Talk:Socratic problem

Untitled

In the present version of the article, there's way too much on Schleiermacher's view and not really much of anything about other views, particularly more modern views, such as those of Gregory Vlastos and Charles Kahn. Also, something should be said about the view of John Burnet and A.E. Taylor which was prominent at the beginning of the 20th century. Isokrates 21:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I think something should also be said for Kierkegaard's interpretation of Socrates. His work On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates seems wholly relevant. --The Prodigal 22:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 14:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Popper: Please outline what Popper says about Socrates in TOSAIE. 93.162.99.126 (talk) 19:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I second that advice given in 2006: modern academic conversations in classics about the "Socratic question" are almost entirely based off Vlastos, not the people in this article. I feel like the general problem with a lot of these Plato articles is that there hasn't really been any attention paid by people in who really know their languages or any recent scholarship not done by people with "great names." But again, a lot of the problem is the way the discipline of philosophy likes to think that Plato is "theirs." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.223.223.69 (talk) 02:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Untrue and subjective

I rolledback my revert because I realized as was on the wrong end of the revert-discuss cycle. [1]

Anyway, what evidence is there that the claim is untrue or of a subjective pov such that the claim should be excluded? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

one normally looks for evidence that something is true, not that it's untrue; so more to the point, what evidence is there that it isn't untrue? --Wran (talk) 05:48, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the relevance of evidence that it isn't untrue. I believe most editors agree that verification of an on-topic claim in a reliable source without dispute from any other reliable source is enough prima facie ground for inclusion. Why should I have to supply any evidence that it isn't untrue in order to include the claim? If you really want evidence, I think I could give some in the form of any argument that W. J. Prior has had training and a history of research that is sufficient to make him able to have good judgement on the matter and make the claim in accord with this judgement. He is in good-standing in the field with no history of distorting the truth. By all appearances, he is a sincere academic. Academics who are sincere, have no history of distorting the truth, and who are qualified to make a claim, can generally be trusted when they make a claim and present that claim not as an argumentative position but as a matter of fact. By all appearances, he does present the claim as a matter of fact and not as an argumentative position. Therefore, he can be trusted for this claim. If someone can be trusted for a claim, then there is some evidence that the claim is true. Therefore, there is some evidence that this claim is not untrue. -Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 07:39, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

So I am thinking about re-adding the sentence. Do you still think it shouldn't be there? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 19:10, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

of course, it's a wildly speculative claim, far from the mainstream and it contradicts the tenor of the preceeding sentence; xenophon for example is often seen as more reliable than plato --Wran (talk) 18:36, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The claim doesn't contradict the claim that Xenophon is seen as more reliable than Plato. What evidence is there that it is far from the mainstream or wildly speculative? What is the relevance of it contradicting such tenor? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:44, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Evidence that it is mainstream and not wildly speculative: Prior [2] makes the claim in an edition edited by Hugh H. Benson [3] and published by Wiley-Blackwell. Debra Nails corroborates the claim [4], in a publication edited by John M. Cooper [5]. All of these people are perfectly mainstream with very good reputations in history of philosophy. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 19:39, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Further evidence that it is mainstream and not wildly speculative: Louis-André Dorion [6] corroborates the claim in "Xenophon's Socrates" in Ahbel-Rappe [7] & Kamtekar [8] (eds.) A Companion to Socrates (Blackwell Publishing, 2006), pp. 105–106. He also corroborates it in "The Rise and Fall of the Socratic Problem" in Morrison [9] (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Socrates (Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 7–10. All of these people are perfectly mainstream with very good reputations in history of philosophy. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:23, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Third Opinion

Hello! I noticed that Atethnekos asked for a third opinion at the WP:3O noticeboard. I will take a look at the page and the above discussion. It would also be helpful if each editor could comment on what they feel is appropriate or inappropriate about including the content in question. —John Stenson 23:47, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

After looking it over a bit, I agree that the sentence as written does not fit well with the article. The next sentence seems to already imply that the sources are all subject to scrutiny. Would it be accurate to add a sentence to the effect of: All four of these primary sources (or authors) have been known to color biographies with their own opinions and teachings. —John Stenson 00:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why that would be accurate. What reliable source says that?

