The Death of Socrates

History Repeats

By Amy E. Barr at The Lukeion Project

After the Peloponnesian War ended in 404 BC, Athens was fragmented. She had just lost to her rival Sparta in a series of conflicts that started almost thirty years earlier. Both city-states had allies in this conflict, so the war threw all of Greece into turmoil. Athens had been a superpower and now Sparta was in charge. Economics were unstable. Politics wobbled between a demand for democratic reconstruction and support or resistance to the Thirty Tyrants set up by Sparta in Athens. Athenian society was a mess but into this mess stepped 70-year-old Socrates.

Socrates avoided the rules set out for him in his own society but in the most impossibly peaceful fashion. Instead of public lecturing and campaigning to reach a political post, instead of writing political plays or literary works to shift opinions, and instead of loudly aligning with one side or the other, Socrates pursued rational inquiry with others. He believed that simply getting everyone to use their brain would give birth to a better world.

Socrates was styled as an irritant, a “gad fly,” a pest because he simply talked with other people, particularly the young people of Athens who had both time and interest in debate as their world was all too turbulent. Athens, formally known for her long years of renowned philosophers, was no longer in the mood for such debates. Everyone pushed and shoved to become preeminent in trying times. Conformity was key. Critical thinking was not on their agenda.

Socrates’ friends and students would, in today’s vernacular, come from both sides of the aisle. Naturally, the military members of Athens tended to listen to him since he served in that capacity for much of his life. His father was a sculptor, and so art was Socrates’ only “formal” education. Sculpting was blue collar work. His rivals often became his best students. They came from families of both rich and poor, famous, infamous, and completely unknown. Socrates was willing and happy to debate with anyone, and he always did so respectfully.

His methods of simply talking, debating, and exchanging ideas with people, especially young people, were innovative. Not that many Athenians considered Socrates’ innovation to be a promising idea. The popular vote demanded that everyone needed to be on exactly the same page. Socrates was being disruptive and irritating. Young people needed to unquestioningly learn their places, but Socrates was busily getting them to expand their world.

Socrates would put to debate firmly held moral claims through pointed questions. Sometimes those moral claims were just new and popular, other times more traditional. His partners in debate needed to support their beliefs. Holding popular assumptions quickly fell apart while those that listened and responded to his probing questions were guided to a deeper understanding of themselves and the world as well as their moral duty. This was his whole point.

Socrates believed people held unhealthy beliefs because they lacked knowledge. Most would never look for that knowledge until they were forced to make an account for why they believed what they believed and why they acted as they did. His onlookers and debaters were primarily individuals that we would now consider college age whom much of Athens dismissed for being too young and foolish to count for much.

Athenian leaders were not amused. Socrates did not seem to support one side over the other politically even while he enjoyed all debate. Followers, usually prior resisters, would come from all walks. His personal convictions were far more important to him than anyone else’s dainty political interests. Athenian society was not in agreement. Unity with populist opinions was the highest good. Questioning was not allowed! Socrates would be stopped.

Socrates was charged with honoring non-state-approved gods and, in punishment for his tendency to debate the young, he was charged with corrupting the youth. By corruption, they simply meant it was unacceptable to ask the brightest young minds of Athens to think critically about their own long-held positions on things. In other words, he was charged with gently compelling others to examine their own lives. Socrates would not back down.

Athenian law was built on democracy! A simple vote prevailed! Socrates, now known as the principal founder of the largest percentage of modern western philosophical tradition while never writing a single thing and the framer of the Socratic method, still considered the most successful way to develop critical thinking, wisdom, and maturation of the human mind, was sentenced to death. He could have compromised and appealed the conviction, but he refused. He could have bent or flattered the jury or found protection from political elites or even escape, he didn't quit. He accepted his death.

Several weeks after his trial Socrates was given a cup of poison. He drank it even while continuing to speak calmly and clearly to a room of friends and students as an example of moral courage until his last breath. 

