importance of Socrates death in that it shapes virtually everything we possess about
him.58
As with Jesus then, any biography of Socrates must start from the
acknowledgment that he was executed. It is certainly true that this execution took place
during a period of religious fundamentalism and a wave of extremely conservative
thought.59
However, to conclude, therefore, that no truth lay in any of these charges is
foolish. This is especially true given what is contained in the only full depictions of
xxThe nature of the Socratic Dialogues, the love and admiration of Plato for Socrates, engenders two
consequences. By virtue of the very nature of the Socratic dialogue literary genre which Aristotle classifies
among those imitations which are pleasing to our sensibilities by their truth and by their accuracy, the
idealization of Socrates in the Dialogues cant stray differ much from the original. On the other hand, thesame admiration of Plato for Socrates shows a certain faithfulness in the depiction. But only a relative
faithfulness because it is counterbalanced by the creative aspect of the poetic art. De Magalh`es-Vilhena,
1952, p. 180.
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Socrates we possess which were written before his execution: those from the plays of
Aristophanes. The coherence between how Socrates is portrayed in Aristophanes and
what Xenophon and Plato state he was accused of make it almost certain that at least
some people shared Aristophanes view of Socrates. Furthermore, that the Socrates of
Xenophon is virtually harmless, and the Socrates of Plato is the most just and wise of
men executed wrongly, are portrayals which must be understood in light of their post-
execution and apologetic realities. This does not mean that Aristophanes is unbiased or
that Plato and Xenophon cannot be trusted to accurately depict Socrates, simply that any
would-be biographer of Socrates must at every turn keep in mind two things: that
Socrates was executed for something, and virtually all our sources are laden with
reactions to that execution.
4.4. Accounting for the tradition
The importance of Socrates death in reconstructing his life is related to another
beginning methodological concern we may borrow from the historical Jesus quest.
Robins statement (quoted above) that we are faced with interpretations of Socrates rather
than Socrates himself is true, but there is perhaps a superior way of viewing our surviving
sources. We are dealing with Socrates as he was remembered, and these memories
(because of the importance and significance of the man behind them) quickly became
part of certain traditions. Part of these traditions involved the writing of texts according to
Socratic genres. Other aspects included stories of Socrates such as we encounter in
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Xenophon and Diogenes Laertius. To be sure, not everything in the Socrates traditionxxi
consists of pure recollections recorded by eyewitnesses. However, just as with the
Gospels and other sources for Jesus,xxii
this remembered Socrates constitutes the
foundation of the Socrates tradition. In reconstructing the historical Jesus, we must
envisage a Jesus who is big enough to explain the beginnings of Christianity.60
The
same is true of Socrates. In addition to a reconstructed Socrates consistent with a tried
and executed Socrates, any biography must also account for the fact that Socrates was
very influential in his day. Even before his death, Aristophanes clearly thought him
important. Aristophanes believed Socrates customs and manner dangerous, but if
Socrates had been a nobody, Aristophanes would never have thought it necessary ridicule
Socrates on the comic (and public) stage.61
Another aspect of the importance of the
Socrates tradition has already been discussed. The earliest Christians wrote letters and
Gospels. The followers of Socrates wrote dialogues and apologies. Understanding these
genres is key to understanding the Socrates tradition and therefore the historical Socrates.
Also important is the realization that despite a clear theme of witnessing and
remembering running through our sources for both Jesus62
and Socrates, for various
reasons (e.g., apologetic, a desire to know more, etc.) both traditions involved additions
and alterations. This is reflected in (among other places) the many stories which are
almost certainly unhistorical found in later works such as Diogenes LaertiusLivesor the
infancy gospels of Jesus. To begin a valid reconstruction of Socrates, we must then utilize
an approach to the sources which aptly takes into account the effect of his death and their
xxiThe term Socrates tradition is used here in a way parallel to Jesus tradition within historical Jesus
and NT scholarship. This usage also helps to differentiate between the Socrates tradition, or Socrates ashe was remembered, honored, depicted, etc., and the Socratic tradition which is a philosophical one.xxiiSo important is the concept of a remembered Jesus to any historical approach to our texts that Dunn
titled his large volume dedicated to the historical JesusJesus Remembered.
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membership in a tradition resulting from it (and from his life). The reconstruction of
Socrates must be consistent with a Socrates who was at once executed and also influential
and important enough to have such a tradition. This reconstruction must also be based on
a view of the sources in light of this tradition.