As to the disputed sentence itself, this is why I think it fits well: The article has introduced four important sources: Plato, Xenophon, Aristophanes, and Aristotle. Immediately after this introduction, this disputed sentence explains the historical value of these sources in the most general way, and gives the reason that there is a Socratic problem at all: Their accounts are not known to be accurate biographies. It is perfectly representative of the reliable sources (Prior 2006, Nails 2009, Dorion 2006 and 2011; with no reliable sources contradicting these), and representing the reliable sources is what we should be doing. With the sentence included, readers will understand clearly the scholarly consensus concerning the important historical sources for Socrates and will understand what motivates the Socratic problem for scholars. Without it, readers will not be left with much content to help them understand this. Why do you think it doesn't fit well?

(The following is not an argument for inclusion, it's just to spur thought: Think about it: If these sources were known as accurate biographers, then, insofar as this were the case, the Socratic problem would be solved. E.g., if Xenophon's accounts were known to be accurate biographically, then in general whatever he says of Socrates' views and attributes would be determined to be accurate. But the problem of making such determinations is exactly what the Socratic problem is!) --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 02:02, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

OK, that helps me understand your position. So the disputed sentence is "None of these sources has a reputation as an accurate biographer." Are any of the sources you use to provide this assertion available online? If not, can you very briefly quote from one of the sources you have to show direct support for the statement? —John Stenson 02:34, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I made some changes to the lead and put section headings into the body to make the article a bit easier to read. Do you feel the sentence still needs to be added? —John Stenson 02:50, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the claim needs to be added, but I do think it it useful and there is no reason to exclude it. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 03:40, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. Yes, Nails 2009 is an online source, at [10]; she backs the claim with regards to Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes: "The difficulties are increased because all those who knew and wrote about Socrates lived before any standardization of modern categories of, or sensibilities about, what constitutes historical accuracy or poetic license."

I can give you the relevant quotes from the other sources (there may be typos not in the sources as I'm trying to type this quickly):

Prior 2006:

• p. 26: "The Socratic Problem arises in part from the fact that none of our sources has impeccable credentials as a biographer."
• p. 26: "Aristophanes’ portrait looks to many scholars like a composite picture of Athenian intellectuals in the latter part of the fifth century; they have therefore rejected the idea that it contains accurate information about Socrates."
• p. 27: "Xenophon wrote with a polemical intent: he wanted to show that Socrates was completely innocent of the charges lodged against him by his accusers and the popular prejudice against him. He has been criticized for making Socrates appear bland and uncontroversial; Gregory Vlastos stated that the Athenians never would have indicted Xenophon’s Socrates (Vlastos 1971a: 3). Xenophon also attributes to Socrates interests that can only have been Xenophon’s own, such as military science and estate management. The length and closeness of his association with Socrates have been questioned by scholars. Because he was not primarily interested in Socrates’ philosophy, he is not our best witness to the content of that philosophy."
• pp. 27 & 28: "This raises a question: where, in his works, does Plato present Socrates’ views, and where does he present his own? Scholars have hoped to solve this question by dividing Plato’s dialogues into three groups: an early group, containing dialogues that (it is argued) present a faithful portrait of the historical Socrates; a middle group, containing dialogues that represent Plato’s own philosophical views; and a late group, containing a further stage of Plato’s development. This tripartite division, however, has been criticized; both the membership of the respective groups and the order of the dialogues within them have been questioned (Kahn 2002). Even if we accept the tripartite grouping of the dialogues, however, and the general developmental picture that goes with them, it seems there is no decisive reason to believe that the dialogues of the early group represent the views of the historical Socrates rather than an early stage of Plato’s own philosophical thought"
• p. 28: "Nonetheless, scholars have questioned Aristotle’s general credibility as a historian of philosophy [...] His tendency to see earlier thinkers as forerunners of his own view has raised questions about the objectivity of his historical account. Also, as in the case of Plato, the question arises whether Aristotle is reporting what Socrates said, or what he thought Socrates meant. Finally, some critics of Aristotle as a source for Socrates have questioned whether there is anything in his account that is not traceable to Plato’s dialogues"

Dorion 2006:

• pp. 105 & 106: "However this may be, one thing is certain: the facts that Xenophon felt free to imagine different historical characters on Socrates’ model, and that Plato attributed to the single character Socrates positions so divergent that the unity and coherence of this character become problematic, are fully sufficient to show that the literary genres in which these texts of Plato and Xenophon are written allow their authors considerable scope for invention—so much so that it seems hopeless to search in them for what we will doubtless never find, the historical Socrates, securely beyond our grasp."

