What is the essence of philosophizing according to Socrates. Socrates, his life and work. "Euthyphron": what is piety

SOCRATES(Athens, 469–399 BC) - the famous ancient philosopher, teacher of Plato, the embodiment of the ideal of a true sage in the historical memory of mankind. The name of Socrates is associated with the first fundamental division of the history of ancient philosophy into pre- and post-Socratic ("Presocratic"), reflecting the interest of early philosophers of the 6th-5th centuries. to natural philosophy, and the next generation of sophists of the 5th century. - to ethical and political topics, the main of which is the upbringing of a virtuous person and citizen. Socrates was close to the sophistic movement. Socrates' teachings were oral; he spent all his free time in conversations with visiting sophists and local citizens, politicians and philistines, friends and strangers on topics that have become traditional for sophistic practice: what is good and what is evil, what is beautiful and what is ugly, what is virtue and what is vice , is it possible to learn to be good and how knowledge is acquired (knowledge is a generalized, systematized theoretically expressed reflection of being). We know about these conversations mainly thanks to the disciples of Socrates - Xenophon and Plato.

Usually, at least three features of Socratic philosophy are indicated:

1) its colloquial ("dialectical") character;

2) definition of concepts by induction;

3) ethical rationalism (a philosophical trend that divides thinking from sensory experience and considers the mind to be the only source of knowledge), expressed by the formula "virtue is knowledge."

The dialogism of the teachings of Socrates, sociable by nature, had the following justification. By the Delphic oracle, he was proclaimed "the wisest of people" (Plato tells about this in Apologies for Socrates). But his own conviction is that he himself “knows nothing” and, in order to become wise, asks other people who are considered wise. Socrates came to the conclusion that this belief in his own ignorance makes him the wisest, since other people do not even know this. Socrates called his interview method maieutics("Midwifery"), meaning that it only helps the "birth" of knowledge, but itself is not its source: t. not a question, but the answer is a positive statement, then the interlocutor who answered Socrates' questions was considered “knowledgeable”. Socrates' usual methods of dialogue are: refutation through leading to contradiction and irony - feigned ignorance, avoiding direct answers. According to Platonic Apology, in fact, Socrates, speaking "the pure truth" about his ignorance, wanted to point out the insignificance of human knowledge in comparison with divine wisdom; himself, not hiding his ignorance, he wanted to lead to the same state of his interlocutors.

Socrates' constant thought is about the absolute value of good and knowledge, which cannot be separated from each other: it is impossible to act courageously or piously without knowing what courage or piety is. An act only has a moral meaning when a person commits it consciously and according to inner conviction. If he behaves well just because, for example, "everyone does it" - then if "everyone" behaves badly - there will be no reason to be virtuous. The norm of morality should be autonomous, and one cannot rely on the opinion of the majority in matters of truth and goodness. First of all, the criticism of Socrates about Athenian democracy and the accepted practice of resolving state issues by a majority vote is associated with distrust of the majority opinion; these critical sentiments were fully taken into account in the trial, which ended in execution for Socrates.

The philosophy of Socrates was between the objectivism of pre-Socratics and the subjectivism of sophistry. The human soul (consciousness) is subject to its own laws, which are by no means arbitrary, as the sophists wanted to prove; self-knowledge has an internal criterion of truth: if knowledge and goodness are identical, then, knowing ourselves, we must do better.

According to Socrates, not only truly moral (good) is always conscious, but also conscious is always good, and the unconscious is bad. If someone acts badly, it means that he still does not know what to do in reality, and after his soul is cleansed of false prejudices, a natural love for good will manifest in it. Just as one cannot act well without knowing virtue, so one cannot truly love without knowing what love is and what should be the true object of attraction.

