The basic point of Socrates' philosophy is that he got teleology in criticizing natural philosophy, especially Anaxagoras's philosophy, and universal moral principles in criticizing the school of the wise. The core of Socrates' philosophy is the universal method of establishing moral principles. Specifically, Socrates' philosophy is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
Teleology. Starting from the wise, ancient Greek philosophy turned from paying attention to nature itself to paying attention to social ethics and people. But they only stay in the perceptual stage and can only draw relativistic conclusions. It was not until Socrates that this situation was fundamentally changed. Plato introduced in the Phaedo that Socrates also studied natural philosophy in his early years and devoted himself to studying the causes of things. But when this kind of research can't help him explain the reasons behind natural phenomena, he feels confused and dissatisfied. Later, I was glad to hear Anaxagoras talk about "slaves". However, after studying Anaxagoras's works, it is found that he gave up slavery when explaining specific natural phenomena, and still used matter as a mechanical explanation. What philosophy should study is: Why did this thing come into being? Why can you generate this kind of thing? In this way, Socrates put forward his own opinion about the reason, that is, teleology, in opposition to natural philosophy. In Socrates' view, the world is so because there is a dominant force that makes everything like this, which is the best. This dominant force is "goodness" ("goodness"). Goodness is a basic concept of his philosophy and the reason why things are "why". In Socrates' philosophy, good or purpose has the same meaning. He believes that the existence and development of all things pursue a complete principle, and everything in the whole world has such a purpose. In this way, Socrates took teleology as his world view.
Explaining the world with teleology is an important feature of Socrates' philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophy began with Socrates, and the determinist worldview in natural philosophy was replaced by teleological worldview. Teleology is put forward to give a philosophical explanation of the unity of the world, the development process of things from low to high and the harmonious phenomenon in nature. This explanation tries to overcome the mechanical determinism in natural philosophy, the circular theory of the movement of the universe, and the one-sided view that all spiritual and conscious phenomena are attributed to different ways of material composition. At the same time, it is of theoretical significance in the history of cognition to try to overcome the reason why wise men do not pay attention to research and regard everything as a relative, subjective and doubtful wrong view. But Socrates' understanding of the essence and regularity of world unity is wrong, with idealism and mysticism.
According to Socrates, the whole universe is subject to a purpose and a "good" principle. This is because of the existence of God, because of the power of God, everything in the world is designed so well and perfectly, and the pursuit of the best purpose makes the world an orderly, willing and more perfect unified whole. From opposing the causal determinism of natural philosophy to advocating the idealistic worldview of teleology, and then acknowledging that the existence of God is the highest goal, this is the basic face of Socrates' worldview. Socrates' theological teleology directly influenced Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy, and influenced medieval philosophy and theology, and even modern philosophy and science in many ways. This is an important theory with a long history in the history of European philosophy.
Virtue theory. Since Socrates classified the world as a good purpose and thought it was decided by God, the study of nature would be meaningless and fruitless for human beings. Moreover, interfering with nature is disrespectful to God. In this way, Socrates advocates studying philosophy from a new direction and in a new way. Therefore, Socrates called for a "spiritual turn" to turn philosophy from studying nature to studying self, that is, to pull philosophy back from heaven to earth. He put forward such a philosophical slogan: "Know yourself." This constitutes Socrates' basic philosophical proposition, and also marks the transformation of ancient Greek philosophy from natural philosophy to human studies. In Socrates' thought, the so-called "knowing yourself" is to shift the focus of philosophical research to personnel and one's own mind, to know the goodness in personnel and the goodness in mind, and to improve one's mind. Since then, Socrates has established his theory of virtue and methodology.
In Socrates' time, the movement of the wise made the traditional moral concept face complete collapse. According to Aristotle's records, Socrates gave up the study of nature, wanted to seek universal truth on ethical issues, and began to seek universal definitions for things. He opposed the relativism of wise men and thought that there could be various opinions, but there was only one truth. "Viewpoint" can change with people and other conditions, but "truth" is eternal. In Plato's early dialogues, almost all the topics discussed are how to define ethics, such as what is courage, beauty, justice and so on. Interlocutors use this and that special case to answer, while Socrates denies this special case. He said, I don't want you to answer this beauty or that beauty. I want you to explain why beauty is beauty, that is, beauty itself. Therefore, what Socrates pursues is not specific knowledge about "things of beauty" and "things of justice", but knowledge about "beauty itself" and "justice itself", which is a universal definition of beauty and justice and real knowledge. Socrates seeks beauty itself and justice itself, which are Plato's ideas of beauty and justice. This is the original form of "idealism" in the history of western philosophy.
Socrates further pointed out that the causal series of nature is endless, and if philosophy only seeks this causal series, it is impossible to know the ultimate reason of things. He believes that the ultimate cause of things is "goodness" and goodness is the purpose of things. He replaced the study of causality with teleology, which opened the way for later idealism philosophy.
