The famous Socratic method is meant to lead those Socrates is in dialogue with to come to the right conclusions and understanding by themselves. Xenophon is clearly a firm believer in this method, and offers many examples throughout Memorabilia of Socrates nudging the misguided and wayward to the 'proper' conclusions -- but it's not entirely convincing.
Socrates' questions almost invariably only have one answer; there is no room allowed for debate. Not everyone is as obsequious as Critobolus who, when Socrates challenges him: "If you have anything to say against it, tell me", can only respond: "I should be ashamed to contradict you, for I should be saying what is neither honourable nor true", but really, no one seems to dare really challenge Socrates -- who of course is also always allowed the final word s of wisdom.
Even without actual push-back -- real debate -- from those he is in conversation with this method has weaknesses, beginning with the assumptions and propositions Socrates presents as given.
Among the amusing exchanges is also one between Hippias of Elis, who observes how Socrates is: "still voicing the same old views [ Still, even E. Marchant and O. Todd in the original edition of the text saw fit to at one point add a snarky footnote regarding Xenophon's presentation of the material; Jeffrey Henderson's slight updating leaves the essence unchanged: Xenophon's Archedemus surpasses even his Socrates in the art of dressing up the obvious in the guise of a conundrum.
Xenophon does select quite a nice variety, however, of Socrates covering a lot of different ground, which makes Memorabilia quite entertaining, too, and if those he is in dialogue with generally aren't allowed to give too much contra , they are at least often introduced as intriguing characters, whether Euthydemus, Hippias, or, for example, Epigenes: He noticed that Epigenes, one of his companions, was in poor shape for a young man, and said: "You take amateurish care of your physique, Epigenes.
Regardless, despite Epigenes' smart answer, he's in for a lecture on the subject and gets quite an earful; Socrates was a big proponent of mens sana in corpore sano. There is a lot of sound judgment on Socrates' part -- obvious though much of it also is. Still, much would seem to bear repeating even in our day and age, as when he makes the case for people actually being qualified for the positions they seek to take; the lack of competence of so many present-day elected officials at actually carrying out their duties can make one wish Socrates were better heeded: Therefore anyone who exerts himself to gain the votes, but neglects to learn the business, deserves punishment.
One can see the appeal of the Xenophontic Socrates -- especially the one presented in Memorabilia -- to neo- conservatives -- Leo Strauss was a big fan Others might find this Socrates a more unimpressive thinker -- not so much for being set in his ways but for his lack of curiosity about so many philosophical questions, and his deference to the gods. There is considerable fun to be had with many of these dialogues -- skipping from subject to subject in short examples, Memorabilia is a good sampler as opposed to, say, Oeconomicus , a more detailed dialogue on more limited subject-matter , and Xenophon does present Socrates as someone with at least a bit of a sense of humor, and many of the issues are of interest.
Memorabilia does complement the Platonic Socrates, offering an interesting additional perspective, and is certainly worth engaging with -- though it probably shouldn't be taken overly seriously either as these sorts of things too often are. Jeffrey Henderson shows a very light touch in his touching up of the original translation, mainly simply smoothing out some of what now appear to be archaic-rough edges, and making for a text that reads well and fluidly.
Only occasionally does the modern substitution feel a bit odd, such as when Socrates lists how masters handle their servants, including: "Don't they discipline their randiness by starving them?
The Loeb edition, which includes Xenophon's three other Socratic works, remains an ideal version of the Memorabilia , including as it does the Greek original, as well as a brief introduction to the work, and a solid translation that reads very well.
Occasionally feeling a bit cobbled together, the Memorabilia is nevertheless well done -- a very accessible classical work -- and remains a good introductory overview to Socrates and his thinking. Orthofer , 29 April Do these explorers into the divine operations hope that when they have discovered by what forces the various phenomena occur, they will create winds and waters at will and fruitful seasons?
Will they manipulate these and the like to suit their needs? But if this was his mode of describing those who meddle with such matters as these, he himself never wearied of discussing human topics. What is piety? What is the beautiful? What the noble? What are meant by just and unjust? What is a state? Now, in so far as the opinions of Socrates were unknown to the world at large, it is not surprising that the court should draw false conclusions respecting them; but that facts patent to all should have been ignored is indeed astonishing.
