The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul

First, however, it should be noted that there are many echoes of the phrase in all the Socratic literature. Xenophon uses it in con texts which do not appear to be derived from Plato's dialogues. Antisthenes, it seems, employed the phrase too, and he would hardly have borrowed it from Plato. Isocrates refers to it as something familiar.1 The Athenian Academy possessed a dialogue which was evidently designed as a sort of introduction to Socratic philosophy for beginners, and is thrown into the appropriate form of a conversation between Socrates and the young Alcibiades. It is not, I think, by Plato, but it is of early date. In it Socrates shows that, if any one is to care rightly for himself, he must first of all know what he is; it is then proved that each of us is soul, and therefore that to care for ourselves is to care for our souls. It is all put in the most provokingly Simple way, with the usual illustrations from Shoemaking and the like, and it strikingly confirms what is said in the Apology.2 I am not called upon to labour this point, however, for Maier admits, and indeed insists, that this is the characteristic Socratic formula. Let us see, then, where this admission will lead us.

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