CHAPTER II

FIRST PERIOD, SECOND DIVISION: FROM THE SOPHISTS TO THE SOCRATICS.

IN this second division we have first to consider more particularly

the Sophists, secondly Socrates, and thirdly the Socratics, while we

distinguish from these Plato, and take him along with Aristotle in the

third division. The _νοῦς_, which is at first only grasped in a very

subjective manner as end, that is to say as that which is end to men,

_i.e._ the Good, in Plato and Aristotle became understood in what is on

the whole an objective way, as genus or Idea. Because thought has now

become set forth as principle, and this at first presents a subjective

appearance as being the subjective activity of thought, there now sets

in (since the absolute is posited as subject) an age of subjective

reflection; _i.e._ there begins in this period—which coincides with

the disintegration of Greece in the Peloponnesian war—the principle of

modern times.

Since in the _νοῦς_ of Anaxagoras, as the still formal self-determining

activity, determination is as yet quite undetermined, general and

abstract, and along with that contentless throughout, the universal

standpoint is the immediate necessity of going on to a content which

begins actual determination. But what is this absolute, universal

content which abstract thought as self-determining activity gives

itself? That is the real question here. Consciousness now confronts

the untrammeled thought of those ancient philosophers, whose general

ideas we have considered. While hitherto the subject, when it reflected

on the absolute, only produced thoughts, and had this content before

it, it is now seen that what is here present is not the whole, but

that the thinking subject likewise really belongs to the totality of

the objective. Furthermore, this subjectivity of thought has again

the double character of at once being the infinite, self-relating

form, which as this pure activity of the universal, receives

content-determinations; and, on the other hand, as consciousness

reflects that it is the thinking subject which is thus positing, of

also being a return of spirit from objectivity into itself. Thus if

thought, because it immersed itself in the object, had as such, and

like the _νοῦς_ of Anaxagoras, at first no content, because this

stood on the other side, so now, with the return of thought as to

the consciousness that the subject is what thinks, we have the other

side—that what has to be dealt with is the attainment of a truly

absolute content. This content, taken abstractly, may itself be again

a double one. Either the “I” is in respect of determination the real

when it makes itself and its interests the content, or the content

becomes determined as the altogether universal. According to this,

we have two questions to deal with, which are—how the determination

of what is in and for itself is to be comprehended, and how this is

likewise in immediate relation to the “I” as thinking. It comes to pass

in Philosophy that although the “I” is the positing, yet the posited

content of that which is thought is the object existent in and for

itself. If one were to remain at saying that the “I” is that which

posits, this would be the false idealism of modern times: in earlier

times men did not remain at saying that what is thought is bad because

I posit it.

To the Sophists the content is _mine_, and subjective: Socrates grasped

the content which is in and for itself, and the followers of Socrates

have, in direct connection with him, merely further defined this

content.

A.—THE SOPHISTS.

The Notion, which reason has found in Anaxagoras to be real existence,

is the simple negative into which all determination, all that is

existent and individual sinks. Before the Notion nothing can exist,

for it is simply the predicateless absolute to which everything is

clearly a moment only; for it there is thus nothing so to speak

permanently fixed and sealed. The Notion is just the constant change

of Heraclitus, the movement, the causticity, which nothing can resist.

Thus the Notion which finds itself, finds itself as the absolute

power before which everything vanishes; and thereby all things, all

existence, everything held to be secure, is now made fleeting. This

security—whether it be a security of natural Being or the security of

definite conceptions, principles, customs and laws—becomes vacillation

and loses its stability. As universal, such principles, &c., certainly

themselves pertain to the Notion, yet their universality is only

their form, for the content which they have, as determinate, falls

into movement. We see this movement arising in the so-called Sophists

whom we here encounter for the first time. They gave themselves the

name _σοφισταί_, as teachers of wisdom, _i.e._ as those who could

make wise (_σοφίζειν_). The learning of the Sophists is thus directly

the opposite to ours, which only aspires to acquire information and

investigate what is and has been—it is a mass of empirical matter, in

which the discovery of a new form, a new worm, or other vermin is held

to be a point of great importance. Our learned professors are in so

far much less responsible than the Sophists; however, Philosophy has

nothing to do with this lack of responsibility.

But as regards the relation of the Sophists to what is ordinarily

believed, they are, by the healthy human understanding, as much

decried as by morality. By the former this is on account of their

theoretic teaching, since it is senseless to say that nothing is;

and in respect of practice because they subvert all principles and

laws. For the first mentioned, things certainly cannot be left in

this confusion of movement and in their negative aspect merely; yet

the rest into which they pass is not the restoration of what is

moved into its former condition of security, as if in the end the

result were the same and the action were a superfluous one. Now the

sophistry of common opinion, which is without the culture of thought

and without scientific knowledge, is found in the fact that to it its

determinations are, as such, held to be existent in and for themselves,

and a number of rules of life, maxims, principles, &c., are considered

as absolutely fixed truths. Mind itself is, however, the unity of these

in many ways limited truths, which in it are all recognized as being

present as sublated only, as merely relative truths, _i.e._ with their

restrictions, in their limitation, and not as existent in themselves.

Hence these truths to the ordinary understanding, are, in fact, no

more, for on another occasion it allows and even asserts the opposite

to have a value also for consciousness; or it does not know that it

says directly the opposite to what it means, its expression being thus

only an expression of contradiction. In its actions generally, and not

in its bad actions, ordinary understanding breaks these its maxims and

its principles itself, and if it leads a rational life, it is properly

speaking only a standing inconsistency, the making good of one narrow

maxim of conduct through breaking off from others. For example, a

statesman of experience and culture is one who knows how to steer a

middle course, and has practical understanding, _i.e._ deals with the

whole extent of the case before him and not with one side of it, which

expresses itself in one maxim only. On the other hand, he, whoever he

is, who acts on one maxim, is a pedant and spoils things for himself

and others. Most commonly it is thus. For example, we hear it said, “it

is certain that the things that I see are; I believe in their reality.”

Anyone can say this quite easily. But in fact it is not true that

he believes in their reality; really he assumes the contrary. For he

eats and drinks them, _i.e._ he is convinced that these things are not

in themselves, and their being has no security, no subsistence. Thus

common understanding is in its actions better than it thinks, for in

action it is Mind as a whole. But it is not here known to itself as

Mind, for what comes within its consciousness are definite laws, rules,

general propositions, such as by its understanding are esteemed to be

the absolute truth, whose limitation it, however, sets aside in action.

Now, when the Notion turns to the riches which consciousness thinks to

possess, and when the latter is sensible of the danger to its truth

without which it would not be, when its fixed realities are destroyed,

it is enraged; and the Notion which in this its realization applies

itself to the common verities, draws hatred and disdain upon itself.

This is the ground of the universal denunciation of the Sophists; a

denunciation of healthy human understanding which does not know how

else to help itself.

Sophistry is certainly a word of ill-repute, and indeed it is

particularly through the opposition to Socrates and Plato that the

Sophists have come into such disrepute that the word usually now

signifies that, by false reasoning, some truth is either refuted and

made dubious, or something false is proved and made plausible. We

have to put this evil significance on one side and to forget it. On

the other hand, we now wish to consider further from the positive

and properly speaking scientific side, what was the position of the

Sophists in Greece.

It was the Sophists who now applied the simple Notion as thought

(which with Zeno in the Eleatic school had commenced to turn towards

its pure counterpart, motion) to worldly objects generally, and with

it penetrated all human relations. For it is conscious of itself as

the absolute and single reality, and, jealous of all else, exercises

its power and rule in this reality as regards all else, since this

desires to be considered as the determinate which is not Thought. The

thought identical with itself, thus directs its negative powers towards

the manifold determination of the theoretical and the practical, the

truths of natural consciousness and the immediately recognized laws

and principles; and what to the ordinary conception is established,

dissolves itself in it, and in so doing leaves it to particular

subjectivity to make itself first and fixed, to relate everything to

itself.

Now that this Notion has appeared, it has become a more universal

Philosophy, and not so much simple Philosophy as the universal culture

of which every man who did not belong to those devoid of thought,

partook, and necessarily partook. For we call culture just the Notion

as applied in actuality, in so far as it makes its appearance not

purely in its abstraction, but in unity with the manifold content of

all ordinary conceptions. But in culture, the Notion is the predominant

as also the actuating, because in both the determinate is recognized

in its limits, in its transition into something else. This culture

became the general aim of education, and there were hence a number

of teachers of Sophistry. Indeed, the Sophists are the teachers of

Greece through whom culture first came into existence in Greece, and

thus they took the place of poets and of rhapsodists, who before this

were the ordinary instructors. For religion was no instructress, since

no teaching was in it imparted; and though priests certainly offered

sacrifices, prophesied and interpreted the sayings of the oracle,

instruction is something quite different from this. But the Sophists

educated men in wisdom, in the sciences, music, mathematics, &c., and

this was their foremost aim. Before Pericles appeared in Greece, the

desire for culture through thought and through reflection was awakened;

men wished to be cultured in their ideas, and in their various

relations to guide themselves by thought, and no longer merely through

oracles, or through custom, passion, the feelings of the moment. For

the end of the State is the universal, under which the particular is

comprehended. Because the Sophists kept in view and enlarged upon this

culture, they prosecuted teaching as a special calling, business, or

profession, as an office taking the place of schools; they travelled

round the towns of Greece, the youth of which was by them instructed.