At one time Socrates was a member of the Council, 17 he had taken the senatorial oath, and sworn "as a member of that house to act in conformity with the laws.
Whereupon, in spite of the bitter resentment of the people, and the menaces of several influential citizens, he refused to put the question, esteeming it of greater importance faithfully to abide by the oath which he had taken, than to gratify the people wrongfully, or to screen himself from the menaces of the mighty.
The fact being, that with regard to the care bestowed by the gods upon men, his belief differed widely from that of the multitude. Whereas most people seem to imagine that the gods know in part, and are ignorant in part, Socrates believed firmly that the gods know all things—both the things that are said and the things that are done, and the things that are counselled in the silent chambers of the heart.
Moreover, they are present everywhere, and bestow signs upon man concerning all the things of man. I can, therefore, but repeat my former words. It is a marvel to me how the Athenians came to be persuaded that Socrates fell short of sober-mindedness as touching the gods.
A man who never ventured one impious word or deed against the gods we worship, but whose whole language concerning them, and his every act, closely coincided, word for word, and deed for deed, with all we deem distinctive of devoutest piety. No less surprising to my mind is the belief that Socrates corrupted the young. This man, who, beyond what has been already stated, kept his appetites and passions under strict control, who was pre-eminently capable of enduring winter's cold and summer's heat and every kind of toil, who was so schooled to curtail his needs that with the scantiest of means he never lacked sufficiency—is it credible that such a man could have made others irreverent or lawless, or licentious, or effeminate in face of toil?
Was he not rather the saving of many through the passion for virtue which he roused in them, and the hope he infused that through careful management of themselves they might grow to be truly beautiful and good—not indeed that he ever undertook to be a teacher of virtue, but being evidently virtuous himself he made those who associated with him hope that by imitating they might at last resemble him.
But let it not be inferred that he was negligent of his own body or approved of those who neglected theirs. If excess of eating, counteracted by excess of toil, was a dietary of which he disapproved, 1 to gratify the natural claim of appetite in conjunction with moderate exercise was a system he favoured, as tending to a healthy condition of the body without trammelling the cultivation of the spirit.
On the other hand, there was nothing dandified or pretentious about him; he indulged in no foppery of shawl or shoes, or other effeminacy of living. Least of all did he tend to make his companions greedy of money. He would not, while restraining passion generally, make capital out of the one passion which attached others to himself; and by this abstinence, he believed, he was best consulting his own freedom; in so much that he stigmatised those who condescended to take wages for their society as vendors of their own persons, because they were compelled to discuss for the benefits of their paymasters.
What surprised him was that any one possessing virtue should deign to ask money as its price instead of simply finding his reward in the acquisition of an honest friend, as if the new-fledged soul of honour could forget her debt of gratitude to her greatest benefactor. For himself, without making any such profession, he was content to believe that those who accepted his views would play their parts as good and true friends to himself and one another their lives long.
Once more then: how should a man of this character corrupt the young? But, says the accuser, 2 by all that's sacred! Words like these, according to the accuser, tended to incite the young to contemn the established constitution, rendering them violent and headstrong. But for myself I think that those who cultivate wisdom and believe themselves able to instruct their fellow-citizens as to their interests are least likely to become partisans of violence.
They are too well aware that to violence attach enmities and dangers, whereas results as good may be obtained by persuasion safely and amicably. For the victim of violence hates with vindictiveness as one from whom something precious has been stolen, while the willing subject of persuasion is ready to kiss the hand which has done him a service.
Hence compulsion is not the method of him who makes wisdom his study, but of him who wields power untempered by reflection. Once more: the man who ventures on violence needs the support of many to fight his battles, while he whose strength lies in persuasiveness triumphs single-handed, for he is conscious of a cunning to compel consent unaided. And what has such a one to do with the spilling of blood? But, the accuser answers, the two men 4 who wrought the greatest evils to the state at any time—to wit, Critias and Alcibiades—were both companions of Socrates—Critias the oligarch, and Alcibiades the democrat.
Where would you find a more arrant thief, savage, and murderer 5 than the one? For my part, in so far as these two wrought evil to the state, I have no desire to appear as the apologist of either.
I confine myself to explaining what this intimacy of theirs with Socrates really was. Never were two more ambitious citizens seen at Athens.
