Socrates
Athenian philosopher (c. 470–399 BCE)
Also known as: Sokrates
Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE), the Athenian philosopher known chiefly through Plato's dialogues, is for Quigley the inflection point at which Classical Civilization pivoted from the early Ionian scientific tradition to the rationalist-idealist line that would dominate Greek philosophy thereafter.
The Pythagorean-rationalist turn
Quigley's compact account places Socrates inside a single intellectual lineage with Pythagoras and Plato. "Most of the Pythagorean rationalists such as Pythagoras himself, Socrates, Plato, or the early Aristotle… insisted that knowledge could be obtained not by approaching the material world through the senses but by turning away from the material world (which was unknowable illusion) to reality (which was rational and knowable)" (EoC 284). Quigley identifies the autobiographical pivot from Plato's Phaedo: Socrates "in earlier years… had been a follower of the natural philosophers (that is, the scientists) and even for a while had accepted the teachings of Anaxagoras, but he soon discovered that the senses were not dependable and that the views of" the early scientists could be discarded (EoC 285). The turn from observation to reason "led to the death of ancient science" (EoC 78).
Logic and the polis
Socrates also stands, for Quigley, at the origin of the two-valued logical apparatus that became the structural backbone of Western analytical thought. "The first of these rules establishes that Socrates is Socrates and remains Socrates throughout his lifetime," and the second "that Socrates is a man and not something else (not animal nor a god, two classification categories below and above human status)" (WS 272–273). The reading of Socrates as a political figure is sharper still: in the Crito, Quigley notes against a careless classicist, "Socrates [is] prepared to sacrifice an individual life (his own) rather than to oppose the state in what he regards as an erroneous action" — hardly a liberal individualist (Book Reviews 77–78). Like Plato's Republic, Socratic political thought assumed "that the polis was an organism" (WS 336).
Cited in
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 78 Quigley
The view that the only acceptable method for discovering the nature of reality was accepted by Socrates and Plato (and, in his earlier period, by Aristotle) and led to the death of ancient science.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 284 Quigley
Of the Pythagorean rationalists such as Pythagoras himself, Socrates, Plato, or the early Aristotle. They insisted that knowledge could be obtained not by approaching the material world through the senses but by turning away from the material world.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 285 Quigley
The autobiographical remarks which Plato put into Socrates' mouth in the Phaedo. In earlier years, he said, he had been a follower of the natural philosophers.
- weapons-systems-political-stability · p. 272 Quigley
The first of these rules establishes that Socrates is Socrates and remains Socrates throughout his lifetime.
- weapons-systems-political-stability · p. 336 Quigley
In Plato's Republic it required no defense or explanation when Socrates assumed, without discussion, that the polis was an organism.
- book-reviews · p. 77 Quigley
'Socrates was at least a liberal in the sense the individual before the state,' when the 'Crito' shows Socrates prepared to sacrifice an individual life (his own) rather than to oppose the state.