For much of the twentieth century, Plato scholars were concerned with tracing the compositional history of the dialogues and charting a corresponding development in Platoâs thought from his early, mostly Socratic celebrations of his teacher, to his later, more âPlatonic,â philosophy. This general approach, which we can identify as developmentalism, has for decades now been criticized on several fronts and from many quarters.1 The emerging counter-consensus is that the core basis of the former orthodoxyâthe so-called early, middle, and late taxonomy that somehow captures Platoâs emerging philosophic maturityâis a limited and even unhelpful interpretive schema. Unlike the developmentalists, Plato scholars today tend to start by treating each dialogue on its own terms, and most agree that dramatic aspects like character, action, narration, and setting are essentially related to, and reflective of, Platoâs philosophic intentions.
The passing of developmentalism brings with it the promise of new understanding, for questions that seldom occurred under the old regime are now being asked about Platoâs Socrates. Several authors have seen that if Socrates is not simply a mouthpiece for Plato, and the dialogues are not mere vehicles for the transmission of doctrine, then one must explain why Socrates the character speaks and acts as he does. That is, if Socrates is doing something more complicated than dispensing dogmatic arguments, then one has to treat him as a character within the drama of each dialogue and, ultimately, within the dialogues as a whole. Seen in this light, the question of Socrates the character, the attempt to make sense of his motives, interests, and intentions, is a concern of highest importance, since oneâs conception of his total activity will bear decisively on how one understands Socratesâ exemplification of the philosophic life.2
The question of Socratesâ motives intensifies as one notes the sheer number and range of unlikely interlocutors Socrates spends time with. Why, for instance, does Socrates seek out the young and philosophically immatureâcharacters like Glaucon , Alcibiades , or young Menexenus âall of whom are clearly Socratesâ intellectual inferiors? Similarly, why make time for Hippias , Meno , or Euthydemus and Dionysodorus , let alone Ion and Euthyphro âall of whom, at times, scarcely follow Socratesâ dialectical moves? Plato gives us enough of a glimpse at Socratesâ intellectual circle to make us realize that if Socrates wanted to spend his time with the philosophic set, he very well could have. So why choose to talk to interlocutors whose promise and even interest in philosophy is questionable? A brief survey of the dialogues thus alerts one to the diversity of types and abilities in Platoâs dramatis personae. And this observation alone suggests that Socratesâ motivation, his activity as a whole, seems much more complex than the straightforward communication of ideas.
Plato has Socrates himself bring our question to a point in the Republic as he explains to Glaucon how they can justly force the philosopher back down into the cave:
The passage is pivotal in the dialogue for several reasons, not least for its implications about the seeming lack of a genuine common good in even the âbestâ or most just city. For our purposes, let it suffice to note that Socrates himself, in contrast to his portrait of the philosopher, is admitting implicitly that he does not owe a debt to his own regime and, thus, that there is no obvious civic or even moral necessity for him to âgo downâ with Glaucon and help the brothers fend off the teachers of injustice.My friend, you have forgotten, I said, that itâs not the concern of law that any one class fare exceptionally well, but it contrives to bring this about in the city as a whole, harmonizing the citizens by persuasion and compulsion, making them share with one another the benefit that each is able to bring to the commonwealth. And it produces such men in the city not in order to let them turn whichever way each wants, but in order that it may use them in binding the city together.Thatâs true, he said. I did forget.Well, then, Glaucon, I said, consider that we wonât be doing injustice to the philosophers who come to be among us, but rather that we will say just things to them while compelling them besides to care for and guard the others. Weâll say that when such men come to be in the other cities it is fitting for them not to participate in the labors of those cities. For they grow up spontaneously against the will of the regime in each; and a nature that grows by itself and doesnât owe its rearing to anyone has justice on its side when it is not eager to pay off the price of rearing to anyone⊠(519câ520b)
Modern readers are especially likely to balk at this suggestion, given certain presumptions in favor of democratic enlightenment. On this view, one simply assumes that the philosopher, Socrates included, returns to the shadows to liberate others from their mental captivityâthat this is somehow his duty or the moral responsibility of the genuinely wise. Socratesâ own remarks, however, urge us to suspend and interrogate this conclusion. And in so doing, he challenges us to look more carefully at his own self-presentation and self-understanding.