4.5. The proper way to weight
The final component of the macro-level approach is not a novel contribution to
the Socratic problem. Rather, it is the Socratic problem. The Socratic problem began with
an awareness of disagreement among our primary sources for Socrates (Xenophon, Plato,
and Aristophanes) as well as secondary (particularly Aristotle). The Socratic problem
became the proper weightto give particular sources. Should Xenophon be ignored
because, in Russells words, he is not very liberally endowed with brains63
and is
therefore unworthy of consideration? Or can we trust Xenophon and not Plato, because
Platos Socrates is just Plato? These types of questions did not just frame discussion of
the Socratic problem, they were the Socratic problem. All solutions to the problem
therefore involved picking a source as the best or most accurate and if not stopping there,
then making that source the foundation for historical reconstruction. The unacceptability
of this method, and the beginnings of a better methodology, are already present in Lacys
Our Knowledge of Socrates:
The early Plato is rightly regarded as our main source, but no source can
be trusted or ignored entirely, and no source can be assumed to be equally
reliable throughout. We simply have to go about it the hard way and
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examine the available evidence ad hocfor the particular problem that we
happen to be concerned with.64
Lacey is quite right to realize the necessity of a holistic approach to the texts, but quite
wrong to suggest that an ad hocapproach will work. Any analysis that doesnt have a
firm foundation and use a valid methodological approach will continue to lack the
hidden key Kuhn spoke of (see above). Much of this has already been outlined above,
but what is required now is a means for properly weighing the sources. The earlier
approach rightly rejected by Lacey did not fail because it sought to weigh the sources at
all, but because it involved equating to an unacceptable extent one author or set of
sources with the historical Socrates. Determining that certain sources are a priorimore
likely to contain historical information is a necessary component of a framework for a
valid methodological approach.
The lessons (from successes and failures) of the historical Jesus quest are
instructive here. The difficulties involved in dating Platos dialogues relative to one
another, and how these have been ignored rather than overcome, have their parallel in
historical Jesus research. There is a tendency among scholars in any field to think know
or can know more than is actually possible. This is perhaps best represented in terms of
early Christian scholarship and historical Jesus research by treatments of Q. That a
common source lies behind parts of Matthew and Luke other than Mark (called Q) is
widely (but not universally) accepted among NT scholars.65
Even though this text is a
hypothetical reconstruction, some conclusions drawn from it are simply breathtaking in
how far beyond the evidence they go. As one commentator said in reaction to certain
treatments of Q of this type, to treat Q as a document at all is controversial. To treat it as
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agospelis more so; to postulate two or three stages in its development is to build
castles in the air; to insist that the document was composed in the fifties, and possibly at
Tiberias in Galileee, is to let imagination run riot.66
Assumptions are used to validate
assumptions, then treated as facts, and used to construct further assumptions.
Similar problems are at play in dating Platos dialogues. The earlier dialogues are
assumed to be those which more closely represent Socrates (rather than Plato), because
they date to a period where Plato was more concerned with remembering and honoring
his teacher rather than developing his own thought, which was too incomplete at this time
anyway.
67
The dialogues then are sorted largely by how closely Plato adheres to Socrates
philosophy versus his own. Then this representation of Socrates can be used as a basis for
the historical Socrates. The first issue, of course, is that almost all of this rests on initial
assumptions about the philosophy of both Plato and Socrates, which are then used to
reconstruct those same philosophies.68
Often enough, these dating techniques are no more
than very erudite, scholarly, expert, and otherwise dressed-up versions of common
circular reasoning. Another issue in this approach involves the assumption of linear
development and expression of thought. In other words, grouping Platos works together
on the bases of certain linguistic expressions or themes assumed to constitute a stage in
his philosophical thought ignores the very real possibility that he could vary his rhetorical
techniques and themes at any stage. Moreover, this grouping also requires knowledge of
Platos philosophy and intent we may not possess. Rowe, for example, points out that one
common dating method is to characterize the early dialogues based on modern
understanding of their philosophical value, which probably distorts their intended
purpose and certainly isnt valid.69
Dorion, in his defense of Xenophons portrayal of
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Socrates, argues that the modern characterization of Xenophon as anything but a
philosopher merely illustrates a disconnect between modern understanding of philosophy
and ancient.70
If we cant even understand ancient philosophical conceptions well enough
to know who would have been considered a philosopher, dating Platos dialogues based
on such understanding seems foolhardy. Finally, even if some rough chronological
divisions are more or less accurate, we cannot then simply decide that earlier ones will
inevitably better depict the historical Socrates.