Now culture is certainly an indefinite expression. It has, however,

this meaning, that what free thought is to attain must come out of

itself and be personal conviction; it is then no longer believed

but investigated—in short, it is the so-called enlightenment of

modern times. Thought seeks general principles by which it criticizes

everything which is by us esteemed, and nothing has value to us which

is not in conformity with these principles. Thus, thought undertakes

to compare the positive content with itself, to dissolve the former

concrete of belief; on one side to split the content up, and, on the

other, to isolate these individualities, these particular points of

view and aspects, and to secure them on their own account. These

aspects, which are properly not independent, but only moments of a

whole, when detached from it, relate themselves to themselves, and

in this way assume the form of universality. Any one of them can

thus be elevated to a reason, _i.e._ to a universal determination,

which is again applied to particular aspects. Thus, in culture, it is

requisite that men should be acquainted with the universal points of

view which belong to a transaction, event, &c., that this point of

view and thereby the thing, should be grasped in a universal way, in

order to afford a present knowledge of what is in question. A judge

knows the various laws, _i.e._ the various legal points of view under

which a thing is to be considered; these are already for him universal

aspects through which he has a universal consciousness, and considers

the matter in a universal way. A man of culture thus knows how to say

something of everything, to find points of view in all. Greece has

to thank the Sophists for this culture, because they taught men to

exercise thought as to what should have authority for them, and thus

their culture was culture in philosophy as much as in eloquence.

In order to reach this double end, the Sophists were one in their

desire to be wise. To know what constitutes power amongst men and in

the State, and what I have to recognize as such, is counted as wisdom;

and because I know the power, I also know how to direct others in

conformity with my end. Hence the admiration that Pericles and other

statesmen excited, just because they knew their own standpoint, and

had the power of putting others in their proper place. That man is

powerful who can deduce the actions of men from the absolute ends which

move them. The object of the Sophists has thus been to teach what is

the mainspring of the world, and since Philosophy alone knows that

this is the universal thought which resolves all that is particular,

the Sophists were also speculative philosophers. Learned in the proper

sense they hence were not, because there were as yet no positive

sciences without Philosophy, such as in their aridity did not concern

all mankind and man’s essential aspects.

They further had the most ordinary practical end, to give a

consciousness of that which is involved in the moral world and which

satisfies man. Religion taught that the gods are the powers which rule

over men. Immediate morality recognized the rule of laws; man was to

find satisfaction in conforming to laws, and was to assume that others

also find satisfaction because they follow these laws. But from the

reflection which here breaks in, it no longer satisfies man to obey

law as an authority and external necessity, for he desires to satisfy

himself in himself, to convince himself, through his reflection, of

what is binding upon him, what is his end and what he has to do for

this end. Thus the impulses and desires that man has, become his

power; and only inasmuch as he affords them satisfaction does he

become satisfied. Now the Sophists taught how these powers could be

moved in empirical man, for the good as ordinarily recognized, no

longer determined them. Rhetoric, however, teaches how circumstances

may be made subject to such forces; it even makes use of the wrath

and passions of the hearer in order to bring about a conclusion. Thus

the Sophists were more especially the teachers of oratory, and that

is the aspect in which the individual could make himself esteemed

amongst the people as well as carry out what was best for the people;

this certainly characterizes a democratic constitution, in which the

citizens have the ultimate decision. Because, in this way, oratory was

one of the first requirements for the rule of a people, or for making

something clear to them through their ordinary ideas, the Sophists

trained men for common Greek life, for citizenship and for statesmen,

without appearing to prepare State officials for an examination in

specific subjects. For the particular characteristic of eloquence is

to show the manifold points of view existing in a thing, and to give

force to those which harmonize with what appears to me to be most

useful; it thus is the art of putting forward various points of view in

the concrete case, and placing others rather in the shade. Aristotle’s

_Topica_ comes to mind in the connection, inasmuch as it gives the

categories or thought-determinations (_τόπους_), according to which we

have to regard things in order to learn to speak; but the Sophists were

the first to apply themselves to a knowledge of these.

This is the position taken up by the Sophists. But we find a perfectly

definite picture of their further progress and procedure in Plato’s

Protagoras. Plato here makes Protagoras express himself more precisely

respecting the art of the Sophists. That is to say, Plato in this

dialogue represents that Socrates accompanies a young man named

Hippocrates, who desires to place himself under Protagoras, then newly

arrived in Athens, for instruction in the science of the Sophists.

On the way, Socrates now asks Hippocrates what is this wisdom of

the Sophists which he wishes to learn. Hippocrates at first replies

Rhetoric, for the Sophist is one who knows how to make men clever

(_δεινόν_) in speech. In fact, what is most striking in a man or people

of culture is the art of speaking well, or of turning subjects round

and considering them in many aspects. The uncultivated man finds it

unpleasant to associate with people who know how to grasp and express

every point of view with ease. The French are good speakers in this

sense, and the Germans call their talking prattle; but it is not mere

talk that brings about this result, for culture is also wanted. We may

have mastered a speech quite completely, but if we have not culture,

it is not good speaking. Men thus learn French, not only to be able

to speak French well, but to acquire French culture. What is to be

obtained from the Sophists is thus the power of keeping the manifold

points of view present to the mind, so that the wealth of categories by

which an object may be considered, immediately occurs to it. Socrates,

indeed, remarks that the principle of the Sophists is not hereby

determined in a sufficiently comprehensive way, and thus it is not

sufficiently known what a Sophist is, “yet,” he says, “we have a desire

to go on.”[86] For likewise, if anyone wishes to study Philosophy, he

does not as yet know what Philosophy is, else he would not need to

study it.

Having reached Protagoras with Hippocrates, Socrates finds him in

an assemblage of the foremost Sophists and surrounded by listeners,

“walking about and like an Orpheus entrancing all men by his words,

Hippias sitting meanwhile on a chair with not so many round him, and

Prodicus lying amongst a great number of admirers.” After Socrates

brought before Protagoras the request to have Hippocrates placed under

his instruction, in order that he might by him be taught how to become

eminent in the State, he also asks whether they might speak with him

in public or alone. Protagoras praises his discretion, and replies

that they act wisely to make use of this precaution. For because the

Sophists wandered about the towns, and thus youths, deserting fathers

and friends, followed them in view of improving themselves through

their intercourse with them, they drew upon themselves much envy and

ill-will—for everything new is hated. On this point Protagoras speaks

at length: “I assert that the art of the Sophists is old; but that

those of the ancients who practised it in fear of giving offence” (for

the uncultured world is antagonistic to the cultured) “veiled and

concealed it. One section, like Homer and Hesiod, taught it in their

poetry; others, like Orpheus and Musæus, through mysteries and oracles.

Some, I believe, like Iccus of Tarentum, and the Sophist now living

and unsurpassed—Herodicus, of Selymbria—in gymnastics, but many more

through music.” We see that Protagoras usually describes the end of

mental culture as being to bring about morality, presence of mind,

sense of order and general capacity. He adds: “all those who feared

envy arising against the sciences, required such veils and screens.

But I think that they do not attain their end, for men of penetration

in the State see the end appearing through, while the people notice

nothing, and only quote the others. If people behave so, they make

themselves more hated, and appear to be impostors. I have therefore

taken the opposite way, and openly acknowledge (_ὁμολογῶ_), and do not

deny that I am a Sophist” (Protagoras first used the name of Sophist),

“and that my business is to give men culture (_παιδεύειν_).”[87]

Further on, where the arts which Hippocrates was to acquire under

Protagoras’ instruction were discussed, Protagoras answered Socrates:

“What you ask is sensible, and I like to answer a sensible question.

Hippocrates will not have the same experience that he would have

with other teachers (_σοφιστῶν_). These latter are at variance with

(_λωβῶνται_) their pupils, for they take them against their wills

straight back to the arts and sciences which they just wished to

escape, inasmuch as they teach them arithmetic, geometry and music.

But he who comes to me will be instructed in nothing else than that in

which he comes to be instructed.” Thus the youths came freely, with

the wish to be made men of culture through his instruction, and in the

hope that he, as teacher, knew the way to succeed in so doing. As to

his general aim, Protagoras says, “The instruction consists in bringing

about a right perception and understanding (_εὐβουλία_) of the best

way of regulating one’s own family affairs, and similarly as regards

citizenship, in qualifying men both to speak on the affairs of the

State, and to do the best for the State.” Thus two interests are here

apparent, that of the individual and that of the State. Now Socrates

expresses dissent and surprise at Protagoras’ assertion as to imparting

instruction in political aptitude. “I thought that the political

virtues could not be learned,” for it is Socrates’ main tenet that

virtue cannot be taught. And Socrates now brings forward the following

argument, after the manner of the Sophists appealing to experience.

“Those who are masters of the art of politics cannot impart that art to

others. Pericles, the father of these youths, gave them instruction in

all that instructors could teach; but not in the science for which he

is celebrated; here he left them free to wander in the chance of their

lighting upon wisdom. Similarly other great statesmen did not teach it

to others, whether friends or strangers.”[88]

Protagoras now replied that it could be taught, and shows the reason

why great statesmen did not give this instruction, while he asks

whether he is to speak as an elder to younger men in a myth, or whether

he should give his reasons. The company left the matter to him and

he began with the following myth of everlasting interest: “The gods

commanded Prometheus and Epimetheus to adorn the world and confer on

it its qualities and powers. Epimetheus imparted strength, power of

flight, arms, clothing, herbs and fruits, but in some incomprehensible

way he gave all to the beasts, so that nothing remained to men.

Prometheus saw them unclothed, unarmed, helpless, when the moment came

in which the form of man had to go forth into the light. Then he stole

fire from heaven, the arts of Vulcan and Minerva, to equip man for

his needs. But political wisdom was wanting, and, living without any

common bond, they were in a constant state of strife and misery. Then

Zeus gave the command to Hermes to grant reverence” (natural obedience,

honour, docility, respect of children for parents, and of men for

higher and better natures), “and justice. Hermes asks, ‘How shall I

impart them? To individuals, as particular arts are distributed, just

as some have a knowledge of medicine sufficient for assisting others?’