From the Republic , then, we are led to several other dialogues where Socrates offers various biographical remarks to explain and to justify his way of life. These include, most importantly, Symposium , Phaedo , Apology , and Theaetetus . But while helpful in one sense, Socratesâ accounts are, like many of his arguments, often difficult to interpret and seemingly contradictory. In Symposium, for example, it seems like the study of erotic desire is what led Socrates to converse with others. In Phaedo, it is the attempt to remedy the deficiencies of natural science by approaching the beings indirectly, through speech. In Apology, by stark contrast, Socrates distances himself from science, claiming that his conversations and refutations were part of a divine plan to justify his ignorance and vindicate virtue. And in Theaetetus, Socrates claims he is an intellectual midwife, who, with the help of the god, serves others by delivering their wisdom. Thus, when it comes to un-riddling the motives of his primary character, Plato deliberately leads the reader in various and ostensibly incompatible directions. The ultimate interpretive challenge is to weave these strands together, to assemble Socratesâ intellectual biography, to articulate his self-understanding, and to match it with his deeds. But depending on where one starts, or which of Socratesâ accounts one chooses to emphasize, one tends to highlight certain aspects of Socratesâ character at the expense of others. It is vital therefore to take a broad look at how others have approached this question, to understand the competing views, and to see what questions or problems might help refine our approach.
Competing Views
Nearly all scholars of Plato resolve for themselves the question of Socratesâ motives in one of three ways: (1) Socrates is motivated by the god, the divine voice, or a general concern for virtue, to carry out a moral-philosophical mission; his philosophizing is, thus, ministerial to what might be best understood as ethical or moral ends; (2) Socrates is motivated by the promise of advancing his own wisdom or knowledge to undertake his various dialectical refutations; or (3) some more or less coherent amalgam of the above, though in most cases motive 1 or 2 predominates. Without too much injustice, then, we might identify camp one with âSocrates, The Moral Missionaryâ and camp two with âSocrates, The Philosophic Investigator.â
The moral Socrates of camp one is by far the most well known; he is, one might say, the traditional or conventional Socrates, and for good reason, since there is ample textual evidence one can marshal to support this position. Platoâs most beloved dialogues, Apology , Crito , and Republic , present a Socrates who is preoccupied with the question of virtue, so much so that their contents make it seem like Socratic philosophy is inseparable from the pursuit of the just life. Indeed, in Apology, Socrates famously stands witness, martyr-like, to his own moral integrity, presenting himself as the divine scourge of Athenian moral corruption.
One finds support for this view in other dialogues as well, where Socrates seems no less concerned with the moral bearing of his interlocutors. Socratic exhortations to virtue abound in dialogues as different as Gorgias , Theaetetus , Meno , and Alcibiades I . There is a compelling pattern of evidence suggesting that Socrates is, indeed, concerned to help others toward moral seriousness, that he thinks a moral life is better than an immoral life, and that he is eager to take on the sophists (among others) who offer teachings to the contrary. Not surprisingly, the majority of Plato scholarship reflects this pattern, although there is considerable diversity among scholars regarding the moral Socrates, especially pertaining to his relation to the forms, his conception of virtue, his understanding of love and friendship, and his beliefs about the gods.3
With all that said, there are several specific difficulties that attend a straightforward reading of the missionary Socrates. First, any attempt to defend Socratesâ motives as morally serious must also grapple with Socratesâ irony and, more importantly, his trenchant critiques of Athenian morality and morality as such. Often in the very dialogues where Socrates identifies with the virtue he seeks to understand, he also reveals problems with said virtue, usually by exposing inconsistencies in his interlocutorâs assumptions about the virtue in question.4 This is not to say that Socratesâ critical scrutiny of virtue is fatal to its goodness, or that Socrates thinks that incoherent beliefs about virtue are nece...