His students would change the world. They would become famous philosophers (Plato and, in turn, Aristotle), historians (Xenophon), and politicians (Critias and Alcibiades). What Socrates began as a personal compulsion to seek truth for himself and others would change the world. Nobody even remembers the name of the jury that put him to death.

100

The Lukeion Project in Retrospect

By Amy Barr of The Lukeion Project

This is our 100^th Sassy Peripatetic Blog! Sassy Peri began September 21, 2018, after a full decade (likely more) of people pestering us about starting a blog. Of course, we knew we should start a blog, but for the first five years of The Lukeion Project, we hadn’t worked out how to get a full night’s sleep much less how to add anything new to our workload. It took us another 5 years to catch up. Many of you may not know our story, so gather around. This is the abbreviated version.

The idea of The Lukeion Project was hatched toward the end of 2005 by two Classical archaeologists, namely me and Regan Barr, as we painted our daughter’s bedroom (pink and purple, if you must know). We had settled into very mundane lives after over a decade in the archaeological field, digging at places like ancient Troy. A financial crisis forced us to get creative about our future. As crises almost always do, we were given the chance to return to our roots, namely our passion for dead languages, Classical history, archaeology, and Classical literature. We wanted to teach they way we wish we had been taught. We wanted to take our students seriously.

When we began our small venture, we had to pick a name. We had no intention of becoming a full school or academy offering a comprehensive curriculum to all ages. We were well skilled in Latin, Greek, and related fields but had no intention of adding things like art, sports, and science nor did we have the patience of saints necessary to teach all ages.

As everyone should, we turned to Aristotle for answers. His philosophical hangout in Athens was known in Latin as The Lyceum. In Greek – as Aristotle would have used—it was called Λύκειον (Lukeion). Aristotle established his school in Athens in part of the temple to Apollo in 335 BC (he worked with what was available). He lectured there, led his students on walk-abouts (thus their name Peripatetics), and established the first European library in history. He had always been a book collector and then his student, Alexander the Great, helped by sending him crates of scrolls and copies of important works as gifts to his former tutor.

The word Project in our name was chosen because we didn’t want people thinking we were a full school nor an academy since our courses were meant to supplement the curriculum of our primary audience, home educated students working at the high school level.

When we first began classes in the spring of 2006 there was only one other online program out there. Most of their classes were still conducted by correspondence but a few had gotten high tech like our classes. This meant we were the first of our kind. Every big flashy online program that we see at conferences today first talked to us way back then about what we were doing and said, “hey, that’s a good idea.”

When we first went to homeschool conventions to spread the word about our classes, we spent half our time explaining what an online class was. Terms like webinar were not commonly understood. Words like blog, vlog, and podcast were still in the formative stages. The wizardry of having students synchronously join us online, hearing, and seeing material as we taught was also virtually unknown at the start. Our first online learning platform was for business meetings. It often had as much as a 7-second delay making online discussions a bit tricky. Such technology has now become so mundane that even 10-year-olds get irritable if our internet gets crackly or because we don’t let them play with the video filters in class.

In 2012 we successfully cajoled our archaeological colleague Dr. Sue Fisher to join us as she expanded our Latin program and then expanded our Classical literature offerings with her Muse series. Since then, we’ve added Prof. Baty (literature including AP/writing/rhetoric), and then Dr. Johnson (logic and more) who stepped in right after the sudden tragic passing of Dr. Haggard (logic/philosophy). Prof. Powell came on board last year to expand our Latin program further. Regan Barr (beloved teacher of Witty Wordsmith/Barbarian Diagrammarian) also directs our 8 years of Classical Greek plus Greek history, and Philosophy. I (Amy Barr) direct the large Latin program (also 8 years and expanding) plus Roman History.

The Lukeion Project has offered semester classes since 2006. As we now begin our 17^th year, we have had over 3000 (close to 4000) students, 100 blogs, hundreds of semester courses, and at least a thousand workshops. We’ll never win awards for fame nor size, neither breadth of influence nor endowments. We’ve labored to keep standards high (despite direst pressure to drop them low) and to keep tuitions low (despite direst need to increase them). We work without the safety net of government support nor impressive private capital. Our few faculty and staff are dedicated, humble, and talented beyond measure. there will never be enough thanks nor money to truly pay them.