Ambition was in their blood. If they were to have their will, all power was to be in their hands; their fame was to eclipse all other. Of Socrates they knew—first that he lived an absolutely independent life on the scantiest means; next that he was self-disciplined to the last degree in respect of pleasures; lastly that he was so formidable in debate that there was no antagonist he could not twist round his little finger.
Such being their views, and such the character of the pair, which is the more probable: that they sought the society of Socrates because they felt the fascination of his life, and were attracted by the bearing of the man? For my part I believe that if the choice from Heaven had been given them to live such a life as they saw Socrates living to its close, or to die, they would both have chosen death.
Their acts are a conclusive witness to their characters. They no sooner felt themselves to be the masters of those they came in contact with than they sprang aside from Socrates and plunged into that whirl of politics but for which they might never have sought his society.
It may be objected: before giving his companions lessons in politics Socrates had better have taught them sobriety. Now I know that Socrates disclosed himself to his companions as a beautiful and noble being, who would reason and debate with them concerning virtue and other human interests in the noblest manner.
And of these two I know that as long as they were companions of Socrates even they were temperate, not assuredly from fear of being fined or beaten by Socrates, but because they were persuaded for the nonce of the excellence of such conduct.
Perhaps some self-styled philosophers 7 may here answer: "Nay, the man truly just can never become unjust, the temperate man can never become intemperate, the man who has learnt any subject of knowledge can never be as though he had learnt it not. It is with the workings of the soul as with those of the body; want of exercise of the organ leads to inability of function, here bodily, there spiritual, so that we can neither do the things that we should nor abstain from the things we should not.
And that is why fathers keep their sons, however temperate they may be, out of the reach of wicked men, considering that if the society of the good is a training in virtue so also is the society of the bad its dissolution.
For I see that it is impossible to remember a long poem without practice and repetition; so is forgetfulness of the words of instruction engendered in the heart that has ceased to value them. With the words of warning fades the recollection of the very condition of mind in which the soul yearned after holiness; and once forgetting this, what wonder that the man should let slip also the memory of virtue itself!
Again I see that a man who falls into habits of drunkenness or plunges headlong into licentious love, loses his old power of practising the right and abstaining from the wrong. Many a man who has found frugality easy whilst passion was cold, no sooner falls in love than he loses the faculty at once, and in his prodigal expenditure of riches he will no longer withhold his hand from gains which in former days were too base to invite his touch.
Where then is the difficulty of supposing that a man may be temperate to-day, and to-morrow the reverse; or that he who once has had it in his power to act virtuously may not quite lose that power? But to return to Critias and Alcibiades, I repeat that as long as they lived with Socrates they were able by his support to dominate their ignoble appetites; 12 but being separated from him, Critias had to fly to Thessaly, 13 where he consorted with fellows better versed in lawlessness than justice.
And Alcibiades fared no better. His personal beauty on the one hand incited bevies of fine ladies 14 to hunt him down as fair spoil, while on the other hand his influence in the state and among the allies exposed him to the corruption of many an adept in the arts of flattery; honoured by the democracy and stepping easily to the front rank he behaved like an athlete who in the games of the Palaestra is so assured of victory that he neglects his training; thus he presently forgot the duty which he owed himself.
Such were the misadventures of these two. Is the sequel extraordinary? Inflated with the pride of ancestry, 15 exalted by their wealth, puffed up by power, sapped to the soul's core by a host of human tempters, separate moreover for many a long day from Socrates—what wonder that they reached the full stature of arrogancy!
And for the offences of these two Socrates is to be held responsible! The accuser will have it so. But for the fact that in early days, when they were both young and of an age when dereliction from good feeling and self-restraint might have been expected, this same Socrates kept them modest and well-behaved, not one word of praise is uttered by the accuser for all this.
That is not the measure of justice elsewhere meted. Would a master of the harp or flute, would a teacher of any sort who has turned out proficient pupils, be held to account because one of them goes away to another teacher and turns out to be a failure? Or what father, if he have a son who in the society of a certain friend remains an honest lad, but falling into the company of some other becomes a good-for-nothing, will that father straightway accuse the earlier instructor?
Will not he rather, in proportion as the boy deteriorates in the company of the latter, bestow more heartfelt praise upon the former? What father, himself sharing the society of his own children, is held to blame for their transgressions, if only his own goodness be established?
