About Socrates from a Swedish encyclopedia
of 1908
I happened to look up Socrates in the “Nordic Family Book” and
immediately felt compelled to quote it (reworked into modern
Swedish and viewed with life-philosophy glasses).
Here you are: In 2013, I quoted:
Socrates' most important task was not to develop theories.
His main task was to change people's minds through education.
His idea was that "he who knows the right thing will do the
right thing."
He believed that what was right was good and useful, and
that we only attained true happiness by performing the right
actions.
His reasoning was that "no one wants to do anything other
than what he believes brings happiness. If someone does
not perform the right actions, it is because he does not
realize what is really good and right (for him)”.
According to Socrates, it is therefore possible to get an
individual to become virtuous by developing the individual's
judgment, so that by means of his own judgment he realizes what
will benefit him.
Socrates therefore did not teach any rules about what is right
or wrong. Instead, he wanted to nurture people's ability to think.
He did this by asking questions and questioning answers that
contradicted reason.
His motto was “Learn to know yourself (= your true self)”. In
order to facilitate self-knowledge, it was important to question
the prejudices that ordinary people desperately cling to (in
order to avoid taking responsibility). It is these prejudices
that prevent man from thinking his own true thoughts.
It was primarily through the Socratic irony that he made people
abandon their fixed ideas when he skillfully asked them questions,
so that the accused was led to engage in contradictions and then
to realize that he had no real knowledge in the area. He then used
his midwife method (dialectics or majeutics) by attracting new
questions that gave birth to good ideas of thought that summarized
the current idea. The midwife method was not a scientific method,
but rather an intuitive method that, together with critical
thinking, could lead to different conclusions. Often it was
concluded that you really did not know anything in the area in
question.
In Western teaching, the idea behind the midwife method has been used in believing that the pupil himself can arrive at the insights needed to acquire good judgment. However, given how long it would take to acquire all the knowledge needed in today's society by themselves, students are often allowed to study conclusions already drawn by others and then decide for themselves whether they are true or not
with the help of judgment.
Socrates was primarily interested in analyzing concepts and ethical issues. Socrates is known for the Socratic method or the midwife method used by Plato in his early writings. The method is based on the idea that people already possess knowledge, which needs to be released.
The task of the philosopher is to help release this knowledge as a midwife. In
Plato's dialogues, however, the Socratic method does not always lead to
definitive answers. Instead, the dialogue reveals how little the individual really
know.
In his "Apology" Socrates considers himself wiser than others because he realized that he knew nothing.
Todde
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