Maieutics represented from the point of view of its logical form induction (guidance). The development of the inductance of the Socratic method was best promoted by the dialogical way of research. He assumed that at the beginning of the conversation, of necessity, they always proceed from everyone understandable, and therefore the most simple, visual provisions, which are predominantly sensual in nature, but as the dialogue progresses, they move on to the hidden and more essential properties of the things discussed. Reproducing the structure of the dialogue-research, induction is aimed at finding a single thing in many ways: from a multitude of phenomena in which a certain supposed entity is presented as a relative property that easily disappears and turns into its opposite, existing in them (phenomena) along with other properties, thought goes to one thing in which the desired property is presented by itself, not in a relative, but in an absolute sense, and not even as a property (any property can be detached from a thing, and the latter, although it will change, will not lose its existence), but as a certain inalienable certainty, identical to the thing itself, or even as a certain thing. The result of such a throwing of thought should be a definition that fixes a general, universal property that has universal significance for consciousness.

Literature

1. Losev A.F. History of ancient aesthetics. Sophists. Socrates, Plato. M., 1963.

2. Nersesyants V.S. Socrates. M., 1984.

3. Cassidy F.H. Socrates. 2nd ed. M., 1988.

4. Plato, Apology of Socrates, trans. M.S. Solovyov. - Plato. Sobr. op. in 4 vols. T. 4.M., 1989.

5. Xenophon, Memories of Socrates, Defense of Socrates at trial, Feast - Xenophon, Socratic works, trans. S.I. Sobolevsky, M. - L., 1935.

An outstanding place in the formation and development belongs to Socrates (470/469 - 399 BC). Having made philosophy his specialty, he nevertheless did not leave philosophical works after his death. The explanation is simple: Socrates preferred to express his ideas orally to students, listeners and opponents. What is known about the life and work of Socrates has come down to us thanks to the works of Xenophon, and. The subject of his philosophical reasoning is human consciousness, soul, human life in general, and not space, not nature, as was the case with his predecessors. And although he has not yet reached the Platonic or Aristotelian understanding of philosophy, there is no doubt that he laid the foundations of their views. Analyzing the problems of human existence, Socrates paid the main attention in his speeches and conversations to questions of ethics, that is, to those norms by which a person should live in society. At the same time, the method of proving and refuting the statements made by Socrates differed in a versatile and irresistible form of influence.

In his philosophical activity, Socrates was guided by two principles formulated by oracles:

• the need for everyone to "know himself"
• "Not a single person knows anything for certain and only a true sage knows that he does not know anything."

On the one hand, these principles were necessary for him to fight against the sophists, whom Socrates sharply criticized for the futility of their teachings, claims to knowledge of the truth and loud statements about teaching the truth. On the other hand, the acceptance of these principles should have encouraged people to expand their knowledge to comprehend the truth. The most important means, and if we speak in modern philosophical language - a method for familiarizing people with knowledge is irony, an essential part of which is the recognition of one's ignorance.

Cognition of oneself, according to Socrates, is both a search for real knowledge and for what principles it is better to live, that is, it is a search for knowledge and virtue. Essentially, he equates knowledge with virtue. However, he does not limit the sphere of knowledge to the statement that he needs, or what should be, and in this sense, knowledge at the same time acts as a virtue. This is a fundamental principle of the ethical concept and it is most fully presented in Plato's dialogue "Protagoras".

Most people's ignorance manifests itself in the fact that they regard knowledge and virtue as two different substances, independent of each other. They believe that knowledge has no effect on human behavior, and a person often does not act as knowledge requires, but in accordance with his sensory impulses. According to Socrates, science, and in a narrower sense - knowledge, which demonstrates its inability to influence a person, especially at moments of exposure to sensory impulses, cannot be considered a science. In the light of the above, it becomes clear that the ethical concept of Socrates is based not only, and perhaps not so much on morality, as on overcoming ignorance and on knowledge. Apparently, his concept can be presented as follows: from ignorance, through knowledge, to virtue, and then to a perfect person and virtuous relationships between people.

