Know-Thyself! Socrates as a Spiritual Teacher
About Socrates and Philosophy as a Transformative Way of Life According to Pierre Hadot
A statue of Socrates in Ahtens. Photo by Felipe Pérez Lamana on Unsplash.
“Doing philosophy no longer meant, as the Sophists had it, acquiring knowledge, know-how, or sophia; it meant questioning ourselves, because we have the feeling that we are not what we ought to be. This was to be the defining role of the philosopher — the person who desires wisdom.”
-Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?
(If you have a Medium membership you can also read this article here.)
Great spiritual teachers are often described as mirrors that enable people around them to become aware of where they are untruthful to themselves or hold incoherent, ignorant, or immoral beliefs.
This means people become aware of patterns in their thought, behaviour or emotions not and see how to change their ways.
I would argue that Socrates was precisely this in its purest form to the Athenian people: he was a spiritual teacher guiding them from ignorance to truth and virtue. To do this he was their mirror, constantly questioning them on their morals and way of life.
Socrates’ method of questioning others to mirror their behavior, values, beliefs, and thought process and make them aware of their own unconscious patterns and blind spots has become his trademark. It was famous in Athens at the time and it still is today.
His goal was for everyone to reach excellency and to truly know-themselves, thereby, making the Athenian people more just, courageous, honest, and loving.
As he was determined to bring out the truth no matter the cost, no politician, rich aristocrat, or ordinary worker was safe from him. This is also what eventually made him unpopular among some of the Athenian elite and led to his trial and death.
I will draw on the well-recognized work of Pierre Hadot and his book What is Ancient Philosophy? as well as Plato’s works to show how Socrates used self-inquiry to question others around him and what effect this had.
(All references either refer to Plato (e.g. 197e6) or Hadot (e.g. 27).)
A small cutout from Rafael’s “School of Athens” (Fresco, 1509–1511) showing Plato and Aristotle in discussion. Plato famously points to the heavens indicating engagement with higher divine and abstract forms while Aristotle demands matters to stay pragmatic and tangible by gesturing towards the earth. Source for the picture: Wikipedia.
Self-Knowledge Through Dialogue
In the person of Socrates, we have encountered a personality which, by its mere presence, obliges those who approach it to question themselves.
-Pierre Hadot, 29
Hadot is famous for having examined the practical side of ancient philosophy as a way of life. For the Greeks, philosophy was a practice of virtue, communion, and dialogue rather than solely a search for knowledge.
He argues that philosophical discourse in antiquity was part of a way of life and a spiritual practice. This means a practice that enabled a change within the person, a modification and transformation of the subject who practiced it.
Nicias, one of Plato’s characters in his Laches, tells us:
“Don’t you know that whoever approaches Socrates closely and begins a dialogue with him, even if he begins by talking about something entirely different, nevertheless finds himself forcibly carried around in a circle by this discourse, until he gets to the point of having to give an account of himself-as much with regard to the way he is living now, as to the way he has lived his past existence.
When that point is reached, Socrates doesn’t let you leave until he as submitted all that to the test of his control, well and thoroughly . . . It is a pleasure for me to keep company with him. I see no harm in being reminded that I have acted or am acting in a way that is not good.
He who does not run away from this will necessarily be more prudent in the rest of his life.” (197e6)
Similarly, Alcibiades, the Athenian general and student of Socrates, claims in the Symposium that Socrates’ incantation had a disturbing effect on him:
“I was in such a state that it did not seem possible to live while behaving as I was behaving (…). He forces me to admit to myself that I do not take care for my Self.” (215c-e)
The result of this process was humility, self-knowledge, and the awareness of what truly matters in life, the state of one’s soul.
In the Apology, Socrates says the following to defend himself in the trial that would eventually lead to his death:
“I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul […].” (30a)
Philosophy as a Spiritual Practise (Hadot) Leading to Self-Transformation
From today’s perspective then, Socrates was more of a spiritual teacher than a philosopher, when as a spiritual teacher we understand someone concerned with self-knowledge and transformation, and as a philosopher, we imagine someone looking for knowledge about things (either factual knowledge or know-how knowledge).
Socrates adamantly insisted that he himself “knew nothing”, he had no teaching and was only a “mid-wife” offering to help others observe their beliefs and thoughts to expose their internal inconsistencies.
This is why, as Hadot writes, he tells us again and again that “he knows nothing, that he has nothing to teach to others, and that others must think for themselves and discover their truth by themselves.” (32)
He continues:
“It is Socrates’ questions and interrogations which help his interlocutors to give birth to ‘their’ truth. Such an image shows that knowledge is found within the soul itself and it is up to the individual to discover it […].” (27)
Self-knowledge and truth cannot be received ready-made but must be engendered by every individual himself.