Our rewards are less earthly and more eternal. Like Aristotle getting gifts from Alexander the Great, our former Lukeion students send back crates of greatness. Their lives have now spread into the stars at NASA, into the lights of Broadway or Carnegie Hall, into the classrooms of Ivy League schools, into excavations, laboratories, and libraries as doctors, lawyers, writers, scholars, linguists, dancers, artists, and (perhaps best) as moms and dads who delight in educating their own children whom we hope to teach—in turn—in the years to come.

The poet Horace (Odes 3.30) expressed our hope most fittingly in 23 BC:

exegi monumentum aere perennius

regalique situ pyramidum altius,

quod non imber edax, non Aquilo inpotens

possit diruere…

I have built a monument more lasting than bronze,

higher than the Pyramids’ regal structures,

that no consuming rain, nor wild north wind

 can destroy… 

Why Study Philosophy?

Make an Investment in Clear Thinking and Logic

By Regan Barr, philosophy instructor with The LukeionProject

Plato has preserved a humorous anecdote about the “first” Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus. As the story goes, Thales was walking along staring up at the sky and pondering the mysteries of the heavens. He was so oblivious to his immediate environment that he failed to notice a well in his path and fell in. A Thracian servant-girl was nearby to observe his misfortune, laugh at him, and spread the word abroad. Presumably, she also called for help to get him out.

The point of this short story was to poke fun at the Pre-Socratic philosophers, whom many Greeks stigmatized as being more interested in the stars and the heavens than in the path right in front of their feet. They believed that philosophy (the love, or pursuit, of wisdom) was both impractical and a waste of time. Some people today still believe that.

So is there any practical benefit to studying philosophy? I would argue there are many, but I’ll just mention three.

1. The study of philosophy helps develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they’ve been fooled.” This quote is often attributed to Mark Twain, and while we have several similar quotes from him, there isn’t definitive evidence that he ever said or wrote it. Nevertheless, it’s certainly true. Humans are proud creatures, embarrassed and unwilling to accept that they’ve been duped. In fact, many people will continue to cling to a belief even when confronted with irrefutable evidence that these beliefs are based on falsehoods and mythology rather than fact.

Our society is experiencing a crisis in critical thinking. Students are often taught to believe and obey rather than to question, think, and evaluate. They are taught that “authority figures” should not be questioned, even if there is evidence that their statements are untrustworthy. Essentially, students are taught to place blind faith in these figures.

As students engage with the great thinkers of the past and of our own time, they sharpen their skills in research, logic, and evaluation. They come to understand the rules of logical argumentation and learn to identify errors in reasoning. By observing how philosophers have carried on a dialectic through the centuries, one arguing for one position and another responding with a counterargument, they can begin to identify and correct problems in their own thinking and in the arguments of others. The study of philosophy is one of the best antidotes to blind trust, and a catalyst for independent reasoning.

2. The study of philosophy helps develop logical and persuasive methods of communication

The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.”  His message is clear: to change someone else’s mind, one must not only be correct, one must also be persuasive. The student who studies Plato’s Socratic dialogues will appreciate not only Socrates’ civility in the face of sometimes confrontational adversaries but also the way that he gently guides his debate partners to recognize their own inconsistencies in reasoning.

A group of ancient philosophers called the Sophists claimed that they could defend either side of an argument equally well. They were rightly criticized when they used their oratorical skills to convince people to believe untruths (“making the weaker argument seem stronger”), but their mastery of the art of persuasion is undeniable. Many ancient orators and statesmen, including the famous Athenian Pericles, sought out the Sophists to teach them how to move their audience to action. They were persuasive because they combined carefully crafted arguments with an understanding of their audience.

Today accusing someone of “sophistry” is an insult, but now more than ever, individuals must be prepared to defend their beliefs with persuasive arguments, AND to know when they are being manipulated by sophistry and demagoguery. In 2004, Desmond Tutu famously said, “Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.” The ability to improve one’s argument and persuasively deliver a defense of one’s position, whether written or spoken, requires well-organized thoughts, clarity of expression, and an understanding of the audience. This is one of many important benefits of studying philosophy.