But Zeus answers that it must be to all, for no body of men (_πόλις_)

can exist if only a few partake of those qualities. And it shall be

the law that whoever cannot acknowledge authority and justice must be

exterminated as a plague to the State. Hence the Athenians when they

wish to build, call builders into counsel, and when they contemplate

any other business, those who have experience in it, but when they

wish to come to a decision or make a regulation in State affairs, they

admit all. For all must partake of this virtue or no State could exist.

Thus if anyone is inexperienced in the art of flute-playing and yet

professes to be a master in it, he is justly thought to be mad. But in

justice it is otherwise; if anyone is not just and confesses it, he is

thought to be mad. He must profess to be so, for everybody must either

share in it or be shut out from social life.”[89]

For the fact that this political science is also so constituted “that

everyone by education and diligence (_ἐξ ἐπιμελείας_) may acquire it,”

Protagoras gives additional reasons in the following argument: “No

one blames or punishes on account of a defect or evil that has come

to anyone by nature or by chance. But defects and faults which can

be removed through diligence, exercise and teaching are considered

to be blameworthy and punishable. Impiety and injustice are of this

description and, generally speaking, all that opposes public virtue.

Men guilty of these sins are thus reproached; they are punished in the

idea that they had the power to remove the wrong and still more to

acquire political virtue through diligence and teaching. Thus men do

not punish on account of what is past—excepting as we strike a vicious

beast on the head—but on account of what is to come, so that neither

the one who committed the crime nor any other misled by his example,

should do the same again. Thus it is in this implied that virtue can be

acquired through education and exercise.”[90] This is a good argument

for the teachability of virtue.

As to the statement of Socrates that men such as Pericles, who were

famed for their political virtues, did not impart these to their

children and friends, Protagoras in the first place says that it

may on the other hand be replied, that in these virtues all men are

instructed by all men. Political virtue is so constituted that it

is the common province of all; this one essential for all men is

justice, temperance, and holiness—in one word, whatever comprises

manly virtue. In it no particular education from men of eminence is

thus required. The children are from their earliest infancy exhorted

and admonished to do what is good, and are accustomed to that which

is right. Instruction in music and gymnastics contributes to temper

the indulgence of self-will and pleasure, and to accustom men to

conform to a law or rule; and the reading of the poets who enforce

this does the same. When man steps outside this circle of education,

he enters into that of the constitution of a State which likewise

contributes to keep everyone within the bounds of law and order, so

that political virtue is a result of the education of youth. But the

objection that distinguished men did not impart their distinction to

their children and friends, Protagoras answered secondly and very

well as follows: “Let us say that in a State all the citizens had to

become flute-players, all would be instructed in the art; some would

be distinguished, many good, some mediocre, a few perhaps bad, and

yet all would have a certain amount of skill. But it might very well

be the case that the son of an artist should be a bad player, for

the distinction depends on particular talents, and a particularly

good natural capacity. From very skilful players very unskilful might

descend, and conversely, but all would have a certain knowledge of the

flute, and all would certainly be infinitely better than those who were

quite ignorant of the art. Similarly all, even the worst citizens of

a rational State are better and juster than citizens of a State where

there is no culture nor justice nor law, in a word, where there is no

necessity to bring them up to be just. For this superiority they have

to thank the education given in their State.”[91] All these are quite

good examples and striking arguments which are not at all worse than

Cicero’s reasoning—_a natura insitum_. The arguments of Socrates and

the development of these arguments are, on the contrary, examples based

upon experience, and are often not better than what is here placed in

the mouth of a Sophist.

What now confronts us is the question of how far this may be

inadequate, and particularly how far Socrates and Plato came into

collision with the Sophists and constituted the antagonism to them.

For the claim made by the Sophists in Greece was that they had given

a higher culture to their people; for this, indeed, great credit was

ascribed to them in Greece, but they were met by the reproach that

was encountered by all culture. That is to say, because the Sophists

were masters of argument and reasoning, and were within the stage of

reflective thought, they wished, passing from the particular to the

universal, to awaken attention through examples and illustrations to

what in his experience and to his mind appears to man to be right.

This, the necessary course of free, thinking reflection, which with

us has also been adopted by culture, must, however, necessarily lead

beyond implicit trust and unrestricted faith in the current morality

and religion. The statement that the Sophists thereby fell into

one-sided principles rests upon the fact that in Greek culture the

time had not yet come when, out of thinking consciousness itself, the

ultimate principles had become manifested, and thus there was something

firm to rest upon, as is the case with us in modern times. Because,

on the one hand, the need of subjective freedom existed merely to

give effect to that which man himself perceives and finds present in

his reason (thus laws, religious ideas, only in so far as I recognize

them through my thought), on the other hand, no fixed principle had

so far been found in thought; thought was rather reasoning, and

what remained indeterminate could thus only be fulfilled through

self-will. It is otherwise in our European world where culture is, so

to speak, introduced under the protection and in presupposition of

a spiritual religion, _i.e._ not of a religion of the imagination,

but by presupposing a knowledge of the eternal nature of Spirit and

of the absolute end, of the end of man, to be in a spiritual way

actual and to posit himself in unity with the absolute spirit. Thus

here there is a groundwork of a fixed spiritual principle which

thus satisfies the needs of the subjective mind; and from this

absolute principle all further relationships, duties, laws, &c.,

are established. Consequently culture cannot receive the variety of

direction—and hence the aimlessness—of the Greeks and of those who

extended culture over Greece, the Sophists. As regards the religion

of the imagination, as regards the undeveloped principle of the Greek

State, culture was able to divide itself into many points of view, or

it was easy to it to represent particular subordinate points of view as

highest principles. Where, on the contrary, as is the case with us, a

universal aim so high, indeed the highest possible, floats before the

imagination, a particular principle cannot so easily reach this rank,

even if the reflection of reason attains to the position of determining

and recognizing from itself what is highest; for the subordination

of special principles is already determined, although in form our

enlightenment may have the same standpoint as that of the Sophists.

As regards content, the standpoint of the Sophists differed from

that of Socrates and Plato, in that the mission of Socrates was to

express the beautiful, good, true, and right, as the end and aim of

the individual, while with the Sophists the content was not present

as an ultimate end, so that all this was left to the individual will.

Hence came the evil reputation obtained by the Sophists through the

antagonism of Plato, and this is certainly their defect. As to their

outward lives, we know that the Sophists accumulated great riches;[92]

they became very proud, and some of them lived very luxuriously. But in

respect of the inward life, reasoning thought has, in distinction to

Plato, this prevailing characteristic, that it makes duty, that which

has to be done, not come from the Notion of the thing as determined in

and for itself; for it brings forward external reasons through which

right and wrong, utility and harmfulness, are distinguished. To Plato

and Socrates, on the other hand, the main point is that the nature of

the conditions should be considered, and that the Notion of the thing

in and for itself should become evolved. Socrates and Plato wished to

bring forward this Notion as opposed to the consideration of things

from points of view and reasonings which are always merely particular

and individual, and thus opposed to the Notion itself. The distinction

in the two points of view is thus that cultured reasoning only belongs,

in a general way, to the Sophists, while Socrates and Plato determined

thought through a universal determination (the Platonic Idea), or

something fixed, which mind finds eternally in itself.

If sophistry is bad in the sense that it signifies a quality of which

only bad men are guilty, it is at the same time much more common

than this would imply; for all argumentative reasoning, adducing of

arguments and counterarguments, bringing into prominence particular

points of view, is sophistry. And just as utterances of the Sophists

are adduced against which nothing can be said (as they are by Plato),

men of our day are urged to all that is good for the very reasons that

are reasons to the Sophists. Thus it is said, “do not cheat, else you

lose your credit, hence your wealth,” or, “be temperate, or you will

spoil your appetite and have to suffer.” Or for punishment men give the

external reasons of improvement, &c.; or else an action is defended on

external grounds taken from the result. If, on the other hand, firmly

rooted principles lie at the foundation—as in the Christian Religion,

although men now remember this no longer—it is said, “the grace of God

in respect of holiness, &c., thus directs the life of men;” and these

external grounds fall away. Sophistry thus does not lie so far from

us as we think. When educated men discuss matters now-a-days, it may

seem all very good, but it is in no way different from what Socrates

and Plato called sophistry—although they themselves have adopted

this standpoint as truly as did the Sophists. Educated men fall into

it when they judge of concrete cases in which a particular point of

view determines the result, and we must in ordinary life do the same

if we wish to make up our minds in action. If duties and virtues are

advocated as in sermons (this is so in most sermons), we must hear such

reasons given. Other speakers, such as those in parliament, likewise

make use of arguments and counterarguments similar to these, through

which they try to persuade and convince. On the one hand something

definite is in question, such as the constitution, or a war, and from

the fixed direction thus given, certain provisions have to be deduced

consistently; but this consistency, on the other, soon disappears, just

because the matter can be arranged either this way or that, and thus

particular points of view always are decisive. Men likewise make use of

good arguments, after the manner of the Sophists, against Philosophy.

There are, they say, various philosophies, various opinions, and this

is contrary to the one Truth; the weakness of human reason allows of

no knowledge. What is Philosophy to the feelings, mind, and heart?

