Socratic turn

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Socratic turning point is a fundamental shift in the main interests of ancient philosophy , a turning point that can be traced back to the work of the Greek philosopher Socrates (469–399 BC). According to the sources, the turning point consisted of a general turning away from natural philosophy and turning to human affairs , initiated by Socrates . According to the usual division of the history of philosophy, with Socrates, ethics moved into the center of interest, while the pre-Socratic philosophers had primarily dealt with topics of natural science and ontology .

Source evidence

Direct contemporary statements about the fact that Socrates caused a general departure from natural philosophy have not been handed down, but the facts can be deduced from the history of “Socrates” - the philosophical directions that referred to Socrates - and from communications from later sources. A negative attitude towards the natural scientist who accumulates useless specialist knowledge instead of concentrating on the success of his own way of life can be seen in the entire Socratics.

According to Plato , Socrates' most important pupil, he found the results of natural research available at the time unsatisfactory and was therefore prompted to focus his efforts instead on questions of the optimal way of life. A reference can be found in the Apology of Socrates , the literary version of Plato's defense speech that Socrates gave before the Athenian People's Court when he was in 399 BC. Chr. For asebeia (impiety) and seduction of the youth was accused. There Plato's Socrates states that it is claimed that he is investigating “the subterranean and the heavenly”. But it is not true that he conducts such natural research. The baselessness of the rumors could be attested by the many citizens who would have listened to his discussions. Although he had basically nothing to object to efforts to gain useful natural history knowledge, he was not involved in it himself. Ironic skepticism towards the goal of mastering nature is clearly evident. More detailed is an autobiographical report that Socrates gave to Phaedo shortly before his death after the description in Plato's Dialogue . According to this description, Socrates was very interested in natural research in his youth, because he wanted to understand "why something arises, why it disappears and why it exists". In particular, he tried to gain a physiological understanding of growth, sensory perception and mental processes. During these investigations, however, he finally only recognized the extent of the prevailing ignorance in this area. He expected a lot from the cosmology of Anaxagoras , for this thinker claimed that the cosmos was ordered according to reason, and that this would mean that the positions and movements of the stars could be explained teleologically . It turned out, however, that Anaxagoras was by no means able to provide a conclusive explanation of the world of this kind. If there were a teacher who could explain the causes and connections in nature in a satisfactory manner, he, Socrates, would have loved to become his pupil, but according to his words he has found no one who knows about it. That is why he gave up speculation on nature and instead undertook a “second voyage”, which means that he chose a non-natural philosophy approach.

Plato gives another clue in his dialogue Phaedrus , in which Socrates also appears as the main character. As an exception, this conversation takes place in the countryside outside of Socrates' hometown Athens, and there the philosopher feels a stranger as a city dweller. In order to explain his reluctance to leave the city to his interlocutor Phaedrus , Socrates remarks: “I am eager to learn; and the landscape and the trees don't want to teach me anything, but the people in the city do. ”He doesn't want to deal with hypotheses about the historicity of mythical stories either, since you need a lot of free time. “But I have absolutely no time for such things; and the reason, my dear, is this. I still cannot [...] recognize myself; it seems ridiculous to me when I'm still clueless to worry about things that are none of my business. "

Messages in the memoirs written by Xenophon , another student of Socrates, point in this direction . One of the relevant points is the question of the extent to which an educated person should familiarize oneself with specialized specialist knowledge. In Xenophon's account, Socrates was of the opinion that sciences such as mathematics and astronomy should only be dealt with from the point of view of their usefulness for practical purposes; He considered the satisfaction of a curiosity beyond that as an end in itself to be a waste of time. At another point, the Socratic rejection of natural philosophy is sharply expressed: Socrates - according to Xenophon - did not research, like most others, what the nature of the cosmos was like and what necessary laws all celestial processes were subject to, “but he explained which thought about such things for being foolish ”. It is absurd to concern himself with such questions if one has not yet acquired the necessary understanding of the far more important human affairs. In addition, the speculative claims of the natural philosophers are baseless. These thinkers pretended to be a lot of their alleged knowledge, but disagreed among themselves about the alleged facts.

Aristotle stated in his metaphysics that Socrates was only “concerned with ethical subjects and not with all of nature”. Aristotle gave the establishment of this state of affairs a pointed form in his work On the Parts of Living Beings by stating that with Socrates a new epoch in the history of philosophy, the age of ethics, had begun. According to him, the method of scientific research improved at the time of Socrates, "but the study of natural objects ceased and philosophers turned away from it and turned to virtue and politics useful for practice". This was the first time that the finding, taken over from the later writing of the history of philosophy, was formulated that Socrates not only refused to engage in natural research for himself, but at the same time set the course for the further development of philosophy.