Here would have been a fair test to apply to Socrates: Was he guilty of any base conduct himself? If so let him be set down as a knave, but if, on the contrary, he never faltered in sobriety from beginning to end, how in the name of justice is he to be held to account for a baseness which was not in him? I go further: if, short of being guilty of any wrong himself, he saw the evil doings of others with approval, reason were he should be held blameworthy.
Listen then: Socrates was well aware that Critias was attached to Euthydemus, 16 aware too that he was endeavouring to deal by him after the manner of those wantons whose love is carnal of the body. From this endeavour he tried to deter him, pointing out how illiberal a thing it was, how ill befitting a man of honour to appear as a beggar before him whom he loved, in whose eyes he would fain be precious, ever petitioning for something base to give and base to get. But when this reasoning fell on deaf ears and Critias refused to be turned aside, Socrates, as the story goes, took occasion of the presence of a whole company and of Euthydemus to remark that Critias appeared to be suffering from a swinish affection, or else why this desire to rub himself against Euthydemus like a herd of piglings scraping against stones.
The hatred of Critias to Socrates doubtless dates from this incident. He treasured it up against him, and afterwards, when he was one of the Thirty and associated with Charicles as their official lawgiver, 17 he framed the law against teaching the art of words 18 merely from a desire to vilify Socrates.
He was at a loss to know how else to lay hold of him except by levelling against him the vulgar charge 19 against philosophers, by which he hoped to prejudice him with the public. It was a charge quite unfounded as regards Socrates, if I may judge from anything I ever heard fall from his lips myself or have learnt about him from others.
But the animus of Critias was clear. At the time when the Thirty were putting citizens, highly respectable citizens, to death wholesale, and when they were egging on one man after another to the commission of crime, Socrates let fall an observation: "It would be sufficiently extraordinary if the keeper of a herd of cattle 20 who was continually thinning and impoverishing his cattle did not admit himself to be a sorry sort of herdsman, but that a ruler of the state who was continually thinning and impoverishing the citizens should neither be ashamed nor admit himself to be a sorry sort of ruler was more extraordinary still.
Then Socrates: I am prepared to obey the laws, but to avoid transgression of the law through ignorance I need instruction: is it on the supposition that the art of words tends to correctness of statement or to incorrectness that you bid us abstain from it? To which Charicles, in a fit of temper, retorted: In consideration of your ignorance, 21 Socrates, we will frame the prohibition in language better suited to your intelligence: we forbid you to hold any conversation whatsoever with the young.
Then Socrates: To avoid all ambiguity then, or the possibility of my doing anything else than what you are pleased to command, may I ask you to define up to what age a human being is to be considered young?
For just so long a time Charicles answered as he is debarred from sitting as a member of the Council, 22 as not having attained to the maturity of wisdom; accordingly you will not hold converse with any one under the age of thirty. In making a purchase even, I am not to ask, what is the price of this?
Tut, things of that sort: but you know, Socrates, that you have a way of asking questions, when all the while you know how the matter stands. Let us have no questions of that sort. Nor answers either, I suppose, if the inquiry concerns what I know, as, for instance, where does Charicles live? Oh yes, of course, things of that kind replied Charicles , while Critias added: But at the same time you had better have done with your shoemakers, carpenters, and coppersmiths.
And am I to hold away from their attendant topics also—the just, the holy, and the like? Most assuredly answered Charicles , and from cowherds in particular; or else see that you do not lessen the number of the herd yourself. Thus the secret was out. The remark of Socrates about the cattle had come to their ears, and they could not forgive the author of it. Perhaps enough has been said to explain the kind of intimacy which had subsisted between Critias and Socrates, and their relation to one another.
But I will venture to maintain that where the teacher is not pleasing to the pupil there is no education. Now it cannot be said of Critias and Alcibiades that they associated with Socrates because they found him pleasing to them. And this is true of the whole period. From the first their eyes were fixed on the headship of the state as their final goal.
During the time of their intimacy with Socrates there were no disputants whom they were more eager to encounter than professed politicians. Thus the story is told of Alcibiades—how before the age of twenty he engaged his own guardian, Pericles, at that time prime minister of the state, in a discussion concerning laws.
