4016 Fall07 Questions and Discussion 7

From Studyplace

This week's class question:
Make a plausible case for Aristophanes attack on Socrates.

This week's respondent: Debra and Minnie and Sadaf Show the video “Plato’s cave” in class. 2 min. http://youtube.com/watch?v=c6KVHMU3gb8&mode=related&search=

Aristophanes and Socrates were contemporaries who knew each other. Whether or not they were friendly is debatable. Aristophanes was a conservative who was offended by Socrates’ words, attitudes, lifestyle, and philosophy of questioning everything, especially the status quo. In his comedy The Clouds, Aristophanes’ attacked Socrates for corrupting youth with his views on: Religion

Politics-Law and Order

Education

Religion Aristophanes claimed that Socrates was impious because he did not believe in Zeus or any of the Greek gods. Instead, he said that Socrates believed in the Clouds, goddesses who are “patrons of a varied group of gentlemen, comprising: chiropractors, prophets, longhairs, quacks, fops, charlatans, fairies, dithyrambic poets, scientists, dandies, astrologers, and other men of leisure. And because all alike, without exception, walk with their head among the clouds and base their inspiration on the murky Muse, the Clouds support and feed them” (p. 47). The Clouds are “the only gods there are…the rest are but figments” (p. 50). The force behind the Clouds is not Zeus but “the convection-principle” (p. 53). [In other translations, the force is described as a Vortex, which means a whirl or a round goblet. A statue of a round goblet is outside Socrates’ Thinkery.]

Aristophanes depicted Socrates as an irrational old man: “And you promise to follow faithfully in my path, acknowledging no other gods but mine, to wit, the Trinity—GREAT CHAOS, THE CLOUDS, and BAMBOOZLE?” (p. 55).

Socrates believed in the oracle at Delphi, claiming that it told Chaerephon that no man was wiser than Socrates. Socrates also claimed that he listened to an inner divine voice: “You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign I have had ever since I was a child. This sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do…” (Apology, p. 12). These two statements taken together could be interpreted as Socrates’ belief that he was sent as a kind of prophet from God. Aristophanes believed that only Zeus and the Olympian gods were divine.

Inherent in many religious beliefs is respect for one’s ancestors and elders. Aristophanes believed that Socrates disrespected the authority and beliefs of the older generation, turning young people against their parents, as evidenced in the way Pheidippides treats his father after studying at the Thinkery. After beating Strepsiades him with a stick, he declares: “But now, now that Socrates has made a fresh Pheidippedes of me, now that my daily diet is Philosophy, Profundity, Subtlety, and Science, I propose to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt the philosophical propriety of beating my Father” (p. 135).

Socrates claimed that he was superior to poets, politicians, and artisans, because they knew nothing of higher matters but thought they knew. Plato quotes Socrates as saying, “the life which is unexamined is not worth living” (Apology, p. 16) Apparently, Socrates was undiplomatic and tactless in some of his “examinations,” antagonizing many Athenians. Aristophanes saw his challenges to authority and the older generation as arrogant, disrespectful, and dangerous.

Aristophanes believed in going to the gymnasia and conforming to society’s standards of appearance. Socrates wore his hair unfashionably long, and walked about barefoot, unwashed, carrying a stick and wearing the same clothing all the time. He was described as unattractive, even strange-looking. He flaunted convention. Socrates sought to get past appearances, or illusion, to the inner truth. Plato’s allegory of the cave is similar to the concept of “maya” in Buddhism. Maya is illusion, the surface that we see. To become enlightened, one must get past maya. Buddha means to awake, to leave the cave and see the sun. The path to enlightenment is awakened intelligence. Buddha taught that human suffering was caused by ignorance, whose main symptoms were attachment and craving. Socrates had no attachments to material objects or to other people. He craved nothing but the search for truth.

Q: Socrates’ life overlapped that of Buddha. Buddhism teaches that to end suffering one must overcome ignorance by achieving right understanding, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. What similarities do we see between Buddhist philosophy and that of Socrates with regard to enlightenment? How might that philosophy seem threatening to the established Greek religion of Socrates time?

Politics-Law and Orders Using the allegory of the cave, Plato paints an evocative portrait of the philosopher’s soul moving through various stages of cognition (represented by the line) through the visible realm into the intelligible, and finally grasping the Form of the Good. Not everyone can make it all the way out, which is why some people are producers, some warriors, and some philosopher-kings. It is often argued that Socrates believed "ideals belong in a world that only the wise man can understand," making the philosopher the only type of person suitable to govern others.