Abstract thinking about such matters produces abstruse results which

are of no use in the practical life of man. We no longer apply the word

sophistry thus, but it is the way of the Sophists not to take things

as they are, but to bring about their proofs by arguments derived from

feelings as ultimate ends. We shall see this characteristic of the

Sophists more clearly still in Socrates and Plato.

With such reasoning men can easily get so far as to know (where they

do not, it is owing to the want of education—but the Sophists were

very well educated) that if arguments are relied upon, everything can

be proved by argument, and arguments for and against can be found

for everything; as particular, however, they throw no light upon the

universal, the Notion. Thus what has been considered the sin of the

Sophists is that they taught men to deduce any conclusion required by

others or by themselves; but that is not due to any special quality

in the Sophists, but to reflective reasoning. In the worst action

there exists a point of view which is essentially real; if this is

brought to the front, men excuse and vindicate the action. In the

crime of desertion in time of war, there is, for example, the duty of

self-preservation. Similarly in more modern times the greatest crimes,

assassination, treachery, &c., have been justified, because in the

purpose there lay a determination which was actually essential, such as

that men must resist the evil and promote the good. The educated man

knows how to regard everything from the point of view of the good, to

maintain in everything a real point of view. A man does not require to

make great progress in his education to have good reasons ready for the

worst action; all that has happened in the world since the time of Adam

has been justified by some good reason.

It appears that the Sophists were conscious of this reasoning, and

knew, as educated men, that everything could be proved. Hence in

Plato’s Gorgias it is said that the art of the Sophists is a greater

gift than any other; they could convince the people, the senate, the

judges, of what they liked.[93] The advocate has similarly to inquire

what arguments there are in favour of the party which claims his help,

even if it be the opposite one to that which he wished to support.

That knowledge is no defect, but is part of the higher culture of

the Sophists; and if uneducated men naturally form conclusions from

external grounds which are those alone coming to their knowledge, they

may perhaps be mainly determined by something besides what they know

(by their integrity, for instance). The Sophists thus knew that on

this basis nothing was secure, because the power of thought treated

everything dialectically. That is the formal culture which they had

and imparted, for their acquaintanceship with so many points of view

shook what was morality in Greece (the religion, duties, and laws,

unconsciously exercised), since through its limited content, that

came into collision with what was different. Once it was highest

and ultimate, then it was deposed. Ordinary knowledge thus becomes

confused, as we shall see very clearly in Socrates, for something

is held to be certain to consciousness, and then other points of

view which are also present and recognized, have similarly to be

allowed; hence the first has no further value, or at least loses its

supremacy. We saw in the same way, how bravery, which lies in the

hazarding of one’s life, is made dubious by the duty of preserving

life, if put forward unconditionally. Plato quotes several examples

of this unsettling tendency, as when he makes Dionysodorus maintain:

“Whoever gives culture to one who does not possess knowledge, desires

that he should no longer remain what he is. He desires to direct

him to reason, and this is to make him not the same as he is.” And

Euthydemus, when the others say that he lies, answers, “Who lies, says

what is not; men cannot say what is not, and thus no one can lie.”[94]

And again Dionysodorus says, “You have a dog, this dog has young,

and is a father; thus a dog is your father, and you are brother to

its young.”[95] Sequences put together thus are constantly found in

critical treatises.

With this comes the question which the nature of thought brings along

with it. If the field of argument, that which consciousness holds to

be firmly established, is shaken by reflection, what is man now to

take as his ultimate basis? For something fixed there must be. This is

either the good, the universal, or the individuality, the arbitrary

will of the subject; and both may be united, as is shown later on in

Socrates. To the Sophists the satisfaction of the individual himself

was now made ultimate, and since they made everything uncertain, the

fixed point was in the assertion, “it is my desire, my pride, glory,

and honour, particular subjectivity, which I make my end.” Thus the

Sophists are reproached for countenancing personal affections, private

interests, &c. This proceeds directly from the nature of their culture,

which, because it places ready various points of view, makes it depend

on the pleasure of the subject alone which shall prevail, that is, if

fixed principles do not determine. Here the danger lies. This takes

place also in the present day where the right and the true in our

actions is made to depend on good intention and on my own conviction.

The real end of the State, the best administration and constitution, is

likewise to demagogues very vague.

On account of their formal culture, the Sophists have a place in

Philosophy; on account of their reflection they have not. They are

associated with Philosophy in that they do not remain at concrete

reasoning, but go on, at least in part, to ultimate determinations.

A chief part of their culture was the generalization of the Eleatic

mode of thought and its extension to the whole content of knowledge

and of action; the positive thus comes in as, and has become, utility.

To go into particulars respecting the Sophists would lead us too

far; individual Sophists have their place in the general history of

culture. The celebrated Sophists are very numerous; the most celebrated

amongst them are Protagoras, Gorgias, and also Prodicus, the teacher

of Socrates, to whom Socrates ascribes the well-known myth of “The

choice of Hercules”[96]—an allegory, beautiful in its own way, which

has been repeated hundreds and thousands of times. I will deal only

with Protagoras and Gorgias, not from the point of view of culture,

but in respect of proving further how the general knowledge which

they extended to everything, has, with one of them, the universal

form which makes it pure science. Plato is the chief source of our

acquaintanceship with the Sophists, for he occupied himself largely

with them; then we have Aristotle’s own little treatise on Gorgias;

and Sextus Empiricus, who preserved for us much of the philosophy of

Protagoras.

1. PROTAGORAS.

Protagoras, born at Abdera,[97] was somewhat older than Socrates;

little more is known of him, nor, indeed, could there be much known.

For he led a uniform life, since he spent it in the study of the

sciences; he appeared in Greece proper as the first public teacher. He

read his writings[98] like the rhapsodists and poets, the former of

whom sang the verses of others, and the latter their own. There were

then no places of learning, no books from which men could be taught,

for to the ancients, as Plato says,[99] “the chief part of culture”

(_ραιδείας_) “consisted in being skilled” (_δεινόν_) “in poetry,”

just as with us fifty years ago the principal instruction of the

people consisted of Bible History and Biblical precepts. The Sophists

now gave, in place of a knowledge of the poets, an acquaintanceship

with thought. Protagoras also came to Athens and there lived for

long, principally with the great Pericles, who also entered into this

culture. Indeed, the two once argued for a whole day as to whether the

dart or the thrower or he who arranged the contest was guilty of the

death of a man who thus met his death.[100] The dispute is over the

great and important question of the possibility of imputation; guilt

is a general expression, the analysis of which may undoubtedly become

a difficult and extensive undertaking. In his intercourse with such

men, Pericles developed his genius for eloquence; for whatever kind of

mental occupation may be in question, a cultivated mind can alone excel

in it; and true culture is only possible through pure science. Pericles

was a powerful orator, and we see from Thucydides how deep a knowledge

he had of the State and of his people. Protagoras had the same fate

as Anaxagoras, in being afterwards banished from Athens. The cause of

this sentence was a work written by him beginning, “As to the gods,

I am not able to say whether they are or are not; for there is much

which prevents this knowledge, both in the obscurity of the matter,

and in the life of man which is so short.” This book was also publicly

burned in Athens by command of the State, and, so far as we know, it

was the first to be treated so. At the age of seventy or ninety years

Protagoras was drowned while on a voyage to Sicily.[101]

Protagoras was not, like other Sophists, merely a teacher of culture,

but likewise a deep and solid thinker, a philosopher who reflected

on fundamental determinations of an altogether universal kind. The

main point in his system of knowledge he expressed thus: “Man is the

measure of all things; of that which is, that it is; of that which

is not, that it is not.”[102] On the one hand, therefore, what had

to be done was to grasp thought as determined and as having content;

but, on the other, to find the determining and content-giving; this

universal determination then becomes the standard by which everything

is judged. Now Protagoras’ assertion is in its real meaning a great

truth, but at the same time it has a certain ambiguity, in that as man

is the undetermined and many-sided, either he may in his individual

particularity, as this contingent man, be the measure, or else

self-conscious reason in man, man in his rational nature and his

universal substantiality, is the absolute measure. If the statement is

taken in the former sense, all is self-seeking, all self-interest, the

subject with his interests forms the central point; and if man has a

rational side, reason is still something subjective, it is “he.” But

this is just the wrong and perverted way of looking at things which

necessarily forms the main reproach made against the Sophists—that

they put forward man in his contingent aims as determining; thus with

them the interest of the subject in its particularity, and the interest

of the same in its substantial reason are not distinguished.

The same statement is brought forward in Socrates and Plato, but

with the further modification that here man, in that he is thinking

and gives himself a universal content, is the measure. Thus here the

great proposition is enunciated on which, from this time forward,

everything turns, since the further progress of Philosophy only

explains it further: it signifies that reason is the end of all

things. This proposition further expresses a very remarkable change

of position in asserting that all content, everything objective,

is only in relation to consciousness; thought is thus in all truth

expressed as the essential moment, and thereby the Absolute takes the

form of the thinking subjectivity which comes before us principally

in Socrates. Since man, as subject, is the measure of everything,

the existent is not alone, but is for my knowledge. Consciousness is

really the producer of the content in what is objective, and subjective

thinking is thus really active. And this view extends even to the most

modern philosophy, as when, for instance, Kant says that we only know

phenomena, _i.e._ that what seems to us to be objective reality, is

only to be considered in its relation to consciousness, and does not

exist without this relation. The fact that the subject as active and

determining brings forth the content, is the important matter, but now

the question comes as to how the content is further determined—whether

it is limited to the particularity of consciousness or is determined

as the universal, the existent in and for itself. God, the Platonic

Good, is certainly at first a product of thought, but in the second

place He is just as really in and for Himself. Since I, as existent,

fixed and eternal, only recognize what is in its content universal,

this, posited as it is by me, is likewise the implicitly objective, not

posited by me.