Dorion 2011:

• p.6: "It is probably impossible to reconstruct the ideas of the historical Socrates from Aristophanes' The Clouds, not only because the very genre of comedy lends itself to exaggeration and even excess, but also because there is good reason to believe that Socrates' character in The Clouds is really a composite figure whose traits were gathered not only from Socrates himself but also from the physiologoi and the sophists."

• pp. 6 & 7: "It is quite surprising that there is no consensus regarding the number and identity of Plato’s dialogues that would allow for the reconstruction of the historical Socrates’ ideas, but, in another way, this disagreement among interpreters is inevitable because of the doctrinal heterogeneity of Socrates’ character in the corpus platonicum."

• p. 7: "Yet everything seems to indicate that neither Xenophon nor Plato set out with the intention of faithfully reporting Socrates’ ideas. Xenophon’s and Plato’s Socratic writings belong to a literary genre–that of the logos sokratikos, which Aristotle explicitly recognized and which authorizes by its very nature a certain degree of fiction and a great freedom of invention as far as the setting and content are concerned, most notably with the ideas expressed by the different characters."

• p. 16: "Regarding Aristotle, the vast majority of positions that he attributes to Socrates can be traced to Plato’s dialogues, so it is difficult to concede that Aristotle’s account of Socrates constitutes an independent source."

--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 03:40, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that. How would it be if we added a modified sentence that read something like: Researchers indicate that the problem is caused in part by a culture in which none of the sources were concerned with modern standards of "historical accuracy." —John Stenson 08:57, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I take that sentence to mean: "Researchers say that the sources were not written in a culture which was concerned with modern standards of historical accuracy and it is partly this fact that causes the Socratic problem." That seems false to me. For example, Nails 2009 says that Xenophon wrote history following Thucydides. She is saying: Thucydides followed superior conventions in his history, but still Xenophon might, prima facie, be thought of as following good-enough standards to serve as a strong source for Socrates' life. But then she conclusively writes, "It turns out to have been ill-advised to assume that Xenophon would apply the same criteria for accuracy to his Socratic discourses as to his histories." I think that is clearly communicating that Xenophon was engaged with a culture which was concerned with historical accuracy such that in some cases it could meet modern standards for serving as accurate biographical portraits, but it's just that in the case of his Socratic portraits, Xenophon wasn't so concerned. This is the thought: Yes, there were generally accurate historical accounts in Classical Athens (see Thucydides for one), it's just that Xenophon's Socratic works are not among them. I think this is confirmed by Dorion, because this is what he means when he says that Xenophon's (with Plato's, etc.) Socratic discourses were not histories but were of a fictionalized genre on their own. If I had to offer what I think is an accurate version of your statement, I would write: "The problem is caused in part by the fact that none of these sources were generally concerned with historical accuracy in their accounts of Socrates."

Generally I wish to say, I don't care about any wording per se. But I think it's clear that the reliable sources (Prior, Dorion, Nails, I could add others) think that these sources (Pl., X., Ar., Arist.) do not offer reliable biographies of Socrates. Importantly, no one has presented any reliable source which contradicts this judgement. I'm not saying that none exist, I'm just saying that I haven't seen any. Thanks again for your concern. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:54, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Hoping this is a joke

Whalestate, in this edit you have a footnote to the minutes of a faculty meeting, apparently to establish that an author was a faculty member at Fairfield University. I am having a great deal of difficulty understanding how this is helpful for someone who wants to read an article about the Socratic problem. What am I missing? --Akhilleus (talk) 02:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

This article is becoming more and more ridiculous. eg

approximate dates of life

Of his entire works in the Greek language were of 1516

This for Memorobilia is the Florence Junta 1516

As well as all the biographical guff in the footnotes.