I should be so much obliged if you would do so. One so often hears the epithet "law-abiding" applied in a complimentary sense; yet, it strikes me, one hardly deserves the compliment, if one does not know what a law is.
Fortunately there is a ready answer to your difficulty. You wish to know what a law is? Well, those are laws which the majority, being met together in conclave, approve and enact as to what it is right to do, and what it is right to abstain from doing.
Enact on the hypothesis that it is right to do what is good? Supposing it is not the majority, but, as in the case of an oligarchy, the minority, who meet and enact the rules of conduct, what are these? Whatever the ruling power of the state after deliberation enacts as our duty to do, goes by the name of laws. Then if a tyrant, holding the chief power in the state, enacts rules of conduct for the citizens, are these enactments law?
Yes, anything which a tyrant as head of the state enacts, also goes by the name of law. But, Pericles, violence and lawlessness—how do we define them? Is it not when a stronger man forces a weaker to do what seems right to him—not by persuasion but by compulsion?
It would seem to follow that if a tyrant, without persuading the citizens, drives them by enactment to do certain things—that is lawlessness? You are right; and I retract the statement that measures passed by a tyrant without persuasion of the citizens are law.
And what of measures passed by a minority, not by persuasion of the majority, but in the exercise of its power only? Are we, or are we not, to apply the term violence to these? I think that anything which any one forces another to do without persuasion, whether by enactment or not, is violence rather than law.
It would seem that everything which the majority, in the exercise of its power over the possessors of wealth, and without persuading them, chooses to enact, is of the nature of violence rather than of law? To be sure answered Pericles , adding: At your age we were clever hands at such quibbles ourselves. It was just such subtleties which we used to practise our wits upon; as you do now, if I mistake not.
To which Alcibiades replied: Ah, Pericles, I do wish we could have met in those days when you were at your cleverest in such matters. Well, then, as soon as the desired superiority over the politicians of the day seemed to be attained, Critias and Alcibiades turned their backs on Socrates.
They found his society unattractive, not to speak of the annoyance of being cross-questioned on their own shortcomings. Forthwith they devoted themselves to those affairs of state but for which they would never have come near him at all.
No; if one would seek to see true companions of Socrates, one must look to Crito, 24 and Chaerephon, and Chaerecrates, to Hermogenes, to Simmias and Cebes, to Phaedondes and others, who clung to him not to excel in the rhetoric of the Assembly or the law-courts, but with the nobler ambition of attaining to such beauty and goodliness of soul as would enable them to discharge the various duties of life to house and family, to relatives and friends, to fellow-citizens, and to the state at large.
Of these true followers not one in youth or old age was ever guilty, or thought guilty, of committing any evil deed.
Now what Socrates held was, that if a man may with justice incarcerate another for no better cause than a form of folly or ignorance, this same person could not justly complain if he in his turn were kept in bonds by his superiors in knowledge; and to come to the bottom of such questions, to discover the difference between madness and ignorance was a problem which he was perpetually working at.
His opinion came to this: If a madman may, as a matter of expediency to himself and his friends, be kept in prison, surely, as a matter of justice, the man who knows not what he ought to know should be content to sit at the feet of those who know, and be taught. But it was the rest of their kith and kin, not fathers only according to the accuser , whom Socrates dishonoured in the eyes of his circle of followers, when he said that "the sick man or the litigant does not derive assistance from his relatives, 26 but from his doctor in the one case, and his legal adviser in the other.
Mere goodness of disposition is nothing; those only are worthy of honour who combine with the knowledge of what is right the faculty of expounding it;' 27 and so by bringing the young to look upon himself as a superlatively wise person gifted with an extraordinary capacity for making others wise also, he so worked on the dispositions of those who consorted with him that in their esteem the rest of the world counted for nothing by comparison with Socrates.
Now I admit the language about fathers and the rest of a man's relations. I can go further, and add some other sayings of his, that "when the soul which is alone the indwelling centre of intelligence is gone out of a man, be he our nearest and dearest friend, we carry the body forth and bury it out of sight.
He will remove it himself, or suffer another to do so in his stead. Thus men cut off their own nails, hair, or corns; they allow surgeons to cut and cauterise them, not without pains and aches, and are so grateful to the doctor for his services that they further give him a fee.
