Concerning a Good Book:  Philosophy 101 by Socrates...

      Honored as a quasi-saint in medieval Christendom, perhaps no man, after Christ, has ever exerted such a profound influence on the West – and thus the whole world – as has Socrates.  “[He] is to philosophy,” writes the author, a Boston College professor, “what Jesus is to religion”; and their lives, and deaths, have numerous, mysterious parallels.  To begin with, their early lives before they took up their missions:  Christ the carpenter, and Socrates the simple stonecutter.  While busy with his humble task, Socrates one day welcomes back to Athens a friend of his, Chairophon, who has been to Delphi to question there “the Oracle” of the god Apollo.  His question to the Greek god of wisdom?  “Who is the wisest man in the world?”  And the answer came back – “Socrates.” 

      Even if Chairophon was not surprised, Socrates certainly was, for he considered himself the man most lacking in wisdom.  But the oracle moved him to investigate, and he came to realize that his wisdom resided in his recognition of his own ignorance.  And so began his mission in the search of wisdom, his “vocation” to question those who were considered wise (either in their own estimation of themselves or that of others or both), and found little, if anything, that resembled wisdom.  He did find pride, arrogance, avarice and a whole lot of opinions, especially among the Sophists (self-anointed “wise men”), who were very adept at making a pretty penny selling their ideas.

      So began the “Socratic method” of questioning received opinion, conventions, and beliefs, as well as the famous career of “the Gadfly,” who seemingly could never just leave well-enough alone.  Needless to say, it all landed him in trouble with the powers-that-be:  he was arrested and accused of “corrupting the young” and of atheism.  The former charge was ridiculous, self-evidently, since Socrates was actually instilling in the young men who flocked to him a longing for truth and virtue (and the shunning of propaganda and vice), a true education for which he, unlike his Sophist opponents, did not charge a single denar; the latter charge – given the definition of atheism in ancient, democratic Athens – was accurate.  Socrates certainly did not believe in the gods of the state, a felony at the time.  They were too foolish to take seriously.  But he did believe in his divine mission – to search for truth and wisdom – an assignment given to him, as he repeatedly testified at his trial, by God himself.

      This is the “problem” with the Socratic method – it equips the student to think and thus makes of him a danger to the state, that more and more organized web of received opinion we are all supposed to adhere to unquestioningly, so very docilely.  But the gods of the state, whom we are supposed to believe in, are simply the opinion idols, the fashion images of our ruling class, whether the pantheon is located in Hollywood, DC or the financial district of New York City.

      A couple of years ago, a university student gave me a copy of an occasional journal put out by students of philosophy under professorial direction, a journal significantly called “The Gadfly.”  A more proper name would be “Humbug”; for the editor and writers claimed the mantle of Socrates and played the game of the Sophists.  Their “philosophical” musings were all about shoring up the conventional “wisdom” of the modern campus:  an article that “argued” for the profligate lifestyle by dropping a few names and terms of philosophy; an essay addressing the controversy of the cartoons of Muhammad that used up much print space and ink to attack Christianity with any number of factual and historical errors and hopelessly bad grammar and logic; and last, and most directly sophistical, a short piece on the evils of alcohol, since the use of it could potentially impede one’s progress toward a lucrative career. 

      One gets an idea of what the modern version of the “Socratic” method is:  professors cunningly attacking the traditional and uncritically held beliefs of society so that students’ minds are then empty enough to adopt the teacher’s opinions.  Plain and simple sophistry.  And so very different from Socrates’ method and intention.  He honestly felt that there is really very little that we can know fully as far as wisdom is concerned, but that there is tremendous progress made in the disabusing oneself of mere conventions parading as “wisdom.”  For Socrates – as well as for the Christian – only God really possesses wisdom; human beings must seek it.  And the first step is the most painful one – to acknowledge that one is, left to himself, a fool:  the wise man, the Gadfly would tell us, knows that he is a fool; the fool “thinks” he is wise.

      But would not the Socratic method, besides being a danger to the state, also pose a risk to the Catholic Church and her insistence on adherence to her teachings on faith and morals?  Yes, it would... if all that is supposedly desired is mindless submission; but that is not the Catholic way.  We must first remind ourselves of the esteem the Church has always had for “the Gadfly” and how she incorporated his very method into the core of the universities founded in medieval, Catholic Europe (genuine “think tanks”).  Secondly, the Church has no fear for the credibility of her dogmas and doctrines:  question away!  But, please, do so after the manner of Socrates, a real search for understanding, not as the Sophists, who always had ulterior motives, never an unquestioning loyalty to the truth.  The Sophists, like so many moderns, would debunk anything that did not suit their fancy, lifestyle or pocketbook. 

      Though their lives have many parallels, the distance between Socrates and Jesus is infinite.  For Socrates could only search for wisdom; Christ claimed to be that very wisdom, a claim that if Socrates had ever come across and questioned according to his method, he would have recognized the Answer he had always been seeking.  With that confidence, the Church invites Socrates to question her, to test her wisdom.  Would that so many others, wise in their own eyes, would do the same!