The Awakening Page 4

With his life wavering between life and death, it would have been more practical to re-evaluate his reasoning. His method leaves too much room for interpretation; after all, is death where the argument should have led? If he was convinced that he had not done injustice, then it would be unjust for him to die. Socrates stated, "Then let it go, Crito, and let us act in this way, since in this way the god is leading", but would it be reasonable to believe that his god would support the killing of one of his creatures? Furthermore he never evaluates what good he could have done had he escaped. Although Socrates' opened a gateway of thought for the Athenians, it was because he opened communication and questioning, not because his methods provided the perfect answers for life.

One might ask why would the Athenians should break from tradition and follow one whose methods are incorrect? His importance was in his questioning attitude, not his theories. No culture should just drop their tradition and start from new, but people change, time passes, and societies evolve. Socrates pushed the limits of how people thought and questioned what people before him rarely did. In essence, he revolutionized not what people thought but the way they thought.

Socrates did not change the Athenian way of thinking all by himself, but he helped break through the wall that held the Athenians back and allowed them to progress. Socrates' method of following an argument where it leads lacked standards upon what it was to be judged by. This lack of a standard eventually lead to his demise. His lack of acquittal and his death help provide evidence of the shortcomings of his method. People were not ready for his radical outlooks on things that they had believed in for ages. Socrates perfected a way of thinking rather than a method of thought. He showed the world his questioning nature but because of the generality of his method, could not provide a map for how others should think.

Texts on Socrates, Plato & Aristophanes, Cornell University Press, 1998.

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