The Roman politician and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero took up the Greek doxographic tradition when he stated that Socrates was “the first to call philosophy down from heaven and to settle it in the cities and also to bring it into the houses and to force it to live after life To research morals and the good and the bad ”. In the Dialogue About the Community , Cicero wrote that Socrates had rejected the preoccupation with nature and justified this with the fact that the subject of natural research either exceeds human reason or does not concern human life.

Finally, in the Roman Empire, the history of philosophy, Diogenes Laertios , summed up the traditional point of view: With Socrates the turn to ethics had come after the focus on the physical area had previously prevailed. He also reported that Archelaus , a student of Anaxagoras and, according to Diogenes' statements, the teacher of Socrates, was the last natural philosopher and had at the same time initiated the new orientation towards ethics.

interpretation

Modern assessors rate the Socratic turnaround very differently. Often - as with Karl Jaspers - it is recognized as an epoch-making feat, but in some statements it appears to be problematic or destructive. Hegel and José Ortega y Gasset describe it as an ambivalent development with questionable aspects. For Nietzsche it means a fateful misorientation. However, there is broad agreement in the assessment that this is a process of the greatest importance in the history of ideas.

With the fall of the Wall, issues came to the fore, on which the Socratic reflection focused. In addition to self-exploration, self-discipline and the autonomy of reason, this also included social behavior, in particular the relationship of the citizen to the community, the polis . The consideration of “political affairs” ( Greek  Πολιτικά politicsá , from which German politics ) became a central concern of ancient philosophy thanks to the Socratic impulse. The philosopher Heinrich Meier highlighted this development in his inaugural lecture in Munich in February 2000. According to Meier, a distinction must be made between the relatively young “pre-Socratic” and the late, mature Socrates. The early Socrates philosophized without political reflection or responsibility, following his thirst for knowledge he thought about nature, language and logic. As an outsider, he disregards authority, tradition and the “vital needs of society” and takes no account of the interests of the community on whose fringes he has established himself, although he and his friends depend on the community. These social deficits are noted by the comedy writer Aristophanes in 423 BC. Chr. Listed comedy Die Wolken targeted. After a maturation process, however, Socrates later, at an advanced age, made the world-historical turn to political philosophy . Meier understands this to be a philosophy that asks about “the right thing” in the sphere of politics and whose subject matter is “human things in the broadest sense”. Such philosophizing is always also “political action by philosophers”, and political philosophy is the place of self-knowledge of the philosopher. The author of this turn to politics is Socrates, whom Plato and Xenophon immortalized. Meier leaves open whether it is actually about the historical Socrates or rather a figure idealized by his students.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ See also Wolfgang Kullmann : Aristoteles und die moderne Wissenschaft , Stuttgart 1998, p. 43.
  2. ^ Plato, Apology 19b – d. See C. David C. Reeve: Socrates in the Apology , Indianapolis 1989, pp. 14-21; Ernst Heitsch : Plato: Apology of Socrates. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2002, pp. 63–66.
  3. ^ Plato, Phaedo 96a-97b.
  4. ↑ Plato, Phaedo 97b-99d. For the representation in this dialogue see Theodor Ebert : Plato: Phaidon. Translation and Commentary , Göttingen 2004, pp. 339–349.
  5. ↑ Plato, Phaedrus 230d.
  6. ↑ Plato, Phaedrus 229b-230a.
  7. ↑ Xenophon, Memories of Socrates 4.7.
  8. ↑ Xenophon, Memories of Socrates 1: 11-16.
  9. ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics 987b.
  10. ↑ Aristotle, On the Parts of Living Beings 642a.
  11. ^ Klaus Döring : Socrates . In: Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/1, Basel 1998, pp. 141–178, here: 167.
  12. ↑ Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 5.10.
  13. ^ Cicero, De re publica 1.15.
  14. ^ Diogenes Laertios, Lives and Opinions of Famous Philosophers 1.18.
  15. ↑ Diogenes Laertios, Lives and Opinions of Famous Philosophers 2.16.
  16. ↑ Herbert Spiegelberg (ed.): The Socratic Enigma , Indianapolis 1964, pp. 67–310, offers a comprehensive compilation of numerous recent assessments .
  17. ^ Heinrich Meier: Why Political Philosophy? , Stuttgart / Weimar 2000, pp. 9-19.