Was Socrates the most influential philosopher of his time?
Table of Contents
A. Plan of Investigation
B. Summary of evidence
C. Evaluation of sources
D. Analysis
E. Conclusion
F. Bibliography
Pre-IB grade 10 Historical investigation
By: Yarrow Bedwin
2018, December, 18th
PART A: Plan of investigation
During this study I’ll be looking for multiple characteristics of philosophers in this project. First I’ll be looking at their influence on their society, and also how their ideologies affected society several centuries later. I’ll also look at how they were liked at the time, and also did they influence anybody else important? I’ll be doing this by reading a primary source written by Plato, and looking at documentaries by multiple sources and webpages, allowing me to look at multiple points of view. The Socratic period was named after Socrates. However he was only one of many influential philosophers of the period, including philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus among others. So was Socrates really the most influential philosopher of his time?
PART B: Summary of evidence
These are some of the philosophers that have made the greatest contributions to western philosophy, culture and society.
Thales of Miletus 620-546 BCE
Thales was the first philosopher to use reason to try to figure out what the world was made of (he came to the conclusion that everything is made out of water). He moved away from using the gods as the only explanation, and tried to use logic instead. He believed that the world was rational and sensible, which was a far cry from the chaotic pantheon of greek gods. This belief subsequently influenced the following generations of philosophers. They, in turn, shaped the way people in the western world interacted culturally, and also how social structure was formed.
Anaximander 610-546 BCE
Anaximander was very much the Plato of the pre-Socratic period. He was the student of Thales, and he was the first known writer of western philosophy. Anaximander rocked the pre-socratic world by realising several things, all of which are obvious to us, but were revolutionary at the time. He was the first speculative astronomer in history, with findings like: planets rotate around the earth in circle, and that the universe was open (people thought the universe was more like a big painted canvas in the sky), and that planets were spaced at varying distances. He also believed that everything was made out of Aperion, a boundless substance.
Democritus 460-370 BCE
Democritus is a philosopher who was almost 2000 years ahead of his time, he believed that the world was made of small, particles that made up everything on earth, and they were called atoms.
Socrates 469-399 BCE
Socrates was called the “Gadfly” because he pestered people with his questions. The Socratic method affects the way teachers teach students in our education system. The Socratic method is when a person who already knows something, questions another person until that person is able to come to the answer (it can also be a group, or just one person asking themselves). A direct example from Socrates, and one of the last times he would ever practice his method was at his prosecution, was when he picked apart his prosecutor’s arguments with question after question that Meletus answered himself.
Besides the Socratic method, Socrates had other core philosophies, one of which was that you needed to do good deeds to help your soul, and that bad deeds would hurt your soul. Since nobody would want to hurt their souls, all bad actions were done in ignorance. He also thought that it was worse to do a bad deed than be the victim of the bad deed. To put that in perspective, he thought it was worse for a person to commit murder, and get away with it, and live a long and successful life, then be the person who got murdered.
It is also very important to note, Plato, and Aristotle were heavily influenced by Socrates.
Plato 427-347 BCE
Plato was probably the ultimate idealist. Plato would just create a law and then make the world fit the law. Plato created a school called the “Academy”. He also created a utopia that his philosophy would fit in, for example, he believed the perfect ruler would be a philosopher king, and his scenarios in his books would often be fiction that demonstrated his ideologies.
He also came up with many abstract scientific and mathematical theories that in some cases were far ahead of his time.
Aristotle 384-322 BCE
Aristotle looked at the world in a practical way. Unlike Plato, he observed the world and made laws to suit it. He also gave us many great works on practicalities of life, including, what makes people happy, what is art for, what are friends for, and why do some ideas prevail in the world. Some of these ideas do seem to influence other great philosophers such as Epicurus, although it was still fairly rare to question happiness. Aristotle also gave many contributions to math and science.
Epicurus 341-270 BCE
While all the other philosophers were looking for these complex ways to be a good person, Epicurious thought you’re already a good person when you’re happy, so you should just do what makes you happy. And Epicurious thought the path to happiness was easy, for all you needed in life was that was easily accessible (plants, and animals give you food, and water for drinking ect...), and what is hard to find is unneeded. He also saw that many many marital relationships are filled with hate and spite, where as when we’re with friends we are jovial and happy. His solution? Live in a house with all your friends, known as a commune, and the height of this movement there were more than 400,000 communes.
PART C Evaluation of sources
The 10 Top Philosophers
This is a very useful source because it’s a stepping stone. It contains a diverse amount of information, which allows a new reader to get an immediate amount of base information. It serves its purpose very well, which is just to inform the public. It provides information that is the type which requires you to already know something about it, because it won’t come up in a broad search term. So it gives you the ability to look further into less known facts.
