Socrates never existed

[other]

It is somewhat likely socrates never existed but was used as a tool example for plato.Its not important because unlike jesus socrates never claimed to be the son of god or know what happens when you die.

He didn't claim to be the son of God but he certainly did talk a whole lot about the life of the soul (or intellect, or whatever word that doesn't translate well from Greek) after death. (according to Plato's Republic, anyway)

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The interesting thing is that there are many similarities, historically and philosophically, between Socrates and Jesus. That both are surrounded in a rather spotty historical record shouldn't surprise anybody though... as has been mentioned earlier, this is not unusual for any figure that lived several millenia ago, including emperors and such. I think it is notable that both of their stories/philosophies have survived (thrived, actually) and thouroughly shaped many fundamental aspects of our own understanding of the world today, regardless.

 

[Aunt Spiker]

The first bad assumption on the OP's part is that anyone who draws wisdom from Socrates cares whether or not such a figure existed. The only thing I care about is his (or Plato, whoever's) ideas, his existence is an interesting but unimportant question.

The second bad assumption is that if records are sometimes spotty, we suddenly have the assume a large number of baseless ideas simply because we couldn't possibly have any proof for them. Should doctors start assuming that patients have medical conditions simply because their medical records are poorly kept?

Yes - this is a good point.
Does it matter if he existed?

Historians, of course, are concerned. But other people?

It doesn't actually matter to me. . . I played Socrates in a statuette-informational performance when I was 10 when our class had our 9 week study on the Ancient literature and actually doing that got me interested in philosophy and politics - all these years later I still love that focus in schooling - World Civ, Lit . . . love it.

 

[hallam]

This is a strawman argument.

Very rarely do religious arguments revolve around whether a particular person actually was born or not. Disagreement almost always is focused on what the religious CLAIM historical people did.

E.G., I don't find it outrageous to believe an itinerant preacher named Jesus was born and preached many things 2000 years ago. However, its outrageous to believe that a man did the following things when it contradicts what we know about reality and is supported by nothing but hear-say, conjecture, and holy-book tales::
1) Turned water into wine
2) Flew into the sky
3) Rose from the dead after 3 days after receiving mortal wounds.
4) Heals blindness and disease by touch.
5) Etc

I'm confident most people can distinguish between ordinary claims and extraordinary.

You have to admit that there is at least a small minority of arguments out there attacking just the existence of Jesus. This might not be a counter argument to every argument against religion but I think there is some resemblance of a point here, though vague. Very few who challenge the existence of Jesus challenge other historical characters such as Socrates or even Alexander the Great. Yet those same challengers are okay with, basically, attributing most of the foundation of philosophy, a significant topic of interest to humanity, to Socrates. They don't question the motives of those philosophical arguments. Nor do they create elaborate arguments challenging the translations and meaning of the philosophy attributed to him through time. Socrates arguments may just only be the arguments of a counsel in Athens around 300 who wanted to push certain views on society (silliness to prove a point).

The counter here is hypocrisy. So what if Socrates only wrote about philosophy. So what if Socrates didn't create miracles. If these people are willing to believe in arguments against the existence of Jesus and believe in the existence of Socrates when both have similar levels of evidence of existence, then they are clearly picking and choosing their anti-arguments not based on rationality of either Socrates or Jesus's existence but based on personal bias against religion. They are not applying rationale thinking evenly which is counter to rationale thought.

 

[danarhea]

Gentlemen,
It seems that we have some issues with the historicity of the existence of Socrates.

Socrates



Socrates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Too bad historical records are crappy and we have to take some things on faith.

The Socratic problem does not concern itself on whether or not Socrates actually existed, because he did. It was more about what kind of person Socrates was, and what his beliefs were.

In his life, Socrates served in the Army under the command of Laches, fought at the battle of Delium in 424 BC, later fought in the battle of Amphipolis, married Xanthippe, had a son, which he named Lambrocles, Served on the Prytanes, which was the presiding council that tried the generals for capital crimes, after Athens' defeat at the hands of Sparta in a naval battle, and did many other things which have been noted by historians.

Socrates actually never wrote anything, but gave oration only, which has led to the confusion over what he actually believed in. Differing versions were given by Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato, but all attested that they personally knew him. This, in addition to the information above, is proof that Socrates existed, which the Socratic problem does not address, but the kind of person he was, and what he actually believed in, instead.

To deduce that Socrates never existed, in the face of massive evidence that he did, would require quite a leap of faith, hence the irony in your original post. :mrgreen:

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.