🏛️ Who was Socrates? Life, method, and trial of the philosopher who wrote nothing

Socrates (circa 470-399 BC) is the most cited philosopher of Antiquity — and the only one from whom we have no written line by his hand. Everything we know about him comes from his disciples, particularly Plato and Xenophon. He died at 70, condemned by an Athenian popular court, after refusing to flee even though escape was possible.

A life known only through his disciples

Socrates was born in Athens around 470 BC, son of Sophroniscus (a sculptor) and Phaenarete (a midwife, according to tradition). He served as a hoplite in the Athenian army during the Peloponnesian War and distinguished himself by his physical courage, notably reported by Alcibiades in Plato's Symposium. He left no texts: his thought reaches us only through Plato's dialogues, Xenophon's writings, and — in a hostile and caricatured manner — Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds. This absence of writing makes any reconstruction of "what Socrates really said" necessarily uncertain and debated by historians of philosophy.

Maieutics: the Socratic method

Socrates does not transmit doctrine: he questions. His method, which he himself compares to his mother's art of midwifery, consists of "birthing" the ideas that minds carry without knowing it — hence the name maieutics. Concretely, he starts from an assertion by his interlocutor ("justice is giving each their due"), makes them examine particular cases that contradict it, until the initial definition collapses. The interlocutor does not receive a ready-made answer: they discover, often uncomfortably, that they did not know what they thought they knew.

The trial of 399 BC: the three charges

In 399 BC, Socrates, then 70 years old, is judged before a popular court of 501 randomly selected citizens (the Heliaia). His accusers — Anytus, Meletus, and Lycon — bring three specific charges: not recognizing the gods recognized by the city, introducing new deities (his famous "daimon", an inner voice that restrains him from acting), and corrupting Athenian youth.

The political context weighs heavily, even if it does not appear in the official charges: Socrates counted among his close associates Alcibiades, who betrayed Athens, and Critias, one of the Thirty Tyrants who briefly overthrew Athenian democracy a few years earlier. The trial takes place in a climate of mistrust towards anyone who might have influenced these controversial figures.

The condemnation and death

The vote of guilt passes by a narrow majority; the death penalty, proposed by the prosecution against a counter-proposal by Socrates deemed too lenient by the jurors, passes by a larger majority. According to Plato (Crito, Phaedo), Socrates then refuses the escape his friends propose, out of fidelity to the laws of the city that had protected him all his life. He drinks the hemlock a few weeks later, in his cell, surrounded by his disciples, after the ritual return of the sacred ship sent to Delos — a religious delay that suspended executions in Athens.

The legacy: Plato, Xenophon, and the Socratic school

The trial and execution of Socrates leave a lasting mark on Western philosophy: Plato makes him the central character of almost all his dialogues, and the question of freedom of thought in the face of a democracy that can err becomes a philosophical subject in its own right. Several schools then claim his legacy — the Cynics, the Cyrenaics, and of course the Academy founded by Plato — each retaining a different aspect of his thought, proof that none exhausts on its own what Socrates represented.

Frequently asked questions

• →Why did Socrates write nothing? The exact reasons remain debated; some see it as consistent with his oral method (living dialogue versus fixed text), which he discusses in Plato's Phaedrus regarding writing.
• →What is the difference between Socrates and Plato? Socrates is the master, with no writings of his own; Plato is his disciple, who portrayed him in his dialogues to the point that it is difficult to precisely distinguish the thought of one from the other.
• →Why did Socrates refuse to flee before his execution? According to Plato's Crito, he believed that fleeing would break the tacit contract binding him to the laws of Athens, under whose protection he had lived all his life.
• →What is Socrates' daimon? An inner voice he described as restraining him from acting in certain situations — never as dictating what to do. It is one of the elements held against him as a "new deity" during his trial.