3. The study of philosophy moves one to consider the bigger, but oft-neglected, questions of life

Many students enter an ancient philosophy course expecting the ideas of the ancients to be somewhat unsophisticated. After all, hasn’t the human race progressed so far over the intervening centuries that the early philosophers will seem fairly simple-minded by comparison? Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is true that our understanding of our physical world has moved far beyond what the ancient philosophers could have even imagined. But some of the questions they grappled with remain unanswered. For example, how can we “know” anything? This is the question of epistemology. Can we be certain that our brains are interpreting stimuli correctly? In fact, how can we be sure that we’re not laying in a coma somewhere and everything around us is an illusion?

Then there is the question of ethics, to which Socrates turned our attention. Is there a difference between “good” and “evil”? If so, how do you defend your definition of “doing what is right”? Does the definition of bad or good behavior change depending on our circumstances? Do we have any obligations to our fellow-humans? To our planet? To other creatures with whom we share our world? And if so, from where do these obligations come? Are they based entirely on tradition, or is there some source we should consider authoritative in the realm of ethics?

Grappling with questions like this are not only mind-expanding, they are life-preparing. They move us past the mundane trivia that consumes much of our daily lives. When we are faced with difficult decisions about family, government, or health, on what principles will we make our decisions? If we have consistently lived our lives in accordance with a set of principles that we’ve chosen intentionally, perhaps the correct choice will be more apparent, even if it’s not the easiest one.

If you’re still reading, you know my answer to the question posed in the title of this blog, and I’ve only scratched the surface. Studying philosophy is an investment in clear thinking and logic, and it’s always worth it!

3 Beautiful Thoughts by Marcus Aurelius

Some Imperial Words of Wisdom During Times of Trouble & Peace

By Amy Barr, Wizened Sage of Online Education at The Lukeion Project

Marcus Aurelius was the last of the Five Good Emperors. He was not only a good emperor, he was also an excellent philosopher. His deep thought life prepared him for the many hardships he would experience. He fought endless defensive wars along Roman frontiers. He endured the early death of his closest loved ones. He suffered the failure of his soon-to-be successor Commodus to develop into one who would rule well (Commodus would instead gain immortal fame as the first NO-GOOD emperor). 

Most relatedly to us, perhaps, Marcus Aurelius lived during the Antonine plague (Plague of Galen) which decimated the Roman world in a far more serious way than our current health crisis. At least 5 million perished during Marcus' pandemic, but likely far more as whole towns and cities perished, fell to ruin, and left no historian to count their numbers. Thousands died daily in Rome and the sight of  carts piled high with the dead would traumatize Rome's survivors. The Antonine plague caused societal disruptions, not the least of which was Rome’s failure to defend herself from invaders while her economy suffered collapse as most basic services in defenses, transportation, agriculture, and trade came to a halt.

Marcus Aurelius sustained himself by journaling. Thankfully, those notes to himself became a book (The Mediations) about how Stoicism served him well during times of hardship. Stoicism, he argued, would give us the type of mental fortitude needed to help us through the worst of times. So many pearls come from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations that I've narrowed down three main concepts. 

Define what you yourself can control, let everything else go.

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” 

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – 

Marcus Aurelius, like other Stoics, would agree that worry is useless. It is best to focus only on what each of us can personally change (our opinions, goals, desires, actions, reactions). Do not try to control the things we can’t change (the past, the future, other people).

Live well while you yet live.

“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

“Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”

Marcus Aurelius would affirm that life is a gift that we must never diminish while we still breathe. We always have the option to exercise control over ourselves and our attitudes during tough moments. If we have a day left or 5 decades yet to live, live with much energy. 

Allow nothing to divide yourself from others.

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”

“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”

When times get tough, humans adore assigning blame and fault to others. We are all much more alike than we are different. Do everything you can to find unity with others. Reject the compulsion to seek division.