Socrates answers in 399 BC, at the time of his trial. He is accused of impiety and corrupting the youth. He never wrote anything — all we know of him comes from his disciples, mainly Plato. He answers with questions, destabilizes certainties, and refuses simple answers.
To question Socrates is to expose oneself to maieutics — the art of bringing forth the ideas that the interlocutor carries within without knowing it. He does not give answers: he poses questions that reveal the contradictions in what you think you know. It's uncomfortable, and that's the point.
The questions below cover the great Socratic themes: virtue, knowledge, justice, death, Athenian democracy. They are designed for high school students in philosophy, but also for anyone who wants to learn to think better — by questioning their own certainties.
🏛️ Socrates: Philosophy is the love of wisdom — not its possession. A philosopher is not a wise man; he is a man who knows he is not and who seeks it. My contemporaries who believe themselves wise seem further from wisdom than the craftsmen who at least know what they do not know. The oracle of Delphi said I was the wisest of the Athenians — I believe it is because I am the only one who knows that I know nothing.
🏛️ Socrates: It is not an admission of defeat — it is the starting point of all true inquiry. When I go to question the politicians, poets, and craftsmen of Athens who believe themselves wise, I find that they cannot define the terms they use. The politician cannot define justice. The poet cannot explain his poetry. The craftsman who knows how to make a shoe believes he knows how to govern a city. My superiority is modest: I know that I do not know.
🏛️ Socrates: This is the question I have been asking for years — and no one in Athens can answer it satisfactorily. Is it justice? Courage? Piety? Moderation? Each of these answers raises new questions. What I can say: virtue seems linked to knowledge. Can one do evil knowing it is evil? Does the one who acts badly do so out of ignorance of what is good? This is what I explore.
🏛️ Socrates: This is one of the most difficult questions — and the sophists, who claim to teach it for a fee, seem unable to define it. If virtue is knowledge, it can in principle be taught. But experience contradicts this: the sons of great virtuous men are not necessarily virtuous themselves. Perhaps what is called 'teaching virtue' is actually making someone aware of what they already carry within.
🏛️ Socrates: My mother was a midwife — she helped women give birth. I help minds give birth to the ideas they carry within without knowing it. Maieutics is the art of questioning in such a way as to bring out the knowledge that the interlocutor already possesses, without being aware of it. I transmit nothing: I unblock. That's why I say I teach without knowing — it's not a joke.
🏛️ Socrates: This is a question I have asked dozens of Athenians — judges, politicians, generals — without ever obtaining a satisfactory answer. Some say: giving each their due. But what is due to each? Others say: the advantage of the stronger. But then justice is just another form of violence. I seek a definition that withstands scrutiny. I have not yet found it — and that is why the search continues.
🏛️ Socrates: I am accused of impiety — of not believing in the city's gods — and of corrupting the youth. The real reasons are political: I have irritated powerful people by publicly revealing their ignorance. I have friends who collaborated with the Thirty Tyrants — Critias was one of my disciples. In Athens, at this moment, that is enough to make you suspect. But I prefer to die innocent than live guilty of betraying the truth.
🏛️ Socrates: To flee would be to acknowledge that the accusations are founded. It would also betray the laws of Athens — the same laws that have protected me all my life. I accepted being Athenian by staying here. Leaving now would break an implicit contract. And then: is death an evil? I am not sure. If it is a dreamless sleep, it is peaceful. If it is a journey to other souls, it is interesting. Why flee it?
🏛️ Socrates: This is the fundamental question — what Plato will spend his whole life seeking. I believe that the Good is a reality, not an opinion. There is something that is objectively good, independent of what each individual or city thinks of it. But how to access it? Through knowledge — not technical knowledge, but self-knowledge and knowledge of the Good itself. Hence the 'know thyself' of Delphi.
🏛️ Socrates: Meno claims that courage is not fleeing in battle. But is the sailor who withstands the storm courageous? The doctor who treats a dangerous disease? The man who confronts his own inner fears? If courage is a virtue, it must be defined as something other than a particular action. Perhaps courage is the knowledge of what to fear and what not to fear. But then: can this knowledge be taught?
🏛️ Socrates: The sophists are my natural adversaries — and our differences are fundamental. They teach to persuade, to win debates, to appear wise. I seek the truth. They take money for their lessons. I take nothing — besides, I have nothing to sell since I know nothing. Protagoras says that man is the measure of all things. I reply: if everything is relative, then nothing is true — including this statement.
🏛️ Socrates: Athens invented something remarkable — government by the citizens. But I must confess that I have reservations. Can the navigation of a ship be entrusted to a vote of the passengers? I would prefer the best navigator. Likewise, the city: why should the choice of its leaders belong to those who know nothing about it? Democracy can produce excellent decisions — as it can condemn an innocent man.