Protagoras himself shows us much more of what is implied in his theory,

for he says, “Truth is a manifestation for consciousness. Nothing is

in and for itself one, but everything has a relative truth only,”

_i.e._ it is what it is but for another, which is man. This relativity

is by Protagoras expressed in a way which seems to us in some measure

trivial, and belongs to the first beginnings of reflective thought. The

insignificant examples which he adduces (like Plato and Socrates when

they follow out in them the point of view of reflection), by way of

explanation, show that in Protagoras’ understanding what is determined

is not grasped as the universal and identical with self. Hence the

exemplifications are taken mostly from sensuous manifestation. “In a

wind it may be that one person is cold and another is not; hence of

this wind we cannot tell whether in itself it is cold or hot.”[103]

Frost and heat are thus not anything which exist, but only are in their

relation to a subject; were the wind cold in itself, it would always be

so to the subject. Or again, “if we have here six dice, and place by

them four others, we should say of the former that there are more of

them. But, again, if we put twelve by them we say that these first six

are the fewer.”[104] Because we say of the same number that it is more

and fewer, the more and the less is merely a relative determination;

thus what is the object, is so in the idea present to consciousness

only. Plato, on the contrary, considered one and many, not like the

Sophists in their distinction, but as being one and the same.

Plato says further on this point, that the white, warm, &c., or

everything that we say of things, does not exist for itself, but that

the eye, sensation, is necessary to make it for us. This reciprocal

movement is what first creates the white, and in it the white is not a

thing in itself, but what we have present is a seeing eye, or, to speak

generally, sight, and particularly the seeing of white, the feeling

of warmth, &c. Undoubtedly warmth, colour, &c., really are only in

relation to another, but the conceiving mind divides itself into itself

and into a world in which each also has its relation. This objective

relativity is expressed better in the following way. If the white were

in itself, it would be that which brought forth the sensation of it; it

would be the action or the cause, and we, on the contrary, the passive

and receptive. But the object which thus requires to be active, is not

active until it enters into (_ξυνέλθῃ_) relation with the passive;

similarly the passive is only in relation to the active. Thus what

is said in defining anything never concerns the thing as in itself,

but clearly only as being related to something else. Nothing is thus

constituted in and for itself as it appears, but the truth is just

this phenomenon to which our activity contributes. As things appear

to the healthy man they are thus not in themselves, but for him; as

they appear to the sick or deranged man, they are to him, without our

being able to say that as they appear to him, they are not true.[105]

We feel the awkwardness of calling any such thing true, for after all

the existent, if related to consciousness, is yet not related to it as

fixed, but to sensuous knowledge; and then this consciousness itself

is a condition, _i.e._ something which passes away. Protagoras rightly

recognized this double relativity when he says, “Matter is a pure flux,

it is not anything fixed and determined in itself, for it can be

everything, and it is different to different ages and to the various

conditions of waking and sleep, &c.”[106] Kant separates himself from

this standpoint only in that he places the relativity in the “I,”

and not in objective existence. The phenomenon is, according to him,

nothing but the fact of there being outside an impulse, an unknown

_x_, which first receives these determinations through our feeling.

Even if there were an objective ground for our calling one thing cold

and another warm, we could indeed say that they must have diversity

in themselves, but warmth and cold first become what they are in our

feeling. Similarly it can only be in our conception that things are

outside of us, etc. But if the experience is quite correctly called

a “phenomenon,” _i.e._ something relative, because it does not come

to pass without the determinations of the activity of our senses, nor

without categories of thought, yet that one, all-pervading, universal,

which permeates all experience, which to Heraclitus was necessity, has

to be brought into consciousness.

We see that Protagoras possesses great powers of reflective thought,

and indeed reflection on consciousness came to consciousness with

Protagoras. But this is the form of manifestation which was again

taken by the later sceptics. The phenomenal is not sensuous Being,

for because I posit this as phenomenal, I assert its nullity. But the

statements “What is, is only for consciousness,” or “The truth of

all things is the manifestation of them in and for consciousness,”

seem quite to contradict themselves. For it appears as though a

contradiction were asserted—first that nothing is in itself as

it appears, and then that it is true as it appears. But objective

significance must not be given to the positive, to what is true, as

if, for example, this were white in itself because it appears so;

for it is only this manifestation of the white that is true, the

manifestation being just this movement of the self-abrogating sensuous

Being, which, taken in the universal, stands above consciousness as

truly as above Being. The world is consequently not only phenomenal

in that it is for consciousness, and thus that its Being is only one

relative to consciousness, for it is likewise in itself phenomenal. The

element of consciousness which Protagoras has demonstrated, and owing

to which the developed universal has in it the moment of the negative

Being-for-another, has thus indeed to be asserted as a necessary

moment; but taken for itself, alone and isolated, it is one-sided,

since the moment of implicit Being is likewise essential.

2. GORGIAS.

This scepticism reached a much deeper point in Gorgias of Leontium in

Sicily, a man of great culture, and also distinguished as a statesman.

During the Peloponnesian war he was, in Ol. 88, 2 (427 B.C.), a few

years after Pericles’ death in Ol. 87, 4, sent from his native town

to Athens.[107] And when he attained his object, he went through many

other Greek towns, such as Larissa in Thessaly, and taught in them.

Thus he obtained great wealth, along with much admiration, and this

lasted till his death at over a hundred years of age.

He is said to have been a disciple of Empedocles, but he also knew the

Eleatics, and his dialectic partakes of the manner and method of the

latter; indeed Aristotle, who preserves this dialectic, in the work

_De Xenophane, Zenone et Gorgia_, which has indeed only come to us in

fragments, deals with them together. Sextus Empiricus also gives us in

full the dialectic of Gorgias. He was strong in the dialectic requisite

for eloquence, but his preeminence lies in his pure dialectic

respecting the quite universal categories of Being and non-being, which

indeed is not like that of the Sophists. Tiedemann (Geist. der Spec.

Phil. vol. I. p. 362) says very falsely: “Gorgias went much further

than any man of healthy mind could go.” Tiedemann could say of every

philosopher that he went further than healthy human understanding, for

what men call healthy understanding is not Philosophy, and is often

far from healthy. Healthy human understanding possesses the modes of

thought, maxims, and judgments of its time, the thought-determinations

of which dominate it without its being conscious thereof. In this

way Gorgias undoubtedly went further than healthy understanding.

Before Copernicus it would have been contrary to all healthy human

understanding if anyone had said that the earth went round the sun,

or before the discovery of America, if it were said that there was a

continent there. In India or in China a republic would even now be

contrary to all healthy understanding. The dialectic of Gorgias moves

more purely in Notion than that found in Protagoras. Since Protagoras

asserted the relativity, or the non-implicit nature of all that is,

this only exists in relation to another which really is essential to

it; and this last, indeed, is consciousness. Gorgias’ demonstration of

the non-implicitness of Being is purer, because he takes in itself what

passes for real existence without presupposing that other, and thus

shows its own essential nullity and separates therefrom the subjective

side and Being as it is for the latter.

Gorgias’ treatise “On Nature,” in which he composes his dialectic,

falls, according to Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. VII. 65), into three

parts. “In the first he proves that” (objectively) “nothing exists, in

the second” (subjectively), “that assuming that Being is, it cannot be

known; and in the third place” (both subjectively and objectively),

“that were it to exist and be knowable, no communication of what is

known would be possible.” Gorgias was a congenial subject to Sextus,

but the former still proved, and this is what the Sceptics ceased

to do. Here very abstract thought-determinations regarding the most

speculative moments of Being and non-being, of knowledge, and of

bringing into existence, of communicating knowledge, are involved; and

this is no idle talk, as was formerly supposed, for Gorgias’ dialectic

is of a quite objective kind, and is most interesting in content.

_a._ “If anything is,” (this “anything” is, however, a makeshift

that we are in the habit of using in our conversation, and which

is, properly speaking, inappropriate, for it implies an opposition

of subject and predicate, while at present the “is” alone is in

question)—then “if it _is_” (and now it becomes for the first time

defined as subject) “it is either the existent or the non-existent, or

else existence and non-existence. It is now evident of these three that

they are not.”[108]

_α_. “That which is not, is not; for if Being belonged to it, there

would at the same time be existence and non-existence. That is, in so

far as it is thought of as non-existent, it is not; but in so far as

it _is_ the non-existent, it must exist. But it cannot at the same

time be and not be. Again, if the non-existent is, the existent is

not, for the two are opposed. Thus, if Being pertained to non-being,

non-being would belong to Being. But if Being does not exist, no more

does non-being.”[109] This is with Gorgias a characteristic mode of

reasoning.[110]

_β_. “But in proving,” Aristotle adds to the passages just quoted,

“that the existent is not, he follows Melissus and Zeno.” This is

the dialectic already brought forward by them. “If Being is, it is

contradictory to predicate a quality to it, and if we do this, we

express something merely negative about it.”

_αα_. For Gorgias says: “What is, either is in itself (_ἀΐδιον_)

being without beginning, or it has originated,” and he now shows

that it could neither be the one nor the other, for each leads to

contradiction. “It cannot be the former, for what is in itself has

no beginning, and is the infinite,” and hence likewise undetermined

and indeterminable. “The infinite is nowhere, for if it is anywhere,

that in which it is, is different from it.” Where it is, it is in

another, “but that is not infinite which is different from another,

and contained in another. Just as little is it contained in itself,

for then that in which it is, and that which is therein, would be the

same. What it is in, is the place; that which is in this, is the body;

but that both should be the same is absurd. The infinite does not thus

exist.”[111] This dialectic of Gorgias regarding the infinite is on

the one hand limited, because immediate existence has certainly no

beginning and no limit, but asserts a progression into infinitude; the

self-existent Thought, the universal Notion, as absolute negativity,

has, however, limits in itself. On the other hand, Gorgias is quite

right, for the bad, sensuous infinite is nowhere present, and thus

does not exist, but is a Beyond of Being; only we may take what

Gorgias takes as a diversity of place, as being diversity generally.