In Plato’s Republic, he describes a Utopian world where philosopher-kings rule the “ship of state” after a lengthy education emphasizing mathematics and dialectics. Socrates does not seek the role of philosopher-king for himself, stating, “The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician. And rightly, as I think. For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago and done no good either to you or to myself….He would really fight for the right…must have a private station and not a public one” (Apology, p. 12).

Pheidippedes says: “Observe the roosters, for instance and what do you see? A society whose pecking order envisages a permanent state of open warfare between fathers and sons. And how do roosters differ from men, except for one trifling fact that human society is based upon law and rooster society isn’t (p. 137)”

This quote points out the main differences between the members of that society and animals with reference to the laws being the only items which differentiate the both.

Of the Clouds, Strepsaides says:” Well, I can’t say much for your methods though I had it coming. I was wrong to cheat my creditors and I admit it” (p. 140).

In this quote Strepsaides acknowledges that he knew right from wrong and that cheating the creditors was the wrong thing to do in the first place.

Question: So, if Socrates thought philosopher-kings should be the leaders of the city-state, why did he himself refused to engage in politics?

Education

In The Clouds, Socrates attempts to teach Strepsiades how to use sophistry to swindle his creditors. His son Pheidiappiddes goes to the same Thinkery and learns to manipulate and bully his father. When Strepsiades sees that the teachings of Socrates have turned his own son against him, he decides to burn down the Thinkery.

1.Aristophanes said, Socrates’ so called New Education was just sophistry. There are two types of logic taught at the Thinkery. One is the traditional, philosophical education, and the other is the new, sophistic, rhetorical education. Right Logic explains that Pheidippides ought to study the traditional way, as it is more moral and manly. Wrong Logic, which Pheidippides chooses to learn, is a very twisty logic, and it teaches young people how to argue baselessly.

Example, P96: Sophistry: Let him begin. I yield the floor. But when he’s done, I’ll smother him beneath so huge a driving hail of Modern Thought and Latest Views, he cannot speak----or if he does, my hornet words and waspish wit will sting him so, he’ll never speak again.

But actually Socrates is not the one sitting in a basket “I walk upon the air and look down on the sun”; however, in fact Socrates does not support young people to learn how to argue.

Example,359B, Republic: Isn’t it one great precaution not to let them taste of arguments while they are young? I suppose you aren’t unaware that when lads get their first taste of them, they misuse them as though it were play, always using them to contradict; and imitating those men by whom they are refuted, they themselves refute others, like puppies enjoying pulling and tearing with argument at those who happen to be near.

2. Aristophanes said, Socrates’ teaching was lacking moral scruples. He was misleading and corrupting the youths in Athens. In the Clouds, Strepsiades goes to speak to his son and asks him what he has learned. Pheidippides has found a loophole that will let them escape from their debts, but in the process he has imbibed new and revolutionary ideas that cause him to lose all respect for his father. The boy calmly proceeds to demonstrate the philosophical principles that show how it is morally acceptable for a son to beat his father.

Example, P135: Pheidippides: But now, now that Sokrates has made a fresh Pheidippides of me, now that my daily diet is Philosophy, Profundity, Subtlety, and Science, I propose to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt the philosophical propriety of beating my Father.

In 399 BC. Socrates was convicted on a charge of corrupting the youth. As a great educationist, his dead reason was ridiculous. The following paragraph is Socrates’ refuting about this, and Meletus, who is mentioned in it, is the accuser of the trial.

Example, P 6 Apology: He says that I am a doer of evil, who corrupt the youth; but I say, O men of Athens, that Meletus is a doer of evil, and the evil is that he makes a joke of a serious matter, and is too ready at bringing other men to trial from a pretended zeal and interest about matters in which he really never had the smallest interest.

3.Aristophanes portrays Socrates as accepting payment for teaching and running a sophist school.

Example, P29: Strepsiades: What’s more----for a fee, of course----they offer a course called The Technique of Winning Lawsuits.

However, In The Clouds, while in Plato's Apology, Socrates clearly denies accepting payment for teaching. He said it was not humiliated to earn money from teaching, but he himself was not good enough to get paid.

Example, P 3: Apology As little foundation is there for the report that I am a teacher, and take money; that is no more true than the other.

Question: When The Clouds was shown, Socrates went to the theatre to watch the show. The version of The Clouds that we read is not the original that premiered in 423. According to Whitman, the existing version is an incomplete rewrite with a moralizing tone that seems out of keeping with a comedy. We can only speculate about the original play. So do you think the The Clouds was a vicious attack, a friendly warning, or a silent protection by Aristophanes to Socrates?