Aristophanes portrait of Socrates

Document Type:Thesis

Subject Area:Philosophy

Document 1

Socrates says, “Come would you like to learn celestial matter. How their truth stands?” (250-267). The sophists were not radical destroyers; they only gave expression to what already lay in the tendency of the times and have been gradually growing with the historical character. But the fruits of philosophy ripens only for those who unselfishly and with their whole soul, seek the truth; whereas the sophists would have had philosophy serve only an illegitimate one sided purpose, the establishment and adornment of their practical instructions. In Athens there were many who zealously espoused this modern wisdom; many who with great earnestness opposed its progress. He too contended not indeed directly, but with far more powerful means against the most the unsuspecting scrutiny of early Athenian life.

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Socrates also hard though not a destroyer upon the under secreted scrutiny of traditional morals of faith, he was not yet shaken by self-scrutiny (358-372). Socrates himself intentionally made this negative side of his labors especially prominent. It cannot, therefore, surprise as if Socrates appeared as one of the eight sophists not only to the uneducated masses but also the more select intellects of his times (403-418). Even after his unmerited death, at a time when the judgment concerning him could have been long since deemed from errors. He probably reckoned him among those who, themselves laboring under a misapprehension innocently gave it further circulation. As far as we can judge from the scanty statements of the ancients on the subject, the two became more intimate after the performance of Clouds than they had before.

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At any rate the jests subsequently directed against Socrates by the poet are of an entirely harmless nature. Now, we have a general but still very valuable statements of the contents of the first Clouds made by a young contemporary of the poet; the statement of Plato in the Apology. Socrates distinguishes between two kinds of accusers; those who have slandered him before the people and those who have brought the formal accusation against him. In a conversation with Srepsiades, Socrates asks, “Now then you agree in rejecting with the gods you belived in when young…. He was, of course. But Socrates also appeared to be unable to provide the Athenians with a satisfactory alternative account of the ends of human life.

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