Socrates sought out those with reputations for wisdom. Who were the wise men he interviewed? Later accounts provide a list of important figures. Among political leaders we see him having conversations with Critias and Charmides (see ch. 8*) and Alcibiades (ch. 17*), as well as the generals Nicias and Laches (ch. 15*). Anytus, discussed above, was one of the leaders of the democratic revival after the end of the Peloponnesian War. Among poets, we see him with Agathon in Plato’s Symposium (see ch. 16*). But we may wonder whether he had conversations cross-examining the two tragic poets who took notice of him, Ion of Chios (ch. 4*) and the great Euripides (ch. 9*). Further, is it possible that he asked his penetrating questions of Aristophanes, the great comic poet who would put him on stage in a lasting testimonial to Socrates’ increasing prominence and the poet’s stubborn intolerance (ch. 14*)?[18] In questioning Aristophanes, could Socrates have walked into the lion’s den intentionally? We find the two men getting along with each other in Plato’s Symposium, but the conflagration at the end of Aristophanes’ Clouds suggests that the poet deeply resented the philosopher.
Socrates, in the account given by Plato, was moved by the oracle to find out what the god meant when he said no one was wiser than Socrates. He seemed to envisage interviewing the god, asking what he could possibly mean by such an assertion. He set out to test the oracle by finding someone wiser than himself — a task that should be easy. He examined politicians, poets, and craftsmen. What he found was that some had native gifts without any particular wisdom, notably the poets; some thought they were wise without being so, notably the politicians; and some had genuine knowledge in one area, but erroneously thought their skill conferred wisdom in other areas in which they were in fact wholly ignorant.[19] Socrates had not refuted the god. He had found that, in a strange way, the god had spoken the truth.
It began to dawn on Socrates that his very self-doubt conferred an advantage on him. Unlike the notable people he had been interviewing, he did not think he had any special knowledge. Success had blinded these notable people to the limitations of their own expertise. If they had some skill, knowledge, or wisdom, they came to believe that they knew everything. In examining them, he exposed their intellectual limitations, and of course their pretensions as well. This, however, created enmities and hostilities, and also a reputation for wisdom in Socrates himself. The bystanders erroneously assumed that Socrates had wisdom in the things he questioned others about. “It’s likely that only the god is really wise,” he tells the jury, “and in his oracle he means this, that human wisdom is worth little or nothing. And it seems that when he mentions Socrates, he’s using my name by way of an example, as if to say, ‘He among you, O men, is wisest who like Socrates knows that he’s truly lacking in wisdom.”[20]
What emerged from Chaerephon’s trip to the oracle, then, was a new focus for Socrates, leading to a new understanding of his work. Suddenly revealed as a wise man, he needed to try to make sense of the god’s statement. As he examined prominent statesmen, poets, artisans, those renowned for wisdom, he found serious shortcomings in all of them. In the process, and quite by accident from his point of view, he was thrust into the limelight. He was hailed by the god of Delphi. More and more he spent his time with celebrities. As a result, he became a celebrity himself. At least he became notorious as a stalker and exposer of celebrities. His own unique perspective kept him from becoming convinced of his own wisdom. Yet he found a kind of second-order wisdom in himself that was not present in those he examined. He knew of his own limitations, his own lack of special knowledge. In the terms of the Charmides he knew himself, notably recognizing what he knew and what he didn’t know. As he said after one of his interviews, “it seems that I am wiser than [this man] to this very small extent, that I don’t pretend to know what I don’t know.”[21]
What Socrates seems to have discovered is the value of intellectual humility. Humility was not a Greek virtue, but seemed to the Greeks like the kind of character trait appropriate to a slave. In Greek culture the ideal man was successful, self-confident, and suitably proud of his accomplishments. Socrates, however, saw the attitude first perhaps as a faithful characterization of his own weakness, and later as an act of piety. He never sought to define or explore his own attitude. Yet it set him apart from virtually everyone he came in contact with, and in some measure provided the foundation of his own self-education. Perhaps Socrates’ only philosophical predecessor in self-knowledge was Heraclitus, who said, “I examined myself.”[22] Socrates stands at the fountainhead of all Western epistemology. The purpose of his inquiry was, first and foremost, self-knowledge. Henceforth, all inquiry would be in some sense self-inquiry.
In the encounter with the god, as Socrates piously saw it, his avocation of finding virtue was transformed into a vocation. He was called to share his insights, to be Apollo’s mouthpiece. The private man was thrust onto the public stage. “Were it not,” says Socrates expert Gregory Vlastos, “for that divine command that first reached Socrates through the report Chaerephon brought back from Delphi there is no reason to believe that he would ever have become a street-philosopher. … Why should he take to the streets, forcing himself on people who have neither taste nor talent for philosophy, trying to talk them into submitting to a therapy they do not think they need? … Would Socrates have given his life to this task if his piety had not driven him to it?”[23]
From this point on, Socrates’ philosophizing would take place in the marketplace and the streets, in public rather than in private, in sunshine rather than shadow. There was no going back. Socrates’ quest had become a mission.
[18]. Aristophanes appears in the Symposium (esp. 189a-193e), but we do not see him being examined by Socrates (though we glimpse Socrates debating with Aristophanes and Agathon at the end of the evening, 223c-d).
[19].Plato Apology 21c-22e.
[20].Plato Apology 23a-b.
[21].Plato Apology 21d, quoted in context at the beginning of the chapter.
[22].Heraclitus B101.
[22].Vlastos 1991:177.