Inductive reasoning

Considering other ideas of Socrates, which had a huge impact on the further development of philosophy, it is important to note his role in the development of general definitions and inductive reasoning. "Two things can be fair," writes Aristotle, "to ascribe to Socrates — evidence through guidance and general definitions." At the same time, the general definitions with which Socrates seeks to find the “essence of things”, Aristotle links with the emergence of dialectical analysis, which, in essence, was absent before Socrates. "After all, then there was not yet," explains Aristotle, "dialectical art, so that it was possible, without even touching the essence, to consider opposites." Inductive reasoning assumes that in the process of analyzing a certain number of things or individual judgments, a general judgment can be made through a concept. So, for example, (in Plato's dialogue "Gorgias") from the statements that the one who studied architecture is an architect, who studied music is a musician, the one who studied medicine became a doctor, Socrates comes to the general statement that that is, to the notion that the one who studied science is the one who made the science itself. Thus, inductive reasoning is intended to define a concept and this concept should express the essence or nature of a thing, that is, what it really is. It can be argued with good reason that Socrates stood at the origins of the formation of general concepts in philosophy.

Dialectics

Significant, as noted above, was the contribution of Socrates to the development of dialectics. , for example, believed that dialectics did not exist before Socrates. He contrasts the doctrine of the constant fluidity of sensible things with the ideas of Socrates about dialectics, since the latter never endowed the general with a separate existence. To know the truth, it is necessary, according to Socrates, to overcome the contradiction. The dialectic of Socrates is the doctrine of overcoming contradiction, denying contradiction, avoiding contradiction. To what has been said, it must be added that Socrates' dialectics and ideas about knowledge are closely intertwined with his teleology, that is, the doctrine of expediency. Thus, Socrates ends in the history of ancient Greek philosophy and begins a new, one might say, philosophical stage, which receives its further development in the works of Plato and Aristotle.

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………. 3

1. Socratic philosophy .............. …………………………………………… 4

1.1. Formation of the philosophical views of Socrates ……………………………. 4

1.2. Demon Socrates …………………………………………………………… 7

1.3. Religious views and the concept of the afterlife …………………… .. 8

1.4. Virtue in the concept of Socrates …………………………………………. eleven

1.5. Self-knowledge as understood by Socrates …………………………………… ..14

1.6. Socratic concept of knowledge and cognition ……………………………. 15

1.7. The question of being in the philosophy of Socrates …………………………………… .. 16

1.8. Socrates' political and legal views …………………………………… 17

2. Philosophical method of Socrates …………………………………………… .. 20

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… .. 24

List of sources used ………………………………………… 26

INTRODUCTION

Socrates is a great ancient sage, "the personification of philosophy", as

named it K. Marx, - stands at the origins of the rationalistic and educational traditions of European thought.

The fame that Socrates was awarded during his lifetime easily survived entire eras and, without fading, through the thickness of two and a half millennia, has reached our days. Socrates was interested and carried away at all times. From century to century, the audience of his interlocutors changed, but did not diminish. And today it is undoubtedly more crowded than ever.

Socrates discovered morality. The Athenians before Socrates were moral, not moral; they lived according to custom and judiciously adapting to circumstances. Socrates showed that there is good as such. He equated the perfection of man, his virtue and knowledge.

The purpose of writing this essay is to consider the basic philosophical views of Socrates and his philosophical method, the purpose of which was to lead the interlocutor to an independent finding of truth.

In the essay, I consider the religious views of Socrates, his concept of the afterlife, of virtue, I consider self-knowledge in the understanding of Socrates, the solution to the issue of being in his philosophy, the Socratic concept of knowledge and cognition, his political and legal views. It will be found out that the components of the Socratic method are irony and maieutics.

The themes of Socrates' philosophy were the burning problems of his time, which are still relevant today: good, evil, love, happiness, honesty, etc. At all times, an appeal to Socrates was an attempt to understand oneself and one's time. And we, with all the originality of our era and the novelty of tasks, are no exception.

1. SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY

1.1. Formation of the philosophical views of Socrates

Socrates, the great ancient sage, the founder of his own school, was essentially a skeptic, but did not force others to accept their point of view, but in a special way, by asking questions, forced each person to express their own philosophy. Socrates was focused on man. But he is viewed by Socrates as a moral being. Therefore, the philosophy of Socrates is an ethical anthropologism. The interests of Socrates were alien to both mythology and physics.

It is necessary to say a few words about the time in which Socrates lived. Modern Athenian democracy has lost its simple, harsh and beautiful ideals, which were in the first half of the 5th century BC. At this time, Athens lived in predatory wars, democracy was degenerating. Socrates, in the midst of the people, conducted conversations, and with his seemingly simple questions baffled the supporters of the demagogic regime: the aristocrats considered him a commoner who allows himself a lot, and the democrats were afraid of his biting exposure. However, Socrates was too popular. His endless disputes were tolerated for the time being, but in 399 BC. The "democratic" authorities tried the philosopher and passed a blatant court sentence - the first death sentence in Athens for abstract ideological differences.

He has an outstanding place in the history of moral philosophy and ethics, logic, dialectics, political and legal doctrines. One can learn about the life and work of Socrates, one of the greatest philosophers of Ancient Greece, only from the works of his contemporaries and students, primarily Plato, because Socrates himself did not leave written sources behind. But the influence he exerted on the progress of human knowledge is felt to this day. He entered the spiritual culture of mankind forever.

At the center of Socratic thought is the theme of man, the problems of life and death, good and evil, virtues and vices, rights and duty, freedom and responsibility, personality and society. And the Socratic conversations are an instructive and authoritative example of how you can navigate the more often these eternally topical issues. The transition from natural philosophy to moral philosophy associated with the name of Socrates did not occur immediately. Initially, as can be seen from Plato's "Phaedo," the young Socrates was seized by a real passion for the knowledge of nature, for the study of the causes of earthly and heavenly phenomena, their emergence and death.

Socrates really was the thinker who, in the chaotic confusion of sophistry, separated the true from the untrue, light from darkness. The ground on which he stands is shared with the sophists. And its principle is the negative power of the subjective, not conditioned by any external object, free from the limited and definite, which are considered the solid reality of immediate consciousness; a person also refers only to himself; he also, in his opinion, has the criterion of reality in himself. However, Socrates differs significantly from the sophists in that for him such a criterion is not separate, but universal consciousness, the consciousness of the true and good, that he determines a reasonable, absolute goal, content, although dictated by thinking, but nevertheless existing in itself and for self, stable, substantial good, as the essence of subjectivity. According to Socrates, the sophists, instead of teaching their students the real knowledge of things, only make fun of people. For example, in conversation they used some word in one or another sense, thus confusing a person, putting him in a stupid position and finding fun for themselves in this.

Doubt - "I know that I know nothing" - should, according to the teachings of Socrates, lead to self-knowledge - "know yourself." Only in this individualistic way, he taught, can one come to an understanding of justice, law, law, piety, good and evil.

At the center of Socratic thought is the theme of man, the problems of life and death, good and evil, virtues and prophets, rights and duty, freedom and responsibility, society. According to Plutarch, Socrates considered any place suitable for teaching, since the whole world is a school of beneficence.

Socrates saw that man is internally "not empty." Hence the famous "Know thyself". The sage Socrates said that stupidity is not in knowing little, but in not knowing yourself and thinking that you know what you do not know.

The internal law, to which man is subject, differs from the laws of nature, it elevates man above his own limitations, makes him think: "God himself obliged man to live by doing philosophy." Philosophy is the true path to God. Philosophy is a kind of dying, but dying for earthly life is preparation for the liberation of the immortal soul from its bodily shell. The spirit and concept of Socrates takes on an independent existence. Socrates was not afraid of death, since man is not a simple element of nature. Human being is not given to a person from the outset, he can only say "I only know that I know nothing." A person can independently come to an understanding of his involvement in a common ideal principle, which is common to all people. At the center of Socrates' teachings is man, therefore his philosophy is called the beginning of the first anthropological turn in the history of philosophical thought.