Thus, instead of placing the infinite, like Gorgias, sometimes in

another, sometimes within itself, _i.e._ sometimes maintaining it to be

different, sometimes abrogating the diversity, we may say better and

more universally, that this sensuous infinite is a diversity which is

always posited as different from the existent, for it is just the being

different from itself.

“In the same way Being has not originated, because it must then have

come either from the existent or from the non-existent. From the

existent it did not arise, for then it would be already; just as little

from the non-existent, because this cannot beget anything.”[112] The

sceptics followed this up further. The object to be contemplated

hence ever becomes posited under determinations with ‘either’ ‘or,’

which then contradict one another. But that is not the true dialectic,

because the object resolves itself into those determinations only; when

nothing follows respecting the nature of the object itself, then, as is

already proved, the object must be necessarily in one determination,

and not in and for itself.

_ββ_. In a similar way Gorgias shows “of what exists, that it must

either be one or many; but neither is possible. For as one, it would

have a certain magnitude, or continuity, or number, or body, but all

this is not one, but different, divisible. Every sensuous one is, in

fact, necessarily another, a manifold. If it is not one, it cannot be

many, for the many is many ones.”[113]

_γ_. “Similarly both, Being and non-being, cannot exist at the same

time. If one exists as much as the other, they are the same, and

therefore neither of them is, for the non-being does not exist, and

hence neither does the Being, since it is identical with it. Nor can

they, on the other hand, both exist, for if they are identical, I

cannot express them both,”[114] and thus both do not exist, for if I

express both, I differentiate. This dialectic, which Aristotle (De

Xenoph. &c., c. 5) likewise designates as peculiar to Gorgias, has its

truth. In speaking of Being and non-being, we always say the opposite

to what we wish. Being and non-being are the same, just as they are

not the same; if they are the same, I speak of the two as different:

if different, I express the same predicate of them, diversity. This

dialectic is not to be despised by us, as if it dealt with empty

abstractions, for these categories are, on the one hand, in their

purity the most universal, and if, on the other hand, they are not the

ultimate, yet it is always Being or non-being that are in question;

they are not, however, definitely fixed and divided off, but are

self-abrogating. Gorgias is conscious that they are vanishing moments,

while the ordinary unconscious conception also has present to it this

truth, but knows nothing about it.

_b._ The relation of the conceiver to conception, the difference

between conception and Being, is a subject which is in our mouths

to-day. “But if there is an ‘is,’ it is unknowable and unthinkable, for

what is presented is not the existent” but only a presentation. “If

what is presented is white, it is the case that white is presented;

if what is presented is not the really existent, it is the case that

what is, is not presented. For if what is presented is the real

existent, everything that is presented also exists, but no one says

that if a flying man, or waggon riding on the sea were presented to

us, it would exist. Further, if what is presented is the existent, the

non-existent is not presented, for opposites are in opposition. But

this non-existent is everywhere presented as it is in Scylla and the

Chimæra.[115] Gorgias on the one hand pronounces a just polemic against

absolute realism, which, because it represents, thinks to possess the

very thing itself, when it only has a relative, but he falls, on the

other hand, into the false idealism of modern times, according to which

thought is always subjective only, and thus not the existent, since

through thought an existent is transformed into what is thought.”

_c._ We finally have the basis of the dialectic of Gorgias in respect

of the third point, that knowledge cannot be imparted, in this: “If the

existent were presented, it could still not be expressed and imparted.

Things are visible, audible, &c., or are experienced. The visible

is grasped through sight, the audible through hearing, and not the

contrary way; thus, the one cannot be indicated by the other. Speech,

by which the existent has to be expressed, is not the existent; what is

imparted is thus not the existent, but only words.[116] In this manner

Gorgias’ dialectic is the laying hold of this difference exactly as

again occurred in Kant; if I maintain this difference, certainly that

which is, cannot be known.”

This dialectic is undoubtedly impregnable to those who maintain

sensuous Being to be real. But its truth is only this movement to

posit itself negatively as existent, and the unity is the reflection

that the existent, comprehended also as non-existent, becomes, in this

comprehension of it, universal. That this existent cannot be imparted,

must likewise be held most strongly, for _this_ individual cannot be

expressed. Philosophic truth is thus not only expressed as if there

were another truth in sensuous consciousness; but Being is present

in that philosophic truth expresses it. The Sophists thus also made

dialectic, universal Philosophy, their object, and they were profound

thinkers.

B.—SOCRATES.

Consciousness had reached this point in Greece, when in Athens the

great form of Socrates, in whom the subjectivity of thought was brought

to consciousness in a more definite and more thorough manner, now

appeared. But Socrates did not grow like a mushroom out of the earth,

for he stands in continuity with his time, and thus is not only a

most important figure in the history of Philosophy—perhaps the most

interesting in the philosophy of antiquity—but is also a world-famed

personage. For a mental turning-point exhibited itself in him in the

form of philosophic thought. If we shortly recall the periods already

passed over, we find that the ancient Ionic philosophers certainly

thought, but without reflecting on the thought or defining its product

as thought. The Atomists made objective existence into thoughts, but

these were to them only abstractions, pure entities. Anaxagoras, on the

other hand, raised thought as such, into a principle which thereby

presented itself as the all-powerful Notion, as the negative power

over all that is definite and existent. Protagoras finally expresses

thought as real existence, but it is in this its movement, which is

the all-resolving consciousness, the unrest of the Notion. This unrest

is in itself at the same time something restful or secure. But the

fixed point of motion as such, is the ‘I,’ for it has the moments of

movement outside of it; as the self-retaining, which only abrogates

what is different, the ‘I’ is negative unity, but just in that very

way individual, and not yet the universal reflected within itself. Now

we here find the ambiguity of dialectic and sophistry, which rests

in the fact that if the objective disappears, the signification of

the fixed subjective is either that of the individual opposed to the

objective, and thereby the contingent and lawless will, or that of the

objective and universal in itself. Socrates expresses real existence

as the universal ‘I,’ as the consciousness which rests in itself; but

that is the good as such, which is free from existent reality, free

from individual sensuous consciousness of feeling and desire, free

finally from the theoretically speculative thought about nature, which,

if indeed thought, has still the form of Being and in which I am not

certain of my existence.

Socrates herein adopted firstly the doctrine of Anaxagoras that

thought, the understanding, is the ruling and self-determining

universal, though this principle did not, as with the Sophists, attain

the form of formal culture or of abstract philosophizing. Thus, if with

Socrates, as with Protagoras, the self-conscious thought that abrogates

all that is determined, was real existence, with Socrates this was

the case in such a way that he at the same time grasped in thought

rest and security. This substance existing in and for itself, the

self-retaining, has become determined as end, and further as the true

and the good.

To this determination of the universal, we have, in the second place,

to add that this good, which has by me to be esteemed as substantial

end, must be known by me; with this the infinite subjectivity, the

freedom of self-consciousness in Socrates breaks out. This freedom

which is contained therein, the fact that consciousness is clearly

present in all that it thinks, and must necessarily be at home

with itself, is in our time constantly and plainly demanded; the

substantial, although eternal and in and for itself, must as truly

be produced through me; but this my part in it is only the formal

activity. Thus Socrates’ principle is that man has to find from himself

both the end of his actions and the end of the world, and must attain

to truth through himself. True thought thinks in such a way that its

import is as truly objective as subjective. But objectivity has been

the significance of substantial universality, and not of external

objectivity; thus truth is now posited as a product mediated through

thought, while untrained morality, as Sophocles makes Antigone say

(vers. 454-457), is “the eternal law of the Gods”:

“And no one knew from whence it came.”

But though in modern times we hear much said of immediate knowledge and

belief, it is a misconception to maintain that their content, God, the

Good, Just, &c., although the content of feeling and conception, is

not, as spiritual content, also posited through thought. The animal has

no religion, because it only feels; but what is spiritual rests on the

mediation of thought, and pertains to man.

Since Socrates thus introduces the infinitely important element

of leading back the truth of the objective to the thought of the

subject, just as Protagoras says that the objective first is through

relation to us, the battle of Socrates and Plato with the Sophists

cannot rest on the ground that these, as belonging to the old faith,

maintained against the others the religion and customs of Greece, for

the violation of which Anaxagoras was condemned. Quite the contrary.

Reflection, and the reference of any judgment to consciousness, is

held by Socrates in common with the Sophists. But the opposition into

which Socrates and Plato were in their philosophy necessarily brought

in regard to the Sophists, as the universal philosophic culture of

the times, was as follows:—The objective produced through thought,

is at the same time in and for itself, thus being raised above all

particularity of interests and desires, and being the power over

them. Hence because, on the one hand, to Socrates and Plato the

moment of subjective freedom is the directing of consciousness into

itself, on the other, this return is also determined as a coming out

from particular subjectivity. It is hereby implied that contingency

of events is abolished, and man has this outside within him, as the

spiritual universal. This is the true, the unity of subjective and

objective in modern terminology, while the Kantian ideal is only

phenomenal and not objective in itself.