The “real problem” in Socratic questioning is therefore not the problem of knowing this or that, but of being in this or that way.
As Socrates himself tells us:
“I have no concern at all for what most people are concerned about: financial affairs, administration of property, appointments to generalships, oratorical triumphs in public, magistracies, coalitions, political factions.
I did not take this path […] but rather the one where I could do the most good to each one of you in particular, by persuading you to be less concerned with what you have than with what you so are; that you may make yourselves as excellent and as rational as possible.” (29)
The similarity to Erich Fromm’s message in Having or Being is apparent. This switch from the having to the being mode has also been thematized by John Vervaeke (Canadian philosopher, meditator, and cognitive scientist ) in depth examining Socrates as a central figure in his lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.
“The Death of Socrates”. Jacques-Louis Davids, oil on canvas, 1787. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Source: Wikipedia.
A Philosophical Life
Hadot also points out that Socrates did not only practice philosophical inquiry but, above all, he lived a philosophical life. He was known in Athens as a brave soldier who fought in the Peloponnesian War, but he was also a normal citizen, working, drinking with his friends, having a wife and kids, and speaking to anyone on the streets without regard for their social rank.
“Socrates practiced this call to being not only by means of his interrogations and his irony, but above all by means of his way of being, by his way of life, and by his very being.” (29)
So, while Socrates insisted on not knowing anything, he lived a life led by courage, humility, and justice. He also actively pursued wisdom through self-inquiry, at times literally being in complete stillness, or at other times having internal conversation, applying his own method to himself.
As his life’s work, he spread his wisdom by showing others where their thoughts and actions may not be guided by what is good and just, and in which ways they may not be truthful to themselves.
This approach to practical life as the greatest practice of philosophy appears clearly in Xenophon, another one of Socrates’ disciples, when the sophist Hippias refuses to respond to Socrates. He demands him to offer his own opinion on justice:
“You have been making fun of others long enough, by always questioning and refuting them, without ever wanting to explain yourself to anybody or to set forth your opinion.’
Socrates replies: ‘I never stop showing what I think is just. If not in words, I show it by my actions.’ This means, in the last analysis, that it is the just person’s life and existence which best determine what justice is” (31).
Apart from Plato’s academy (and later Aristotle’s Peripatos), after Socrates’ death, many different philosophical schools in Athens were inspired by his life and teachings like the Cynics, e.g. Diogenes, and through them indirectly Zeno and the Stoicis. The Cynics did not teach anything specific, but confronted people with the futility of their efforts by showing that contentment could be reached by living a simple life disregarding society’s rules and standards.
Internalising the Socratic Method
The method of the Socratic dialogue can lead one to be more aware of our true motivations, beliefs, blind spots, or internal contradictions. But the Socratic Method can thus be internalized when we learn to question and observe ourselves closely through self-analysis. This is something that Plato refers to many times throughout his dialogues.
Already at the beginning of the Symposium, Socrates is late since he has been alone outside meditating, standing motionless, “applying his mind to itself”.
He was commonly known for arguing with himself (or his daimon, his “guiding spirit”) in his head as well as standing motionless meditating. Plato claims that returning from the Peloponnesian war he did precisely that for an entire day, while some of the soldiers watched in amazement (220c-e).
Socrates was not famous for his beauty but his wits and personality. Portrait of Socrates, Roman artwork from the first century AD, copied after an earlier version. Displayed at the Louvre, France. Source: Wikipedia.
Modern Times
Unfortunately, much of modern Philosophy is no longer about wisdom or personal self-knowledge but about impersonal factual knowledge.
A distance is created between the academic philosopher and his subject, there is a certain type of “arm-chairyness” that crept in. After all, no philosopher adamantly claiming that he “knew nothing” would get an academic position nowadays.
No matter how great, today no professor could survive by only teaching without publishing. At the same time, thoughtfulness, humility, and virtue have been replaced by cleverness and rhetoric; philosophy has gone back to mostly being sophistry.
As Henry David Thoreau put it already 200 years ago:
“Nowadays, there are philosophy professors, but no philosophers.”
This may seem a little harsh to some, but I’ll discuss this claim with its pros and cons in more detail in my next articles.
This is the start of a series exploring self-knowledge and philosophy as a way of life, with Socrates and Plato occupying important roles, so stay tuned if you’re interested in knowing more.
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Here’s more:
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The Essence of Spirituality: About Transformation and Finding Your True Self