This tendency to equate the early Platonic Socrates with the historical Socrates,
however, is an outgrowth of the Socratic problem and the approach to it which must be
rejected. A particular author or selection of texts (e.g. early Plato) should not be the
basis for historical construction. Rather, the likelihood that a given source will contain
more historical information is a matter of weighting the sources based on genre, the
authors knowledge of Socrates, the bias of the work, and so forth. This weighing should
also be dynamic. For example, Aristophanes (as a critic of Socrates) very likely offers us
a good many historical reasons for Socrates execution, and there is almost certainly an
element of truth in at least some of his depiction, given Socrates execution. In fact, that
all of our sources intended to portray a Socrates recognizable as Socrates means that there
is something of the historical Socrates distinguishable in them. However, because
Aristophanes wrote plays, which were intended to be comic distortions of reality, no
individual words or actions of Socrates should be deemed historical unless we have
independent reasons for thinking so (see below). In other words, we can heavily weight
Aristophanes when it comes to how Socrates was commonly understood, and for the
reasons behind his execution, but for details about Socrates philosophy and thought we
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cannot give Aristophanes much weight. Plato and Xenophon, given their intimate
knowledge of Socrates, their desire to honor him and remember him, are a priorilikely to
contain a great deal of historical information on Socrates, and in particular his philosophy
and thought. As with all sources, methodological criteria are required to sift through this
content, but these two witnesses should be given the most weight initially.
4.6. Criteria for historicity
This brings us at last to the methodological criteria we may borrow from the
historical Jesus quest. Once a firm foundational framework to approach the texts is
developed, we can use these criteria to determine the historicity of individual components
within them (e.g., reported events in Socrates life or his mannerisms). The most
important criteria for the historical Jesus quest are given by Meier,71
but we need not
proceed in the order that he does. Perhaps the most useful criterion is that of multiple
attestation. The fact that Aristophanes, Plato, and Xenophon agree that Socrates was
believed to be impious or an atheist very likely means people did think he was. We can
also note that our two chief witnesses, Plato and Xenophon, appear to agree that for
Socrates self-mastery is important. Xenophon opens his memorabilia with his memory of
Socrates and his capacity for enkrateiaor self-control.xxiii
Platos Socrates likewise states
,
.
xxiv
The reason for this agreement is very likely its relationship to the historical
Socrates, in that he believed this.
xxiiiXenophonMemorabilia 1.2.xxivYeilding to ones self is nothing other than ignorance, while self-control is nothing other than wisdom.
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Of course, if the sources all agreed, we wouldnt have a Socratic problem in the
first place. The criterion of multiple attestation is useful, but what we really need are
criteria which allow us to decide what his more likely to be historical given disagreement,
not agreement. This is not to say that the criterion of multiple attestation is useless when
there is disagreement. As quoted earlier, the Socrates of Plato, in the republic, is very
clear that the soul is immortal. That this reflects Platos view more than it does Socrates
is likely first because Plato himself elsewhere depicts Socrates as more or less agnostic as
far as the souls immortality is concerned, and second because this view is attested to in
Xenophon. However, what do we do when there is disagreement but no third source
which supports either view, or when the third source is too remote (e.g., Diogenes
Laertius) or too unhistorical (e.g., Aristophanes) to count as multiple attestation? Here
other criteria are very useful. One such important criterion is the criterion of
embarrassment. By way of illustration, consider that Plato and Xenophon desired to
depict Socrates in a positive light. If either includes details about Socrates which are
embarrassing or weaken this positive depiction, they are likely to be there because they
are historical. Thus, for example, the Socrates of Xenophon is predictable, normal, and
agreeable in speech throughout almost all of Xenophons works. The Socrates of Plato,
however, is frequently depicted as being outrageous, rude, mocking, or otherwise
shocking with respect to his manner of speech.72
It is more likely that Xenophon, in an
attempt to portray Socrates in a better light, reduced the caustic or disturbing aspects of
Socrates style of speaking than that Plato added them. This is particularly true given the
depiction of Socrates in Aristophanes. Likewise, while Xenophons Socrates speaks
highly of political leaders like Pericles and Themistocles, Platos Socrates, in response to
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an assertion that Themistocles and Pericles (among others) are great men and speakers,
responds [] .xxvOnce
again, it must be remembered that Socrates was executed and (as shown in Aristophanes)
had a history of getting on peoples nerves. It is again, therefore, more likely that
Xenophon attempted to make Socrates more patriotic and Athenian than he was, and
that Platos Socrates, who is critical of politicians, is closer to the historical Socrates.