Or again, a man ejects the spittle from his mouth as far as possible. Because it is of no use while it stays within the system, but is detrimental rather. Now by these instances his object was not to inculcate the duty of burying one's father alive or of cutting oneself to bits, but to show that lack of intelligence means lack of worth; 29 and so he called upon his hearers to be as sensible and useful as they could be, so that, be it father or brother or any one else whose esteem he would deserve, a man should not hug himself in careless self-interest, trusting to mere relationship, but strive to be useful to those whose esteem he coveted.
But pursues the accuser by carefully culling the most immoral passages of the famous poets, and using them as evidences, he taught his associates to be evildoers and tyrranical: the line of Hesiod 30 for instance—. Now while Socrates would have entirely admitted the propositions that "it is a blessing and a benefit to a man to be a worker," and that "a lazy do-nothing is a pestilent evil," that "work is good and idleness a curse," the question arises, whom did he mean by workers?
In his vocabulary only those were good workmen 31 who were engaged on good work; dicers and gamblers and others engaged on any other base and ruinous business he stigmatised as the "idle drones"; and from this point of view the quotation from Hesiod is unimpeachable—.
But there was a passage from Homer 32 for ever on his lips, as the accuser tells us—the passage which says concerning Odysseus,. The accuser informs us that Socrates interpreted these lines as though the poet approved the giving of blows to commoners and poor folk. Now no such remark was ever made by Socrates; which indeed would have been tantamount to maintaining that he ought to be beaten himself. What he did say was, that those who were useful neither in word nor deed, who were incapable of rendering assistance in time of need to the army or the state or the people itself, be they never so wealthy, ought to be restrained, and especially if to incapacity they added effrontery.
As to Socrates, he was the very opposite of all this—he was plainly a lover of the people, and indeed of all mankind. Though he had many ardent admirers among citizens and strangers alike, he never demanded any fee for his society from any one, 34 but bestowed abundantly upon all alike of the riches of his soul—good things, indeed, of which fragments accepted gratis at his hands were taken and sold at high prices to the rest of the community by some, 35 who were not, as he was, lovers of the people, since with those who had not money to give in return they refused to discourse.
But of Socrates be it said that in the eyes of the whole world he reflected more honour on the state and a richer lustre than ever Lichas, 36 whose fame is proverbial, shed on Lacedaemon. Lichas feasted and entertained the foreign residents in Lacedaemon at the Gymnopaediae most handsomely.
Socrates gave a lifetime to the outpouring of his substance in the shape of the greatest benefits bestowed on all who cared to receive them. In other words, he made those who lived in his society better men, and sent them on their way rejoicing. To no other conclusion, therefore, can I come but that, being so good a man, Socrates was worthier to have received honour from the state than death.
As Pangle notes, Critias and Alcibiades are contrasted with seven other students who went on to become useful to their communities cf. Part 2 of the book indicates that Socrates followed the teaching of the Delphic oracle p. Chapter 3 opens with the observation that Socrates indeed prayed to the gods pp. This was the basis of his moderation and the self-mastery, which Pangle celebrates.
This self-mastery takes the form of needing nothing for oneself p. Self-mastery or —discipline, which one acquires through education, is, according to Pangle, a sine qua non of one who aspires to rule well p.
Furthermore, one must seek an active political life so as to benefit family, friends and fatherland. Pangle concludes this chapter by considering the Socratic summons to virtue, which he makes through a retelling of the choice of Heracles. Familial philia has priority but extra-familial friendship, as in the case of the philosopher and Xenophon, can lead to a greater good, in this case the study of old books p.
Pangle goes on to narrate four episodes of gentlemanly friendship, helping Aristarchus out of dire poverty by advising him to turn his household into a factory of sorts 2. Chapter Five considers how Socrates benefits those who aspire to the kalon. He considers what it means for someone to be trained in generalship, namely that it involves moral and practical skills cf.
There is attention given to various issues of leadership, e. Pangle also concerns himself with what he regards as the comic depiction of Socrates as a courtesan: the philosopher, who entices with his wisdom, resembles Theodote, who draws men to her with her beauty.
Related Titles. Vision and Stagecraft in Sophocles David Seale. On Tyranny Leo Strauss. Variety William Fitzgerald. Translation as Muse Elizabeth Marie Young. Be the first to know Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!
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