Socrates himself did not leave essays, he did not take money from his students, did not care about the family. He considered the main task of his life to teach a person how to think, the ability to find a deep spiritual beginning in himself. In his own words, he was assigned to the Athenian people like a gadfly to a horse, so that he would not forget to think about his soul.

Socrates said that the main task of wisdom is to discern

good and evil; The same is true for us, in whose eyes there are no sinless people, should say about the ability to distinguish between vices, for without this precise knowledge it is impossible to distinguish a virtuous person from a villain. Among other sins, drunkenness appears to Socrates as a particularly gross and base vice. He believed that the mind is more involved in other vices; there are even vices in which, so to speak, there is a shade of nobility, there are vices associated with knowledge, with diligence, with courage, with discernment, with dexterity and cunning, but as for drunkenness, this is a vice through and through bodily and material. Therefore, the most rude of all existing peoples is the one, Socrates believed, in whom this vice is especially widespread. Other vices dull the mind, drunkenness destroys it and affects the body.

1.2. Demon of Socrates.

It is known that Socrates believed that he was accompanied by a certain demon (genius) who, according to Plato, gives him advice, stops him when he wants to commit a "wrong" act, and, according to Xenophon, actively prompts him to action. Some researchers see in the demon Socrates a metaphor with which he ironically covered his own conscience, reason or common sense; others - an enlightened feeling, an enlightened inner sense or instinct; still others are expressions of inner revelation or manifestations of religious enthusiasm; fourth - a "monstrous" phenomenon in which instinct and consciousness (their function) replace each other; fifth - evidence that the inner world of everyone is inherent in transcendence. Hegel, who paid considerable attention to the demon of Socrates, associates it with the inability of the Greeks to make a decision, guided by inner motives. An oracle is a way of communicating a decision to an "external fact". The Demon of Socrates, according to Hegel, is "an oracle, which at the same time does not represent something external, but is something subjective, is his oracle." We are talking about the process of projection outside of the internal decision and at the same time the formation of mental actions and the internal plan of consciousness through the individual's assimilation of external actions with objects and social forms of communication.

Socrates is the principal enemy of the study of nature. He considers the work of the human mind in this direction to be impious and fruitless interference in the affairs of the gods. The main task of philosophy, Socrates recognized the substantiation of the religious and moral worldview, while the knowledge of nature, natural philosophy, he considered an unnecessary and godless deed. Doubt (“I know that I know nothing”) should, according to the teachings of Socrates, lead to self-knowledge (“know thyself”). Only in this individualistic way, he taught, can one come to an understanding of justice, law, law, piety, good and evil. Socrates decides the main philosophical question as an idealist: the primary for him is the spirit, consciousness, while nature is something secondary and even insignificant, not worthy of the attention of a philosopher. Doubt served Socrates as a prerequisite for turning to his own I, to the subjective spirit, for which the further path led to the objective spirit - to the divine mind. The idealistic ethics of Socrates grows into theology.

Developing his religious and moral teaching, Socrates refers to a special inner voice that allegedly instructed him in the most important issues - the famous "demon" of Socrates. Socrates opposes the determinism of the ancient Greek materialists and outlines the foundations of a teleological understanding of the world, and here the starting point for him is the subject, because he believes that everything in the world has as its goal the benefit of man. Socrates' teleology appears in an extremely primitive form. The human sense organs, according to this teaching, have as their purpose the fulfillment of certain tasks: the purpose of the eyes is to see, the purpose of the ears is to listen, the nose is to smell, etc. Likewise, the gods send the light necessary for people to see, the night is intended by the gods for the rest of people, the light of the moon and stars is intended to help determine the time. Socrates did not clothe his philosophical doctrine in writing, but disseminated it through oral conversation in the form of a peculiar dispute, methodologically directed towards a specific goal.