In the third place Socrates accepted the Good at first only in the

particular significance of the practical, which nevertheless is only

one mode of the substantial Idea; the universal is not only for me,

but also, as end existent in and for itself, the principle of the

philosophy of nature, and in this higher sense it was taken by Plato

and Aristotle. Of Socrates it is hence said, in the older histories

of Philosophy, that his main distinction was having added ethics as

a new conception to Philosophy, which formerly only took nature into

consideration. Diogenes Laertius, in like manner says (III., 56), that

the Ionics founded natural philosophy, Socrates ethics, and Plato

added to them dialectic. Now ethics is partly objective, and partly

subjective and reflected morality [Sittlichkeit und Moralität],[117]

and the teaching of Socrates is properly subjectively moral, because

in it the subjective side, my perception and meaning, is the prevailing

moment, although this determination of self-positing is likewise

sublated, and the good and eternal is what is in and for itself.

Objective morality is, on the contrary, natural, since it signifies the

knowledge and doing of what is in and for itself good. The Athenians

before Socrates were objectively, and not subjectively, moral, for

they acted rationally in their relations without knowing that they

were particularly excellent. Reflective morality adds to natural

morality the reflection that this is the good and not that; the Kantian

philosophy, which is reflectively moral, again showed the difference.

Because Socrates in this way gave rise to moral philosophy, all

succeeding babblers about morality and popular philosophy constituted

him their patron and object of adoration, and made him into a cloak

which should cover all false philosophy. As he treated it, it was

undoubtedly popular; and what contributed to make it such was that

his death gave him the never-failing interest derived from innocent

suffering. Cicero (Tusc. Quæst. V. 4), whose manner of thought was,

on the one hand, of the present, and who, on the other hand, had the

belief that Philosophy should yield itself up, and hence succeeded in

attaining to no content in it, boasted of Socrates (what has often

enough been said since) that his most eminent characteristic was

to have brought Philosophy from heaven to earth, to the homes and

every-day life of men, or, as Diogenes Laertius expresses it (II. 21),

“into the market place.” There we have what has just been said. This

would seem as if the best and truest Philosophy were only a domestic

or fireside philosophy, which conforms to all the ordinary ideas of

men, and in which we see friends and faithful ones talk together

of righteousness, and of what can be known on the earth, without

having penetrated the depths of the heavens, or rather the depths of

consciousness. But this last is exactly what Socrates, as these men

themselves indicate, first ventured to do. And it was not incumbent on

him to reflect upon all the speculations of past Philosophy, in order

to be able to come down in practical philosophy to inward thought. This

gives a general idea of his principle.

We must examine more closely this noteworthy phenomenon, and begin with

the history of Socrates’ life. This is, however, closely intertwined

with his interest in Philosophy, and the events of his life are bound

up with his principles. We have first of all to consider the beginning

of his life only. Socrates, whose birth occurs in the fourth year of

the 77th Olympiad (469 B.C.), was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor,

and of Phænarete, a midwife. His father brought him up to sculpture,

and it is said that Socrates acquired skill in the art, and long after,

statues of draped Graces, found in the Acropolis, were ascribed to

him. But his art did not satisfy him; a great desire for Philosophy,

and love of scientific research, got possession of him. He pursued his

art merely to get money for a necessary subsistence, and to be able to

apply himself to the study of the sciences; and it is told of Crito, an

Athenian, that he defrayed the cost of Socrates’ instruction by masters

in all the arts. During the exercise of his art, and specially after he

gave it up altogether, he read the works of ancient philosophers in so

far as he could get possession of them. At the same time he attended

Anaxagoras’ instructions, and, after his expulsion from Athens, at

which time Socrates was thirty-seven years old, those of Archelaus,

who was regarded as Anaxagoras’ successor, besides those of Sophists

celebrated in other sciences. Amongst these he heard Prodicus, a

celebrated teacher of oratory, whom, according to Xenophon (Memorab.

II. c. 1, §§ 21, 34), he mentions with affection, and other teachers of

music, poetry, etc. He was esteemed as on all sides a man of culture,

who was instructed in everything then requisite thereto.[118]

Another feature in his life was that he fulfilled the duty of

protecting his country, which rested on him as an Athenian citizen.

Hence he made three campaigns in the Peloponnesian war, which occurred

during his life. The Peloponnesian war led to the dissolution of

Greek life, inasmuch as it was preparatory to it; and what took place

politically was by Socrates carried out in thinking consciousness. In

these campaigns he not only acquired the fame of a brave warrior, but,

what was best of all, the merit of having saved the lives of other

citizens. In the first, he was present at the tedious siege of Potidæa

in Thrace. Here Alcibiades had already attached himself to him, and,

according to Plato, he recited in the Banquet (p. 219-222, Steph.; p.

461-466, Bekk.), a eulogy on Socrates for being able to endure all

toil, hunger and thirst, heat and cold, with mind at rest and health

of body. In an engagement in this campaign he saw Alcibiades wounded

in the midst of the enemy, lifted him up, forced his way through, and

saved both him and his arms. The generals rewarded him with a wreath,

which was the prize of the bravest; Socrates did not, however, take

it, maintaining that it was given to Alcibiades. In this campaign

it is said that once, sunk in deep meditation, he stood immovable

on one spot the whole day and night, until the morning sun awoke

him from his trance—a condition in which he is said often to have

been. This was a cataleptic state, which may bear some relation to

magnetic somnambulism, in which Socrates became quite dead to sensuous

consciousness. From this physical setting free of the inward abstract

self from the concrete bodily existence of the individual, we have, in

the outward manifestation, a proof of how the depths of his mind worked

within him. In him we see pre-eminently the inwardness of consciousness

that in an anthropological way existed in the first instance in him,

and became later on a usual thing. He made his other campaign in Bœotia

at Delium, a small fortification which the Athenians possessed not

far from the sea, and where they had an unfortunate, though not an

important engagement. Here Socrates saved another of his favourites,

Xenophon; he saw him in the flight, for Xenophon, having lost his

horse, lay wounded on the ground. Socrates took him over his shoulders,

carried him off, defending himself at the same time with the greatest

tranquillity and presence of mind from the pursuing enemy. Finally

he made his last campaign at Amphipolis in Edonis, on the Strymonian

Bay.[119]

Besides this, he occupied various civil offices. At the time when the

democratic constitution of Athens hitherto existing, was taken away

by the Lacedemonians, who now introduced everywhere an aristocratic

and indeed tyrannical rule, whereby they in great measure put

themselves at the head of affairs, he was chosen for the council,

which, as a representative body, took the place of the people. Here he

distinguished himself by his immovable firmness in what he held to be

right as against the wills of the thirty tyrants, as formerly against

the will of the people. For he sat in the tribunal which condemned

the ten generals to death, because, as admirals at the battle of

Arginusæ, though they certainly had conquered, yet, being kept back

through storm, they had not dragged out the bodies nor buried them

on the shore, and because they neglected to erect trophies; _i.e._

really because they did not stand their ground, and thus appeared to

have been beaten. Socrates alone did not agree with this decision,

declaring himself more emphatically against the people than against

the rulers.[120] To-day he fares badly who says anything against

the people. “The people have excellent intelligence, understand

everything, and have only the most excellent intentions.” As to rulers,

governments, ministers, it is self-evident that “they understand

nothing, and only desire and bring forth what is bad.”

Along with these to him more accidental relationships to the State, in

which he acted only from the ordinary sense of citizenship, without

spontaneously making the affairs of the State his real business, or

pressing on to the head of public affairs, the real business of his

life was to discuss moral philosophy with any who came in his way. His

philosophy, which asserts that real existence is in consciousness as a

universal, is still not a properly speculative philosophy, but remained

individual; yet the aim of his philosophy was that it should have a

universal significance. Hence we have to speak of his own individual

being, of his thoroughly noble character, which usually is depicted

as a complete catalogue of the virtues adorning the life of a private

citizen; and these virtues of Socrates are certainly to be looked at

as his own, and as made habitual to him by his own will. It has to be

noted that with the ancients these qualities have generally more of the

character of virtue, because with the ancients, in ordinary morality,

individuality, as the form of the universal, was given free scope, so

that virtues were regarded more as the actions of the individual will,

and thus as personal qualities; while with us they seem to be less what

is meritorious to the individual, or what comes from himself as this

unit. We are accustomed to think of them much more as what exists, as

duty, because we have a fuller consciousness of the universal, and

consider the pure individual, the personal inward consciousness, as

real existence and duty. With us virtues are hence actually either

elements in our dispositions and nature, or they have the form of the

universal and of what is necessary; but with Socrates they have the

form, not of ordinary morality or of a natural or necessary thing, but

of an independent determination. It is well known that his appearance

indicated naturally low and hateful qualities, which, as indeed he

says, he himself subdued.

He lived amongst his fellow-citizens, and stands before us as one

of those great plastic natures consistent through and through, such

as we often see in those times—resembling a perfect classical work

of art which has brought itself to this height of perfection. Such

individuals are not made, but have formed themselves into what they

are; they have become that which they wished to be, and are true to

this. In a real work of art the distinguishing point is that some idea

is brought forth, a character is presented in which every trait is

determined by the idea, and, because this is so, the work of art is,

on the one hand, living, and, on the other, beautiful, for the highest

beauty is just the most perfect carrying out of all sides of the

individuality in accordance with the one inward principle. Such works

of art are also seen in the great men of every time. The most plastic

individual as a statesman is Pericles, and round him, like stars,

Sophocles, Thucydides, Socrates, &c., worked out their individuality

into an existence of its own—into a character which regulated their

whole being, and which was one principle running throughout the whole

of their existence. Pericles alone lived with the sole end of being a

statesman. Plutarch (in Pericle, c. 5, 7) says of him that, from the

time that he devoted himself to the business of the State, he laughed

no more, and never again went to a feast. Thus, too, Socrates formed

himself, through his art and through the power of self-conscious

will, into this particular character, and acquired this capacity for

the business of his life. Through his principle he attained that

far-reaching influence which has lasted to the present day in relation

to religion, science, and justice, for since his time the genius of

inward conviction has been the basis which must be fundamental. And

since this principle proceeded from the plasticity of his character,

it is very inappropriate when Tennemann regrets (Vol. II. p. 26) “that

though we know what he was, we do not know how he became such.”

