THE PARTIAL DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES.
1. THEIR RELATION TO THE SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY.—The death of Socrates gave
to his life an ideal perfection, and this became an animating principle
which had its working in many directions. The apprehension of him as an
ideal type forms the common character of the immediate Socratic schools.
The fundamental thought, that men should have one universal and
essentially true aim, they all received from Socrates; but since their
master left no complete and systematic doctrine, but only his many-sided
life to determine the nature of this aim, every thing would depend upon
the subjective apprehension of the personal character of Socrates, and
of this we should at the outset naturally expect to find among his
different disciples a different estimate. Socrates had numerous
scholars, but no school. Among these, three views of his character have
found a place in history. That of _Antisthenes_, or the Cynical, that of
_Aristippus_, or the Cyrenian, and that of _Euclid_, or the
Megarian—three modes of apprehending him, each of which contains a true
element of the Socratic character, but all of which separate that which
in the master was a harmonious unity, and affirm of the isolated
elements that which could be truly predicated only of the whole. They
are therefore, one-sided, and give of Socrates a false picture. This,
however, was not wholly their fault; but in that Aristippus was forced
to go back to the theory of knowledge of Protagoras, and Euclid to the
metaphysics of the Eleatics, they rather testify to the subjective
character and to the want of method and system of the Socratic
philosophy, and exhibit in their defects and one-sidedness, in part,
only the original weakness which belongs to the doctrine of their
master.
2. ANTISTHENES AND THE CYNICS.—As a strictly literal adherent of the
doctrine of Socrates, and zealously though grossly, and often with
caricature imitating his method, Antisthenes stands nearest his master.
In early life a disciple of Gorgias, and himself a teacher of the
Sophistic philosophy, he subsequently became an inseparable attendant of
Socrates, after whose death he founded a school in the Cynosarges,
whence his scholars and adherents took the name of Cynics, though
according to others this name was derived from their mode of life. The
doctrine of Antisthenes is only an abstract expression for the Socratic
ideal of virtue. Like Socrates he considered virtue the final cause of
men, regarding it also as knowledge or science, and thus as an object of
instruction; but the ideal of virtue as he had beheld it in the person
of Socrates was realized in his estimation only in the absence of every
need (in his appearance he imitated a beggar with staff and scrip) and
hence in the disregarding of all former intellectual interests; virtue
with him aims only to avoid evil, and therefore has no need of
dialectical demonstrations, but only of Socratic vigor; the wise man,
according to him, is self-sufficient, independent of every thing,
indifferent in respect of marriage, family, and the public life of
society, as also in respect of wealth, honor, and enjoyment. In this
ideal of Antisthenes, which is more negative than positive, we miss
entirely the genial humanity and the universal susceptibility of his
master, and still more a cultivation of those fruitful dialectic
elements which the Socratic philosophizing contained. With a more
decided contempt for all knowledge, and a still greater scorn of all the
customs of society, the later Cynicism became frequently a repulsive and
shameful caricature of the Socratic spirit. This was especially the case
with Diogenes of Sinope, the only one of his disciples whom Antisthenes
suffered to remain with him. In their high estimation of virtue and
philosophy these Cynics, who have been suitably styled the Capuchins of
the Grecian world, preserved a trace of the original Socratic
philosophy, but they sought virtue “in the shortest way,” in a life
according to nature as they themselves expressed it, that is, in
shutting out the outer world, in attaining a complete independence, and
absence of every need, and in renouncing art and science as well as
every determinate aim. To the wise man said they nothing should go
amiss; he should be mighty over every need and desire, free from the
restraints of civil law and of custom, and of equal privileges with the
gods. An easy life, said Diogenes, is assigned by the gods to that man
who limits himself to his necessities, and this true philosophy may be
attained by every one, through perseverance and the power of
self-denial. Philosophy and philosophical interest is there none in this
school of beggars. All that is related of Diogenes are anecdotes and
sarcasms.
We see here how the ethics of the Cynic school lost itself in entirely
negative statements, a consequence naturally resulting from the fact
that the original Socratic conception of virtue lacked a concrete
positive content, and was not systematically carried out. Cynicism is
the negative side of the Socratic doctrine.