The development of an idealistic morality constitutes the main core of Socrates' philosophical interests and occupations.

Socrates attached particular importance to the knowledge of the essence of virtue. A moral person should know what virtue is. Morality and knowledge coincide from this point of view; in order to be virtuous, it is necessary to know virtue as such, as the "universal", which serves as the basis of all private virtues. The task of finding the "universal" should, according to Socrates, be facilitated by his special philosophical method. The “Socratic” method, which had as its task the discovery of “truth” through conversation, dispute, polemics, was the source of idealistic “dialectics”. “In ancient times, dialectics was understood as the art of achieving truth by revealing contradictions in the opponent's judgment and overcoming these contradictions.

Socrates, relying on the Eleatic school (Zeno) and the sophists (Protagoras), for the first time clearly raised the question of subjective dialectics, of the dialectical way of thinking. The main components of the "Socratic" method: "irony" and "maieutics" - in form, "induction" and "definition" - in terms of content. The “Socratic” method is, first of all, a method of consistently and systematically asked questions, with the aim of bringing the interlocutor to a contradiction with himself, to admitting his own ignorance. This is Socratic “irony”. However, Socrates set as his task not only the “ironic” disclosure of contradictions in the statements of the interlocutor, but also overcoming these contradictions in order to achieve “truth”. Therefore, the continuation and addition of the "irony" was the "maieutics" - the "midwifery art" of Socrates (an allusion to the profession of his mother). Socrates wanted to say by this that he helps his listeners to be born to a new life, to the knowledge of the “universal” as the basis of true morality.

The main task of the "Socratic" method is to find the "universal" in morality, to establish a universal moral basis for individual, private virtues. This task must be solved with the help of a kind of "induction" and "definition". “Induction” and “definition” in Socratic dialectics complement each other. If “induction” is the search for the common in particular virtues by analyzing and comparing them, then “definition” is the establishment of genera and types, their correlation, “subordination”. Truth and morality for Socrates are the same concepts. “Socrates did not make a distinction between wisdom and morality: he recognized a person as both intelligent and moral if a person, understanding what the beautiful and the good consist in, is guided by this in his actions and, conversely, knowing what the morally ugly consists of, avoids him ... True justice, according to Socrates, is the knowledge of what is good and beautiful, at the same time useful to a person, contributes to his bliss, life happiness.

The three main virtues Socrates considered:

1. Moderation (knowing how to curb passions)

2. Courage (knowing how to overcome dangers)

3. Justice (knowledge of how to observe divine laws and

human)

Only “noble people” can claim knowledge. And “farmers and other workers are very far from knowing themselves ... after all, they only know what is relevant to the body and serves it ... Therefore, if knowing oneself is a sign of rationality, none of these people , cannot be reasonable by virtue of his own craft ”. Socrates was an implacable enemy of the Athenian masses. He was the ideologist of the aristocracy, his doctrine of the inviolability, eternity and immutability of moral norms expresses the ideology of this particular class. Socratic preaching of virtue had a political purpose. He says about himself that he cares to prepare as many people as possible who are able to take up political activities. At the same time, the political education of the Athenian citizen was carried out by him in such a direction as to prepare the restoration of the political domination of the aristocracy, to return to the “precepts of the fathers”.

Socrates talks about courage, prudence, justice, modesty. He would like to see the Athenian citizens as brave people, but modest, not demanding, prudent, fair in relations with their friends, but by no means with enemies. A citizen must believe in the gods, make sacrifices to them and, in general, perform all religious rituals, rely on the mercy of the gods and not allow himself the "audacity" to study the world, the sky, the planets. In a word, a citizen should be a meek, God-fearing, obedient instrument in the hands of “noble gentlemen”.