Socrates was a peaceful, pious example of the moral virtues—of wisdom,

discretion, temperance, moderation, justice, courage, inflexibility,

firm sense of rectitude in relation to tyrants and people; he was

equally removed from cupidity and despotism. His indifference to money

was due to his own determination, for, according to the custom of the

times, he could acquire it through the education of youth, like other

teachers. On the other side, this acquisition was purely matter of

choice, and not, as with us, something which is accepted, so that to

take nothing would be to break through a custom, thus to present the

appearance of wishing to become conspicuous, and to be more blamed than

praised. For this was not yet a State affair; it was under the Roman

emperors that there first were schools with payment. This moderation

of his life was likewise a power proceeding from conscious knowledge,

but this is not a principle found to hand, but the regulation of self

in accordance with circumstances; in company he was, however, a good

fellow. His sobriety in respect to wine is best depicted in Plato’s

“Symposium,” in a very characteristic scene in which we see what

Socrates called virtue. Alcibiades there appears, no longer sober, at a

feast given by Agathon, on the occasion of a success which his tragedy

had obtained on the previous day at the games. Since the company had

drunk much on the first day of the feast, the assembled guests, amongst

whom was Socrates, this evening took a resolution, in opposition to the

Greek custom at meals, to drink little. Alcibiades, finding that he

was coming in amongst abstemious men, and that there was no one else

in his own frame of mind, made himself king of the feast, and offered

the goblet to the others, in order to bring them into the condition

reached by himself; but with Socrates he said that he could do nothing,

because he remained as he was, however much he drank. Plato then makes

the individual who tells what happened at the Banquet, also tell that

he, with the others, at last fell asleep on the couch, and as he awoke

in the morning, Socrates, cup in hand, still talked with Aristophanes

and Agathon about comedy and tragedy, and whether one man could write

both comedies and tragedies, and then went at the usual time into the

public places, to the Lyceum, as if nothing had happened, and walked

about the whole day as usual.[121] This is not a moderation which

exists in the least possible enjoyment, no aimless abstemiousness and

self-mortification, but a power belonging to consciousness, which keeps

its self-possession in bodily excess. We see from this that we have

not to think of Socrates throughout after the fashion of the litany of

moral virtues.

His behaviour to others was not only just, true, open, without

rudeness, and honourable, but we also see in him an example of the most

perfect Attic urbanity; i.e. he moves in the freest possible relations,

has a readiness for conversation which is always judicious, and,

because it has an inward universality, at the same time always has the

right living relationship to the individual, and bears upon the case

on which it operates. The intercourse is that of a most highly cultured

man who, in his relation to others, never places anything personal in

all his wit, and sets aside all that is unpleasant. Thus Xenophon’s,

but particularly Plato’s Socratic Dialogues belong to the highest type

of this fine social culture.

Because the philosophy of Socrates is no withdrawal from existence now

and here into the free, pure regions of thought, but is in a piece

with his life, it does not proceed to a system; and the manner of his

philosophizing, which appears to imply a withdrawal from actual affairs

as it did to Plato, yet in that very way gives itself this inward

connection with ordinary life. For his more special business was his

philosophic teaching, or rather his philosophic social intercourse (for

it was not, properly speaking, teaching) with all; and this outwardly

resembled ordinary Athenian life in which the greater part of the

day was passed without any particular business, in loitering about

the market-place, or frequenting the public Lyceum, and there partly

partaking of bodily exercises, and partly and principally, talking

with one another. This kind of intercourse was only possible in the

Athenian mode of life, where most of the work which is now done by a

free citizen—by a free republican and free imperial citizen alike—was

performed by slaves, seeing that it was deemed unworthy of free men.

A free citizen could in Athens certainly be a handicraftsman, but he

had slaves who did the work, just as a master now has workmen. At

the present day such a life of movement would not be suitable to our

customs. Now Socrates also lounged about after this manner, and lived

in this constant discussion of ethical questions.[122] Thus what he

did was what came naturally to him, and what can in general be called

moralizing; but its nature and method was not that of preaching,

exhortation or teaching; it was not a dry morality. For amongst the

Athenians and in Attic urbanity, this had no place, since it is not a

reciprocal, free, and rational relationship. But with all men, however

different their characters, he entered on one kind of dialogue, with

all that Attic urbanity which, without presumption on his part, without

instructing others, or wishing to command them, while maintaining their

perfect right to freedom, and honouring it, yet causes all that is rude

to be suppressed.

1. _The Socratic Method._ In this conversation Socrates’ philosophy is

found, as also what is known as the Socratic method, which must in its

nature be dialectic, and of which we must speak before dealing with

the content. Socrates’ manner is not artificial; the dialogues of the

moderns, on the contrary, just because no internal reason justifies

their form, are necessarily tedious and heavy. But the principle of

his philosophy falls in with the method itself, which thus far cannot

be called method, since it is a mode which quite coincides with the

moralizing peculiar to Socrates. For the chief content is to know the

good as the absolute, and that particularly in relation to actions.

Socrates gives this point of view so high a place, that he both puts

aside the sciences which involve the contemplation of the universal in

nature, mind, &c., himself, and calls upon others to do the same.[123]

Thus it can be said that in content his philosophy had an altogether

practical aspect, and similarly the Socratic method, which is essential

to it, was distinguished by the system of first bringing a person to

reflection upon his duty by any occasion that might either happen

to be offered spontaneously, or that was brought about by Socrates.

By going to the work-places of tailors and shoemakers, and entering

into discourse with them, as also with youths and old men, Sophists,

statesmen, and citizens of all kinds, he in the first place took

their interests as his topic—whether these were household interests,

the education of children, or the interests of knowledge or of truth.

Then he led them on from a definite case to think of the universal,

and of truths and beauties which had absolute value, since in every

case, from the individual’s own thoughts, he derived the conviction

and consciousness of that which is the definite right. This method has

two prominent aspects, the one the development of the universal from

the concrete case, and the exhibition of the notion which implicitly

exists in every consciousness,[124] and the other is the resolution of

the firmly established, and, when taken immediately in consciousness,

universal determinations of the sensuous conception or of thought, and

the causing of confusion between these and what is concrete.

_a._ If we proceed from the general account of Socrates’ method

to a nearer view, in the first place its effect is to inspire men

with distrust towards their presuppositions, after faith had become

wavering and they were driven to seek that which is, in themselves.

Now whether it was that he wished to bring the manner of the Sophists

into disrepute, or that he was desirous to awaken the desire for

knowledge and independent thought in the youths whom he attracted to

himself, he certainly began by adopting the ordinary conceptions which

they considered to be true. But in order to bring others to express

these, he represents himself as in ignorance of them, and, with a

seeming ingenuousness, puts questions to his audience as if they

were to instruct him, while he really wished to draw them out. This

is the celebrated Socratic irony, which in his case is a particular

mode of carrying on intercourse between one person and another, and

is thus only a subjective form of dialectic, for real dialectic deals

with the reasons for things. What he wished to effect was, that when

other people brought forward their principles, he, from each definite

proposition, should deduce as its consequence the direct opposite of

what the proposition stated, or else allow the opposite to be deduced

from their own inner consciousness without maintaining it directly

against their statements. Sometimes he also derived the opposite from

a concrete case. But as this opposite was a principle held by men as

firmly as the other, he then went on to show that they contradicted

themselves. Thus Socrates taught those with whom he associated to know

that they knew nothing; indeed, what is more, he himself said that

he knew nothing, and therefore taught nothing. It may actually be

said that Socrates knew nothing, for he did not reach the systematic

construction of a philosophy. He was conscious of this, and it was also

not at all his aim to establish a science.

On the one view, this irony seems to be something untrue. But when we

deal with objects which have a universal interest, and speak about

them to one and to another, it is always the case that one does not

understand another’s conception of the object. For every individual has

certain ultimate words as to which he presupposes a common knowledge.

But if we really are to come to an understanding, we find it is these

presuppositions which have to be investigated. For instance, if in

more recent times belief and reason are discussed as the subjects of

present intellectual interest, everyone pretends that he knows quite

well what reason, &c., is, and it is considered ill-bred to ask for an

explanation of this, seeing that all are supposed to know about it. A

very celebrated divine, ten years ago,[125] published ninety theses

on reason, which contained very interesting questions, but resulted

in nothing, although they were much discussed, because one person’s

assertions issued from the point of view of faith, and the other’s

from that of reason, and each remained in this state of opposition,

without the one’s knowing what the other meant. Thus what would make

an understanding possible is just the explanation of what we think is

understood, without really being so. If faith and knowledge certainly

differ from one another at the first, yet through this declaration of

their notional determinations the common element will at once appear;

in that way questions like these and the trouble taken with them may,

for the first time, become fruitful; otherwise men may chatter this way

and that for years, without making any advance. For if I say I know

what reason, what belief is, these are only quite abstract ideas; it is

necessary, in order to become concrete, that they should be explained,

and that it should be understood that what they really are, is unknown.

The irony of Socrates has this great quality of showing how to make

abstract ideas concrete and effect their development, for on that alone

depends the bringing of the Notion into consciousness.