I propose a reversion to 15 March 2015‎, then a complete revision. Myrvin (talk) 14:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Whalestate: you really need to learn how to use apostrophes. There is no such word as "Plato'". The things written by Plato are "Plato's". "Socrates'" is acceptable. Read English possessive.

Also, we do not say "X's lifespan was ...", nor "X's approximate dates of life were ...". We say eg. "X lived from ...". Myrvin (talk) 16:59, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Myrvin: well, Myrvin, establishing when the first publications of works were would introduce the idea that, although each separate work/source pertains to Socrates, the Socratic problem didn't begin until scholars began to have access to all the separate, disparate elements, at which time they began to compare these of course, and found discrepancies and contradictions. For this reason I thought it quite important to have this info to show the very earliest time any information at all was available to scholars. As such the editio princeps represent a kind of beginning, as would a mention of the manuscript tradition, as you know. I was hoping you would bear in mind, that the article is a work in progress and it might seem inexplicable that i included the info at this time, but i haven't reached a critical density of material, so to speak, at which time the reason would become apparent. What is your opinion on this? I hope i haven't misunderstood something. I'm not a Ph.D grad, so maybe i made an error somewhere I'm unaware of, which makes you feel the inclusion is absurd of something, or maybe it's the presentation, errors in writing, etc. To me it seems the reason to include this material is valid. Whalestate (talk) 18:55, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Myrvin: As to the dates of life, that really would be of some interest and use, since, it establishes if authors/sources were alive at the same time as Socrates and would therefore obvs. show if they were present to have first hand experience of his life, and being part of his mileau. To know the relative life-spans shows if they wrote from their own experience, they knew someone in Socrates lifetime, or they received the info from a secondary source, obvs. after his death, which has a bearing on the credence of the sources, and the relative weights of material against each other. Whalestate (talk) 18:55, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

17:11, 20 April 2015‎ Myrvin (→‎Scholarly analysis: Refs?) - i haven't previously contributed anything to this section, I'll endeavour to dig out refs. for the material Whalestate (talk) 19:02, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Akhilleus: oh yes i see that now, well the reason was a kind of knee-jerk reaction i'm thinking, since IEP doesn't show any indication of the qualification/authority of the source on the article page there (which google-books usually does as you know) so i must have gone to check on the legitimacy of the author (the minutes contain a brief description of the authors qualifications as shown in that ref.) and then just absent mindedlly added it to the article (as i was doing in Socrates. Sorry about that, i'll remove it now, or add it under the name without the description? which would have been a better choice initially maybe, the pdf source was the only i could find on James Ambury).In any case i've removed the description and link now, apologies again. I linked here < Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy > as the viable alternative to the Ambury c.v. details provided. Whalestate (talk) 19:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Revert

I reverted the article as per WP:LAYOUT, WP:REDUNDANT, WP:CLUTTER, WP:RELEVANCE, and WP:CITEKILL. The page is just painful to try and read. It's just been getting steadily worse for weeks. Psychotic Spartan 123 06:55, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

@PsychoticSpartan123: that's really really great, i'm just thinking, what right has one editor to revert so much of an article, simply providing various policy pages as evidence, in your opinion it is painful to read, perhaps take a pain-killer eh? I don't know, I could just as easily find a fair number of policy pages to justify retaining the material. How about you go and look at Talk:Socrates to see the reason why someone has to wait for consensus before revertion, where is the consensus???? what you alone are the consensus? I'm going to revert it again, just simply for that reason alone. What is you justification? Valid information, which is all referenced and relevant, which you personally are of the opinion is painful??? so what the hell are you ? Some authority of something? How about providing a little indication as to how to improve the article? 5 links to policy pages is your idea of an indication Psychotic' ? I wouldn't complain if you actually had someone else to support your opinion, but on what grounds? be more specific than I won't find it so disagreeable, and of course if you re revert I'll just have to go find someone who has some notion of how to proceed accordingly, what you've been observing it getting steadily worse for weeks? 00:07, 17 April 2015‎ Whalestate (talk | contribs)‎ . . (9,673 bytes) (+1,824)‎ this was my first edit, how many weeks is that??? you tell me, how many weeks?? but you reverted the entire addition. Why? Whalestate (talk) 07:31, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