As with any top ten, this list is extremely subject to bias. An example would be having Thales as the most influential philosopher during this period, most sources might not agree on who it is but they all rotate around three people, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
A benefit may also be a curse, its lack of information can leave you wanting. For example it would often only talk about one aspect of the philosophers philosophies, and ignore other aspects. This can be quite bad, because it misses aspects of philosophers, it can give some readers a half-baked idea of what that philosopher’s basic ideas.
The Apology by Plato. (Primary source: book)
This source is written by Plato himself, written to give the version of the side of the accused. It’s great as a source because it gives us a direct look at Socrates’ personality, and how he presented himself in public. Because it is a primary source you are able to diagnose the text as you see fit, you also don’t have to deal with any secondary bias. Some downsides to using this primary source, is that we only have the word and writing of Plato, and since this is an event that we have very little knowledge about outside of the few students of Socrates who wrote about it, it's next to impossible to know how legitimate the book is.
PART D: Analysis
The reason all the philosophers are so important, along with others of their time, is because they set the groundwork for all the philosophers to come after them. Starting with Thales thinking of the world in a totally different way, these philosophers gave so many revolutionary ideas that shaped our culture and society.
Thales is probably the most influential of the pre-Socratic philosophers and scientists. He was the founding stone that all the philosophers that followed him built on. So even though we can look at his idea that everything was made of water and see that he was obviously wrong, his attempt to use reason instead of gods to explain the way the world worked, influenced the way people thought about the world at the most basic level, causing many philosophers to completely come up with theories on how the world worked.
People say that trends aren't set by the first person to do it, but rather the second person. And Anaximander was the best trend setter you could have. He is the first known philosopher to write down philosophies and ideas, this is very important for our knowledge of the time period. His scientific contributions provided a foundation for future scientists to build on.
Socrates did not touch science or math, unlike many other philosophers. He dedicated all his time to the dissection of life, he even says at his trial “I do not pretend to know either much or little-not that I mean to say anything disparagingly of anyone who is a student of natural philosophy… But the simple truth, O Athenians, is that I have nothing to do with these studies” (The Harvard Classics, 7). Because of this, he spent his time putting his influence into philosophy, his ideas affected the way people went through life and how they weighed their actions. But the idea that still influences society heavily is the Socratic method.
He would also become one of the greatest teachers (ironically that was why he was sentenced to death) of philosophy. Through this he influenced other important philosophers.
Plato influenced his society and culture because of his idealism. He created the perfect society to show people how great the world could be. He was able to tackle all the problems in separation, and not have to account for something that would work against his theory, giving him the ability to find ideals for everything. This can give a new perspective, and show people a solution they didn’t think of because they were stuck on one thing standing in their way and unable to look beyond that. Whether or not that’s in society or math or science his idealism often influenced the world because of its disrespect for reality.
Aristotle took a different direction from his teacher Plato, he looked at the world in a practical light. His philosophy and scientific ideas were all based off what he saw in nature. Some of his observations were even correct, and this brought many insights to society about the way the world worked. A big variance from what Plato did.
Their contributions all helped uncover the way the world worked, and shaped how we create our societies. An interesting thing to look at is how these their philosophies affected their other fields, it led to them finding amazing conclusions that were way ahead of their time. When philosophers contribute to another field, they are more mixing the two subjects together, which gives them unique views on each subject.
Epicurus went a different way. He theorised that all you needed to fulfill life was a good situation to grow in, and if you’re in a good situation you can be a good citizen. He revolutionized the thinking process by saying all we need to be good people is our basic needs met and happiness. This put things into perspective for the citizens of Athens who were a consumer society. He changed the minds of many people at the time, and in a way many people think we are to much of a consumer society, and places closer to Greece tend to be less consumer-societies now, than North America.
Democritus was the person of the era who was so far ahead of his time that everybody ridiculed him. I put him into this paper for a comparison, because he had little to no influence in his lifetime, and it was only later that he was able to influence society with his theory of atoms, but at his time, the common belief was completely different from his (that the world was made up of the four elements).
PART E Conclusion:
It is possible to argue that Thales was the actual leader who sowed the seed, and many more philosophers could easily make similar arguments. But Socrates was able to influence society at a base level with his philosophies more than any other philosopher, which leads to Socrates being the most influential philosopher of his time. Although to change culture and society you need many people to do it, one person can not create change alone. You can be the influencer of change, like a leader of a revolution, but without generals (or other philosophers) you can not do anything. Socrates was the leader, but you should not call the revolution after the leader. It is disingenuous to the other philosophers who helped shape the western world’s society to credit only one man.
PART F: Bibliography
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Bettany Hughes HD Documentaries [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCrn-1jUOP8&fbclid=IwAR38Vx08R2o5dHNtK61_vYrZbM-W_q2pxM8n2hSCgCqKvK2mJqwlBc8J9RQ
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