Another criterion worth mentioning is that of coherence. Once other methods
have established certain aspects of Socrates life and thought, we can use these to
determine the historicity of other pieces within our sources. If, for example, there is
evidence that Socrates really did attempt to test others to see if they were wise (as the
Socrates of Plato claims), then depictions of Socrates which cohere with this inquisitive
nature are more likely to be historical. This includes the portrayal of Socrates as
interested in natural philosophy found in Aristophanes and in parts of Plato (see above).
Xenophons Socrates, who completely lacks any interest in natural philosophy, can in this
respect be dealt with according to the criterion of embarrassment. Xenophon simply
wished to clear his teachers name.
5. Conclusion
There are, of course, other criteria of historicity used in the Quest for the
Historical Jesus. Some of them will be of no use for historical Socrates research, and
methods of historical reconstruction unique to the Socrates tradition will likely be
possible or even required. What we have seen, however, is that the Socratic problem, as it
is typically conceived and approached, is indeed a pseudo-problem. This does not mean,
xxvI am not able to speak that such a one exists among them. Gorgias 503c-d.
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however, that Dorion is correct in thinking that the reconstruction of a historical Socrates
is impossible given our sources. Similar problems, including more difficult ones, exist in
reconstructing the historical Jesus, and yet thanks to many brilliant minds and several
centuries of intense study a methodological framework was constructed making possible
historical reconstruction of Jesus. This does not mean that all scholars agree who the
historical Jesus was, or that it is even possible to know. Rather, the methods employed
allow us to determine a great many things that are certain or highly probable about Jesus
life and teaching, and propose other aspects which are less sure. The same is possible
with Socrates. It is time for us to leave the Socratic problem behind to embark on the
Quest for the historical Socrates.
1The development and expression of this extreme view, and convincing arguments against it, may be found
in Keith Windshuttles The Killing of History(1996).
2ibid. Also, the motivation for this view resulted at least in part on wider critiques of academic disciplines
and a resulting epistemological skepticism, such as the critiques of the new feminism or even earlier of
Marxism. Outside of historical studies, a good review of the history and effect of such critiques may be
found for psychology in Thomas Leos work on the subject (2005). Within historical studies see e.g. part
IV of Lambert & Schofield (Eds.)Making History (2004). For examples of this constructionalist
approach to history and/or the philosophy of historiography, see e.g. Goldstein (1996) and Munslow
(1997). For defenses of reconstructionalist or realist views against the critiques offered by
constructionionalist philosophies of history, see especially Appleby, Hunt, & Jacob (1994) Windshuttle
(1996), & Harlon (1997).
3The origin of the term appears something of an enigma. Navia (2007) states, We confront in the end a
problem, the Socratic problem as this is known and so clearly indicates that the disagreement between
sources is commonly referred to in this way. Much earlier, Popper (1966) refers to the so-call ed Socratic
Problem [italics in original]. In an article in The Philosophical Review, as far back as 1927 Dubs wrote an
article entitled The Socratic Problem. Yet just when it became common among English speaking scholars
to refer to this historical issue with this designation is unclear, as is who first coined (or translated?) the
term. Russell (1945) comments briefly on the issue, yet never uses this term. The highly influential scholar
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John Burnet (1914) discusses the issue at some length, yet again nowhere do we find this particular
descriptor.
4Bruce Lee
5Taylor, 1932, p. 9.
6, , , , ,
/ such was the end, Echecrates, of our
companion, a man such that we may say of him that of those living then whom we have put to the test, [he
was] the best and the wisest and the most just.Phaedo118a.
7Gigon, 1947.
8Momigliano, 1971.
9Lest too much weight be placed on this early tradition, preserved or perhaps created by Stoics (who saw
themselves as the intellectual ancestors of Socrates (Brown, 2009)), there is the even earlier statement from
Platos second letter: , , / for these [reasons] I
have never yet written anything, nor is there any composition of Plato nor will there be, but rather the
[compositions] so named are [instead] of Socrates become fair and young.
10Rowe, 2009.
11Navia, 2007, p. 94.
12Vlastos, 1991, 46.
13108d ff.
14Russell, 1945.
15
e.g.,Republic 7 & 10, Symposium.16Copleston, 1946, p. 103.
17Burnet, 1914; Taylor, 1932.
18Ibid.
19Taylor, 1932, p. 25-27.
20Ibid.
21Copleston, 1946, p. 101.
22Dorion, 2009.
23Copleston, 1946, p. 99.
24Lindsey, 1910, Introduction.25Ibid.
26Taylor, 1932; Russell, 1945.
