If Socrates (469-399 BC) was so accomplished, why did he not write anything? If he was such a great thinker, why did he not make a systematic presentation of his ideas? And why did he become so famous, if he spent most of his life in Athens, debating people in the marketplace?

Those questions will come to the minds of beginners in the field of philosophy when they are confronted with Socrates for the first time. At first sight, he does not seem to be an imposing character, making it hard to understand why he occupies such a prominent place in the history of philosophy.

Similarly, many beginners react with surprise when they are faced with the uncomfortable fact that Socrates had a very high opinion of himself. He regarded himself as a gift of the gods to Athens, and expected people to be thankful for the opportunity to listen to his wisdom.

Even if history books present Socrates as poor, modest, and unassuming, Plato (427-347 BC) sometimes depicted him as a borderline megalomaniac. Which of those versions is true?

The Delphi Oracle

For instance, Plato’s “Apology,” a chronicle of the trial held in Athens against Socrates, contains a scene in which Socrates, to add weight to his claim of extraordinary wisdom, recounts that his friend Chaerephon had once asked the Delphi Oracle if there was any human being wiser than Socrates.

The Delphi Oracle had allegedly replied that no one is wiser than Socrates. As a witness to the Oracle’s response, Socrates put forward Chaerephon’s brother because, in the meantime, Chaerephon had passed away.

Not only does the Delphi Oracle’s story constitute a useless argument in a criminal trial, but challenges the characterization of Socrates as modest and unassuming.

Even if Chaerephon was riding a donkey, it must have taken him a full day to travel from Athens to Delphi. When he finally arrived at the Oracle, did he not have any other question in his heart except confirming Socrates’ greatness?

Whether the Delphi Oracle’s story is true or not, we have no reason to doubt Plato’s chronicle of the trial. Socrates seems to have recounted the Delphi Oracle’s story without showing any signs of embarrassment.

I wonder how many “modest and unassuming” individuals would be ready to stand in front of a large public and proclaim themselves the wisest person on earth.

Despite those discrepancies, it remains possible to provide a quick overview of Socrates’ ideas. Beginners can later deepen their knowledge of Socrates by reading Plato’s and Xenophon’s works.

Four crucial insights

I view the following four insights as the most crucial gained by Socrates:

1. The truth stands higher than wealth, power or popularity.

2. In order to live morally, we need knowledge.

3. Asking questions is the best method for finding the truth.

4. Pursuing self-knowledge is the first step to wisdom.

Those four ideas are appear in those Plato’s works in which Socrates plays the central role, works such as “Meno,” “Crito” and “Apology.” Socrates’ interlocutors are different in each of those works.

Beginners will find those four key ideas difficult to retain because they don’t follow a logical sequence. Socrates never presented them as a series of well-organized steps, whereby step one necessarily leads to step two, step two to step three, and so forth.

Socrates never conceived philosophy as a tightly integrated, consistent system of beliefs; the demand for consistency began only with Plato, and did not attain full bloom before Aristotle.

Plato chronicled a large number of Socrates’ conversations, in which some themes recur and others appear sporadically. It’s hard for a beginner to get a full picture of what Socrates said because of the lack of order, system and coordination.

In order to present his key ideas in a logical progression, we should begin with the one related to epistemology (“questions are the best method for gathering knowledge”), and follow with the one related to the life’s purpose (“learning the truth is more important than wealth, power, and popularity.”).

The remaining two ideas refer to ethics, that is, to the steps we need to take to achieve life’s purpose, namely, that, to live morally, we need knowledge; and that we should start our path to wisdom by pursuing self-knowledge.

Logical gaps

By grouping Socrates’ principal ideas by theme, I’ve made them easier to retain, but there are still logical gaps between them. A beginner might not detect the logical gaps at first, but as he grows familiar with Plato’s works, he will inevitably see the sutures that hold the patchwork together.

For instance, if questioning is the best method for gathering knowledge, what happens if the questions are illogical? How is the inquirer supposed to know which questions to ask and in which order? And how can he tell if the answers are truthful?

The process of asking questions to find the truth has been baptised “the Socratic method” to glorify its inventor and first practitioner, but the surrounding logical gaps have not been filled. As a result, the application of Socrates’ method offers no guarantee of success, accuracy or truthfulness.

When it comes to identifying the purpose of life (“learning the truth is more important than wealth, power or popularity”), the logical gaps are even larger.

Socrates held truth and learning as the top priorities in life, but failed to provide an elaborate explanation connecting those priorities with the individual’s happiness.

It would still take one hundred years until Aristotle (384-322 BC), in his “Eudemian Ethics” and “Nicomachean Ethics,” spelled out the link between virtue and happiness.

When it comes to choosing which specific actions to take to achieve life’s goals, Socrates had interesting intuitions, but did certainly not earn the epithet “the wisest man in the world.”

He was right in pointing out that knowledge and virtue are somehow correlated, but wrong in viewing them as equivalent. Criminal statistics prove that neither virtue is proportional to knowledge, nor vice is proportional to ignorance.

Socrates was also off the mark in maintaining that the path to wisdom must necessarily start with self-knowledge. His idea conflicts with how humans acquire knowledge. Children start with perceptual concepts such as chair or table, and need years before they can grasp abstractions and perform introspection.

Introspection and self-knowledge are important, but they do not constitute the first step on the path to wisdom; observation, experimentation, and logic are equally important.

Summarising Socrates’ insights for beginners resembles the task of building a house in full knowledge that the materials are insufficient. The outcome may look like a house, but if you examine it at close range, you’ll see that the doors are missing and that the roof is leaking.

If you are interested in applying rational ideas in all sorts of situations, I recommend my book “The 10 Principles of Rational Living.”