What is this >>>> WP:LAYOUT, WP:REDUNDANT, WP:CLUTTER, WP:RELEVANCE, and WP:CITEKILL ??? Whalestate (talk) 07:33, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Your reason here >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoiding_common_mistakes#Redundant <<< it looks meaningless !?! How exactly is this article REDUNDANT, you suggest deleting the entire article? What exactly is your reasoning? Whalestate (talk) 07:38, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

you made this WP:NOTFINISHED an irrelevant policy is that correct ? any time today would be fine for an answer, you know, life is just like, what-ever, lasting for an eternity right? like i HAVE THE TIME Whalestate (talk) 07:44, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

The links (WP:LAYOUT, WP:REDUNDANT, WP:CLUTTER, WP:RELEVANCE, and WP:CITEKILL) are to provide some explanation as to my reasoning for why it had to be reverted without consensus. The fact that there are so many problems with the layout, with the cites, with staying on topic, with basic grammar, and with clutter is why I think it had to be reverted. Now as to how to fix it, your information wasn't all bad it was just the way it was presented. You can put most of the information you had on the article back into it by going to the history and comparing your last edit with the current one. I think I gave the article a new slate to improve upon, because there was far too much unnecessary clutter to work with as it was. Psychotic Spartan 123 07:45, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

If I'm wrong them somebody else will revert it to the way you had it and it will be as though nothing ever happened. With regards, Psychotic Spartan 123

I can't post a reply while you are posting your reply is why you had to wait. Psychotic Spartan 123

@Whalestate:I misused WP:REDUNDANT so I apologize. I meant that your use of subpages were, in a couple cases, repeating information already on the page, but that's covered by WP:CLUTER. WP:NOTFINISHED is not a guideline, but useful advice which shouldn't allow for an article to steadily get worse. Psychotic Spartan 123 07:56, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

okay Whalestate (talk) 08:06, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

@Whalestate: Slap me stupid. I'm undoing my revert. We can fix clutter by making the references into a bibliography section. I should have known better and I apologize. There's an easy fix to my listed problems that can easily be applied to the page as you had it. Psychotic Spartan 123 08:19, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

So my primary concern is that there are far too many references. If a reliable source already covers something then it doesn't normally need more. Those sources can; however, be relocated to the "Further Reading" section and will provide a similar role to references without over-referencing the subject at hand. Psychotic Spartan 123 08:46, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Overly confusing lead/Possible copyright vio

The lines

"The Socratic problem' (or Socratic question) is the term for the situation in the history of scholarship with respect to the existing materia pertaining to the individual known as Socrates which scholars rely upon as the only extant sources for knowing anything at all about this individual, but when compared, show contradictions and do not agree. It is apparent to scholarship that this problem is now deemed a task seeming impossible to clarify and thus perhaps now classified as unsolvable."

in the lead in sound overly sophisticated to me, and I'm afraid they may be a copy-and-paste from one of the sources listed as references (specifically refs #2 or 3). Unfortunately, those texts are from a restricted access source, so I can't check. I'd appreciate it if someone with access to WileyOnline library or the Cambridge Library would check it out.

It may be that those lines are original to some Wikipedia contributor, so I haven't tagged them with a Template:Copypaste. Even if they aren't, it would be a simple fix to add parentheses and make them an acceptable quote. In any case, the wording here is far too complex for a lead, which is supposed to be a simple description of a page's content. It's practically a tongue-twister right now. Would somebody with a better grasp of this article's subject consider simplifying/clarifying the lead? Thanks for reading. -- 2ReinreB2 (talk) 19:29, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I checked both sources and it looks the wording on the article is original. Either way even if it was copied and pasted from any source, we would only need to add quote marks since the sources are already correctly cited. Hope this helps. Either way will adjust the sentence a bit. Huitzilopochtli (talk) 07:52, 13 September 2016 (UTC)