What if Socrates didn’t exist?
No, not the quintessential philosophical ideas of Socrates. Those are here to stay. But what if Socrates, the very person, never existed?
Socrates was born around 470 BCE and died in 399 BCE. We know from stories that he died as a result of drinking hemlock — a punishment he supposedly received for corrupting the youth of Athens (whatever that means). We know that he had the ability to single-handedly deconstruct and lay waste to any individual’s mind, who dared argue with his fearsome logic (see: Euthyphro). We also know that he was hideously ugly (apparently).
But do we actually really know this? For Socrates (and all of “his” ideas for that matter) have been presented for us to study through the re-telling of Plato. All of what we know about this mystical, powerful, and logical figure of Socrates, comes from the (quite extensive) writings of one man.
What if Socrates never existed, and was just a creation of Plato? What if, on a particularly slow Sunday morning, Plato was lounging on his couch, doing whatever educated and privileged Greek men do on Sunday mornings, and was suddenly struck with an idea?
“Aha! Instead of personally expounding my collective ideas and viewpoints about the natural world order, I can make a character who will embody all of these virtues! That way, I will be free from actually having to adhere to a life of such strict rigidity. I can just create this character, who will preach these revolutionary and brilliant ideas and educate the masses, all while I can live a life of relative freedom! I don’t even have to live by my own philosophy, as I’ll just create this character to epitomize this philosophy. I don’t need to obey any moral codes at all, and people can’t say I’m a hypocrite for ignoring my own teachings! I’ll call him Socrates. I’m a genius!” yells Plato, while jumping up and down on his couch/chair/Greek-sitting-object, the folds of his toga billowing around like sails caught in a gusty wind. (Actually, the Greeks didn’t wear togas. But for the purposes of this sentence, it sounds pretty awesome, so forgive me this one time.)
And so, Socrates was born. Just a slight problem. Perhaps Plato did too good of a job of establishing this character of Socrates. Now the entire Western world believes that some raving old lunatic went around Greece, questioning everything, saying that he knew nothing (but plot twist! he was actually the smartest man alive!), and generally annoying the heck out of all other rational beings. What if Socrates, is the world’s greatest conspiracy?