3. ARISTIPPUS AND THE CYRENIANS.—Aristippus of Cyrene, numbered till the
death of Socrates among his adherents, is represented by Aristotle as a
Sophist, and this with propriety, since he received money for his
instructions. He appears in Xenophon as a man devoted to pleasure. The
adroitness with which he adapted himself to every circumstance, and the
knowledge of human nature by which in every condition he knew how to
provide means to satisfy his desire for good living and luxury, were
well known among the ancients. Brought in contact with the government,
he kept himself aloof from its cares lest he should become dependent; he
spent most of his time abroad in order to free himself from every
restraint; he made it his rule that circumstances should be dependent
upon him, while he should be independent of them. Though such a man
seems little worthy of the name of a Socraticist, yet has he two points
of contact with his master which should not be overlooked. Socrates had
called virtue _and_ happiness coordinately the highest end of man, _i.
e._ he had indeed asserted most decidedly the idea of a moral action,
but because he brought this forward only in an undeveloped and abstract
form, he was only able in concrete cases to establish the obligation of
the moral law in a utilitarian way, by appealing to the benefit
resulting from the practice of virtue. This side of the Socratic
principle Aristippus adopted for his own, affirming that pleasure is the
ultimate end of life, and the highest good. Moreover, this pleasure, as
Aristippus regards it, is not happiness as a condition embracing the
whole life, nor pleasure reduced to a system, but is only the individual
sensation of pleasure which the body receives, and in this all
determinations of moral worth entirely disappear; but in that Aristippus
recommends knowledge, self-government, temperance, and intellectual
culture as means for acquiring and preserving enjoyment, and, therefore,
makes a cultivated mind necessary to judge respecting a true
satisfaction, he shows that the Socratic spirit was not yet wholly
extinguished within him, and that the name of pseudo-Socraticist which
Schleiermacher gives him, hardly belongs to him.
The other leaders of the Cyrenian school, _Hegesias_, _Theodorus_,
_Anniceris_, we can here only name. The farther development of this
school is wholly occupied in more closely defining the nature of
pleasure, _i. e._ in determining whether it is to be apprehended as a
momentary sensation, or as an enduring condition embracing the whole
life; whether it belonged to the mind or the body, whether an isolated
individual could possess it, or whether it is found alone in the social
relations of life; whether we should regard it as positive or negative,
(_i. e._ simply the absence of pain).
4. EUCLID AND THE MEGARIANS.—The union of the dialectical and the
ethical is a common character in all the partial Socratic schools; the
difference consists only in this, that in the one the ethical is made to
do service to the dialectical, and that in the other, the dialectical
stands in subjection to the ethical. The former is especially true of
the Megarian school, whose essential peculiarity was pointed out by the
ancients themselves as a combination of the Socratic and Eleatic
principles. The idea of the good is on the ethical side the same as the
idea of being on the physical; it was, therefore, only an application to
ethics of the Eleatic view and method when Euclid called the good pure
being, and the not-good, not-being. What is farther related of Euclid is
obscure, and may here be omitted. The Megarian school was kept up under
different leaders after his death, but without living force, and without
the independent activity of an organic development. As hedonism (the
philosophical doctrine of the Cyreneans that pleasure is the chief good)
led the way to the doctrine of Epicurus, and cynicism was the bridge
toward the Stoic, so the later Megaric development formed the transition
point to scepticism. Directing its attention ever more exclusively
towards the culture of the formal and logical method of argument, it
left entirely out of view the moral thoughts of Socrates. Its
sophistries and quiddities which were, for the most part, only plays of
word and wit, were widely known and noted among the ancients.
5. PLATO, AS THE COMPLETE SOCRATICIST.—The attempts thus far to build
upon the foundation pillars of the Socratic doctrine, started without a
vigorous germinating principle, and ended fruitlessly. Plato was the
only one of his scholars who has approached and represented _the whole_
Socrates. Starting from the Socratic idea of knowledge he brought into
one focus the scattered elements and rays of truth which could be
collected from his master or from the philosophers preceding him, and
gave to philosophy a systematic completeness. Socrates had affirmed the
principle that conception is the true being and the only actual, and had
urged to a knowledge according to the conception; but these positions
were no farther developed. His philosophy is not yet a system, but is
only the first impulse toward a philosophical development and method.
Plato is the first who has approached a systematic representation and
development of the ideal world of conceptions true in themselves.
The Platonic system is Socrates objectified, the blending and
reconciling of preceding philosophy.