Socrates was a whole person, for whom his own life was a philosophical problem, and the most important of the problems of philosophy was the question of the meaning of life and death. Without separating philosophy from reality, from all other aspects of activity, he is even less guilty of any dismemberment of philosophy itself. His worldview was just as whole, earthly, vital, just as full and deep expression of spiritual life.

- The Athenian, born in a simple family, became the most famous ancient Greek thinker of his time. What was the philosophy of Socrates, biography and statements in the material of the article.

Socrates biography

Socrates was born into an ordinary family in the 5th century BC. His father worked as a sculptor, and his mother was a midwife. The future philosopher studied independently. He took over the skill of a sculptor from his father. He gathered young people who were eager to gain new knowledge. Conducted conversations on walks, squares, influencing the environment. Speaking as a teacher, he did not take money for conversations, considering it unacceptable to trade in wisdom. His life story was conducted by listeners, students and friends, since he himself did not write anything down. Philosophy is set forth in the writings of Xenaphon and Plato. But Plato inserted his own reasoning into the notes, presenting them in the form of discussions between Socrates and the participants in the conversation.

Socrates' personality is attractive to his contemporaries. They formed other schools of thought. Each one continued his teaching. He was seen as the founder of a new philosophy. He was a teacher, an example of a clear mind and inner peace. His outward mediocrity refuted the ingrained idea of ​​the Greeks that a beautiful soul is only in a beautiful body. The sage's nose was flattened, his nostrils wide and upturned.

He talked with people from different social classes, and for each he tried to put the question in such a way that the interlocutor could correctly understand the meaning of what was said. Questions made the interlocutor think. Conversations with those who wish brought him to prison. He was charged with anti-state activities and serving a demon. A demon was an inner voice that prompts a philosopher to reason and think. He refused to escape from prison, despite an escape plan organized by his students and associates. In the spring of 399 BC. the philosopher drank from a goblet containing a poison that paralyzes breathing. Until the last day he was calm and continued philosophical conversations and reasoning with himself.

The meaning of Socrates' philosophy

Socrates is remembered by history as a reformer of theoretical and practical philosophy. Aristotle noted that it was Socrates who founded scientific methodology in the form of inductive reasoning and definition.

Socratic method

The main idea of ​​the Socratic method is the search for truth through conversation, or argument. Idealistic dialectics originated from it. Dialectics is the art of finding truth through disclosing contradictions in the interlocutor's reasoning and overcoming them. The method is based on two parts:

1. Irony.
2. Maieutics.

The Socratic method is based on systematic questions asked to the interlocutor, the purpose of which was to lead him to an understanding of his own ignorance. It's irony. But the ironic presentation of contradictions is not the essence of the method. The main thing in it is to find the truth through the disclosure of contradictions. Maieutics continues and complements the Socratic method.

The thinker himself said that his method, like a midwife, helps to give birth to truth. Thought is divided into links. Each forms a question, to which there is a short, or pre-understandable answer. Simply put, this is a dialogue with the seizure of the initiative.

Let's list the advantages of the Socratic method:

1. The interlocutor's attention is focused and not scattered.
2. The inconsistency in the line of reasoning is quickly noticed.
3. The parties to the dispute find the truth.
4. The line of reasoning resolves other issues that are not related to the original topic.

Socrates' doctrine of good

Consider how Socrates understood good. Improving the conditions of upbringing is the sacred duty of people. The most important thing is the education of both personal and other people. The highest human wisdom in the ability to distinguish good from evil. Each person should be guided by justice in actions. The doctor will not give useful advice to those who monitor their health. Knowledge is the only good, and ignorance is the only evil. Anyone who goes on about his pleasures will not be able to keep his body and soul pure. Whoever wants to move the world must first move himself.

Women's love is more terrible than men's hatred. It is a poison, dangerous in sweetness. The world and the sky are ruled by wisdom. Drunkenness reveals vice, but happiness does not change character. The ability to rejoice in small things is a sign of a rich nature. Evil arises when a person does not know good.