🏛️ Socrates: I am accused of not believing in the city's gods. This is false — or at least, incomplete. I believe in a divine force — what I call my daimon, an inner voice that warns me when I am about to do something wrong. But I do not believe in the Homeric gods who are jealous, deceitful, and commit injustices. The gods, if they exist, must be perfectly good. Otherwise, why call them gods?
🏛️ Socrates: The soul is what distinguishes us from an inert body — the principle of life, thought, movement. And I believe it is immortal: it existed before our birth and will survive our death. Knowledge itself is proof of this: when we understand a mathematical truth, for example, we do not learn it — we remember it. We knew these truths before we were born. This is what I call reminiscence.
🏛️ Socrates: Very simply — my adversaries say I am dirty and poor. I walk barefoot, always wear the same cloak, and eat little. But I spend my days at the agora, discussing with anyone willing to listen — artisans, politicians, young people, foreigners. My wife Xanthippe often reproaches me for being useless. Perhaps she is right on a practical level. But I believe there is nothing more useful than seeking the truth.
🏛️ Socrates: Knowledge — true knowledge — is different from opinion, even true opinion. If I believe the road to Larissa is to the right, and by chance I arrive at Larissa, I had a true opinion but not knowledge. Knowledge is having the reasons for what one believes — knowing why it is true, not just that it is true. And by this criterion, most of what we think we know is merely opinion.
🏛️ Socrates: I do not write — and it is not an oversight. Writing fixes thought, makes it dead. A text does not answer questions; it always repeats the same thing. True thought lives in dialogue — in exchange, in confrontation, in the surprise of refutation. A text can be misunderstood without recourse. A dialogue can correct itself. That is why I speak rather than write — and why Plato, he, will write.
🏛️ Socrates: Athenian politics is the art of pleasing the crowd — not the art of governing for the good. The politicians of Athens seem to me like cooks who flatter the palate rather than doctors who heal. I would have been a bad politician: I would have told people unpleasant truths. That is why I never sought to govern. I govern my own judgments — that is already quite difficult.
🏛️ Socrates: Eudaimonia — what is translated as happiness — is the flourishing of the soul in the exercise of its best faculties. It is not pleasure, nor wealth, nor glory. A man can have all this and be deeply unhappy if he does not know what he truly is. The unexamined life is not worth living — that is what I will say tomorrow before my judges.
🏛️ Socrates: No — and I will tell you why. Either death is a complete nothingness, a dreamless sleep — and in that case, what is there to fear? Nights of deep sleep are often the best. Or death is a passage to another world where I will have the opportunity to continue my dialogues with Homer, with Achilles, with all the great minds who preceded me. In either case, I have no reason to complain.
🏛️ Socrates: True friendship — philia — is not based on utility or pleasure, although these forms exist. The highest friendship is that which unites men who wish each other well for themselves — not for what they can gain. It presupposes a resemblance in virtue. My young interlocutors who accompany me — Plato, Alcibiades, Crito — are they my friends? I believe so, to varying degrees.
🏛️ Socrates: Beauty is a reality — not a subjective opinion. A beautiful body, a beautiful action, a beautiful speech, a beautiful soul share something. In the Symposium, Diotima taught me — or at least, that is what I report — that the love of beauty leads, by degrees, from the beauty of one body to the beauty of all bodies, then to the beauty of souls, then to the beauty of Beauty itself. It is an ascent.
🏛️ Socrates: Education is not a filling — as if the mind were an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge. It is an orientation: turning the soul towards the light. A child is not ignorant because he lacks information — he is ignorant because his gaze is turned in the wrong direction. The role of the educator is to turn this gaze towards the Good, the Beautiful, the True.
🏛️ Socrates: Rhetoric — as practiced by the sophists and orators of Athens — is an art of appearing convincing without necessarily being right. It flatters the audience rather than forming it. I oppose it with dialectic: the art of seeking truth together through dialogue, accepting to be refuted. A good dialectician prefers to be convinced he is wrong rather than maintain a false position.
🏛️ Socrates: I would make the citizens more honest with themselves — less quick to believe they know what they do not know. It is not a political reform; it is a reform of the soul. A city of people who recognize their ignorance, who sincerely seek what is good and just, who examine their own prejudices — this city would govern better than any constitution. The problem of Athens is not its laws; it is its citizens.
On Parlova, Socrates answers in real time from Athens, 399 BC. You can rephrase, dig deeper, push back — and ask anything that isn't on this list.
Talk with Socrates for free →These questions often come up spontaneously in Parlova sessions with Socrates.