27Socrates, for example, in PlatosApology(19c), mentions Aristophanes by name. This is said in the
context of what Socrates has been accused of (19b), behaviors which are quite similar to those of Socrates
as he is depicted in Aristophanes Clouds.
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28Dorion, 2009, p. 93.
29Maier (1913), for example, does not simply discuss the problems with die Gestalt des Sokrates but
explicitly states that this problem will remain hopelessly unresolved.
30Nails (2009), for example reconstructs the trial and death of Socrates using Aristophanes, Xenophon, and
Plato. She relies especially on the dialogues of Plato. However, no criteria for historicity are offered. Nor
does she anywhere describe her reasons for determining that the works she uses in her reconstruction can
be so used. Despite over two hundred years of critical investigation, Nails reconstructs the end of Socrates
life as if no problems with the sources existed.
31Kuhn, 1934, p. 135.
32This header is a play on the title of Albert Schweitzers monumental work Von Reimarus zu Wrede.
33Theien & Merz, 1996, 1.2.
34Schweitzer, 1906.
35Dunn, 2003, 4.2. cf. Wright, 1996, 1.3.1.
36Dunn, 2003, 4.2.
37Wright, 1996, 1.3.2.
38Dunn, 2003, 4.2.
39Ibid.
40This does not mean, of course, that accounts of miracles cannot be the subject of historical analysis (see
on this point e.g., Meier, 1994, chap. 17). That historical events seen by historical people have been
interpreted as miraculous, whether they were or not, is certainly something with which historians can and
sometimes must deal. It is, therefore, part of a historians responsibility (to the extent possible) to determine
whether or not a particular magical or miraculous deed or event corresponds to something that actuallyhappened (Jesus, for example, was almost certainly believedto have healed the sick). What a historian
cannot do, without leaving the realm of history, is determine the historicity of the miracle itself, rather than
the event behind it.
41Ibid.
42Theien & Merz, 1996, 1.1.
43Dunn, 2003, 4.2.
44Dunn, 2003, 4.2.
45Theien & Merz, 1996, 1.3; Dunn, 2003, 4.3.
46
Schweizer, 1906; Bultman, 1926.47On the history of this approach, see e.g., Wright, 1996, chap 3, Theien & Merz, 1996, 1.3-5. On the
general methodology used in this approach, see e.g., Meier, 2005; Dunn, 2005. For examples of historical
Jesus research based on this approach, see e.g., 47Theien & Merz, 1996, Wright, 1996; Dunn, 2003.
48Navia, 2007, p. 16.
49Bultmann, 1921; Schmidt; 1923.
50Bawarschi, 2003; Burridge, 2006.
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51Orality studies often make use of terms from literary and textual studies, including terms like oral text
or oral genre. The Gospels, for example, are typically seen as the product of oral transmission (see eg..,
Kelber, 1983, Wansborough (Ed.), 1991). Of primary importance, then, is the proper model of orality used
in the transmission of the Jesus tradition. If Jesus sayings and the stories about him were informally
transmitted by anyone without any control, they could be added to and altered beyond recognition. If, on
the other hand, various mechanisms of control (e.g., transmission by an authoritative source who was
viewed as an expert, correction by the larger community, etc.) could limit this process. Additionally, the
various oral genres which form this tradition could be handled differently. The teachings of Jesus, for
example, might be transmitted in a more stable form than stories about him. Even his teachings could be
broken down into different oral genres, such as apothegms versus parables.
52Ibid.
53Biber, 1988; Biber & Finegan, 1994; Ferguson, 1994.
54Talbert, 1977; Aune, 1987, Burridge, 1992; Frickenschmidt, 1997.
55A famous example of such a device is Wredes (1901) arguments for the messianic secret in Mark, a
literary device with theological designs.
56Temple, 1945, p. xxiv.
57Navia, 2007, p. 74.
58Montuori, 1984.
59Nails, 2009; Janko, 2009.
60Dunn, 2005, p. 168.
61Navia, 2007, chap. 2.
62
Dunn, 2005.63Russell, 1945, p. 82.
64Lacey, 1971, p. 49.
65Meier, 1991, chap. 2; Theien & Merz, 1996, 2.2; Dunn, 2003, 7.4.
66Wright, 1996, p. 48.
67Copleston, 1946, 18.2; Navia, 2007, Chap. 4; Rowe, 2009.
68Dorion, 2009; Rowe, 2009.
69Rowe, 2009.
70Dorion, 2009.
71
Meier, 2005.72See e.g., Symposium 221d, Gorgias 494d,Phaedrus229c.