About the truth

The opinion of others does not matter. It is not the decision of the majority that wins, but the one person alone.

Socrates' doctrine of God

Theology became the culmination of the philosophy of the sage. He claims that people are not capable of understanding the truth, only God knows everything. The Athenian philosopher did not feel fear of death, because he did not know whether it was good, evil, or the highest good, and said that a person in the face of death can divine. The sign does not leave him on the way to court and leaving the courtroom, everything happens as it should. Otherwise, he would have been stopped by a sign. Gods protect a good person during life and after death, taking care of his affairs. Socrates said about God: "I know he is and I know what he is." Matter in his definition is the expression of divine thoughts. He rejected the study of nature, considering it an interference in the affairs of the gods.

People combine in themselves two opposites - soul and body, of which they are composed. The soul strives to cognize knowledge and virtue, the body strives for comfort and base desires. The difference in goals implies a conflict between mind and body. It is necessary to take care of the soul, and ignore the bodily needs. The ideal is higher than the good, even under the threat of life and health.

The moral character of the mind places it above the body. The mind has a supra-personal universal part. This part is the Universal Mind, or God.

The philosopher put one God above the recognized Greeks. The Divine manifests itself in the soul of a person, and the truth is hidden within him. God is not a man, but a world order endowed with reason. Man's wisdom is worthless.

Ethics

What is Socrates' ethics? The ethical meaning in his philosophy is virtue, knowledge of good and actions, in accordance with this knowledge. A brave person knows the right action and takes it. A just person is one who knows how to act in public affairs and acts. A godly person knows and observes religious practices. Socrates spoke about the inseparability of virtue and knowledge. By acting immorally, people are deluded and suffer from a misunderstanding of good and evil.

Virtue is achieved only by noble people. Among the virtues, the philosopher singled out:

1. Restraint is the ability to cope with passion.
2. Courage is the ability to overcome danger.
3. Justice is the observance of the law of people and God.

The philosopher considered virtues to be immutable and eternal.

Consider the philosophical ethics of Socrates:

Cognition of the cosmos is impossible, man will not find a way out of contradictions. He is able to know what belongs to him - his own soul. Hence came the philosopher's demand "Know thyself." The goal of cognition is in the direction of a person in life. The value of cognition of phenomena is in the ability to live reasonably.

Socrates quotes

His statements combine wisdom and simplicity. Here are the statements of the ancient philosopher:

1. "Marriage is a necessary evil."
2. “Get married. A good wife will make you an exception, with a bad wife you will become a philosopher. "
3. "Working without a goal is better than inaction."
4. "Strength does not preserve friendship." Friends are caught and tamed through love and kindness. "
5. "Eat to live, don't live to eat."

Socrates' philosophy is an attempt to know oneself and other people of his era. The theme of the human personality for the first time became central for the entire period of the development of philosophy as a science, which began to be called "Dossocratic".

Man becomes the only form. The past period of philosophy was focused on the search for being outside of man. This was a fundamental revolution in the development of the problems of the worldview. Socrates was the first to formulate questions of the relationship between subject and object, spirit and nature, thinking and being. Philosophy does not consider the division of concepts among themselves, but their relationship with each other.

Socrates spoke about the objective nature of knowledge, gave importance to man from the point of view of a being with morality. He believed in the relationship of the spiritual and the divine, contemplated on the immortality of the soul. God is the source of virtue and justice, moral, and not natural strength, as previously believed.

He was engaged in strengthening and improving ethical idealism, but was not limited to this. The goal of Socrates' philosophical search is to understand virtue and follow it.

Socrates said that the relationship between the state and the person is comparable to the relationship between parents and children. Children are obliged to obey their parents, and a person is obliged to express submission to the state. Based on this principle, the philosopher did not avoid the death sentence and did not escape from prison. Following the truth and justice cost him his life, and death showed that the sage went to the end in his reasoning and lived in accordance with them.