Socrates established an ethical thought system that knowledge is morality, and its center is to explore the purpose and kindness of life. The proposition that "virtue is knowledge" constitutes Socrates' basic proposition on moral issues. It is contrary to the relativism and individualism of the wise school. In his view, with knowledge, understanding the essence of morality, and mastering the concept of goodness, it is bound to be able to do things that are in line with goodness. He emphasized that people should know the universal laws of social life and "know themselves", and thought that all kinds of beneficial or harmful purposes and moral norms that people obtained in real life were relative. Only by exploring the concept of universal and absolute goodness and mastering the true knowledge of this concept can we realize the highest purpose of life and the highest virtue of human beings. That is to say, in his view, realistic and concrete moral behaviors are contradictory and relative, with good and evil. But morality as knowledge is absolute and eternal, because the concept of good itself, that is, good is good, is complete and absolute, and does not contain any evil. Only when people know the meaning of morality and truly understand it can they act ethically. Therefore, Socrates attached great importance to moral education. In his view, morality is not only knowledge, knowledge and wisdom are of course the result of education, so morality can also be educated. Through education, people can have moral knowledge, understand the difference between good and evil, arm their minds with wisdom, and thus become moral people. Socrates believes that only when people get rid of the temptation of material desires and the limitations of acquired experience and acquire conceptual knowledge can they have virtues such as wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. This ethical thought of asceticism and mysticism was later inherited and developed by antisthenes, forming a cynic school characterized by emphasizing asceticism; The hedonism thought contained in Socrates' ethical thought was inherited and developed by Aristib, and the Guler School advocating hedonism was formed. Plato completely inherited Socrates' ethical thought system and further systematized and theorized it. Socrates emphasized the importance of knowledge and thought that ethics should be decided by reason, which played a positive role in the development of western philosophy.
There is another important idea in Socrates' moral theory: people will not deliberately do evil. He believes that morality is knowledge, so with knowledge, there is morality naturally, and ignorance has no morality. However, because fools are ignorant, they can't do good, but they don't know the evil. On the contrary, they will regard evil as good, so no one intends to be evil. He said that people who deliberately do evil are more noble than those who don't do evil, because the former knows what is good, so it has the conditions for doing good, while the latter knows nothing, so it is the most hopeless.
Socrates' thought that morality is knowledge has certain theoretical significance in the history of ethics. He combined morality with cognition, knowledge with behavior. On the one hand, he makes moral behavior knowledgeable and scientific, on the other hand, he connects knowledge judgment with value judgment. This way of understanding the essence of morality from epistemology and science is positive and enlightening. But Socrates made morality absolute and eternal. When he completely denied the concreteness, historicity and reality of morality, he went to idealism.
Methodology and conceptualism. Socrates' moral theory confirms the view that morality is knowledge. He believes that moral knowledge has nothing to do with reality, nor is it based on personal feelings and relative views. In this way, to study moral problems, we must first improve people's minds, and then we can use the correct way of thinking to understand the truth. Therefore, in Socrates' view, the question of morality becomes a question of truth and epistemology. Socrates raises the question of methodology.
Socrates' method mainly refers to the method of discussing the definition of morality, which has the following characteristics: First, Socrates' method is a skeptical method. According to Socrates' self-report recorded in the pleadings, he found that the way of self-discovery is inseparable from the pursuit of true knowledge. Socrates looked everywhere for people smarter than him. He went to politicians, poets and masters. After his visits one by one, he realized that all people who think they are smart are actually not smart, but proved that Socrates is smart. Socrates is better than them not because he has knowledge, but because he admits that he is ignorant. The philosophical significance of this account lies in: he believes that the pursuit of natural truth is endless; I feel that the world is constantly changing, so the knowledge I get is uncertain. He wants to pursue an unchangeable, definite and eternal truth, that is to say, he can't seek the natural outside world, and he wants to return to himself and study himself. Therefore, since Socrates, self and nature have been clearly distinguished; Man is no longer just a part of nature, but another unique entity different from nature. In this way, Socrates determined the important proposition of "knowing your own ignorance". One idea contained in this proposition is that knowledge begins with doubt. In Socrates' view, people who think they are smart are actually dogmatists. He believes that only by admitting their ignorance can people be liberated from hasty opinions, thus providing a prerequisite for accepting wisdom. Socrates' idea of "knowing your own ignorance" is against the school of the wise, and even more against protagoras's subjectivist view that the individual is the yardstick of truth.
Secondly, Socrates' method is a way to expose contradictions, overcome contradictions and finally reach the truth through the opposition and conflict of various opinions in the process of discussing problems. Socrates' method includes four links: (1) satire. That is to say, it leads to contradictions from the other party's opinions, forcing the other party to be embarrassed, or forcing the other party to deny what they are sure of. (2) midwifery. Socrates admitted that he had no knowledge, and he wanted to teach others knowledge. He solved this contradiction in this way: this knowledge was not instilled in people by him, but people already had it. People have a "fetus" in their hearts, but they just don't know it yet. Socrates is like a "midwife", helping others to produce knowledge. Socrates' midwifery is concentrated in the form of "cross-examination". He often uses cross-examination to expose the contradictions in various propositions and theories put forward by the other party, so as to shake the foundation of the other party's argument and point out the other party's ignorance. In the cross-examination, Socrates himself did not give a positive answer, because he admitted his ignorance. This theory directly produced Plato's "memory theory" of idealism transcendentalism, and it was also the forerunner of later idealism "natural concept" theory. From the perspective of educational thought, Socrates advocates heuristic education method and opposes indoctrination method, which is of positive significance. (3) induction. That is to deny individual, accidental and wrong views through irony, and discover universal and inevitable truth through midwifery, that is, the method from individual to general. (4) Conclusion or definition. Is to express or define the truth of discovery. Socrates here, from ignorance, through the use of irony and midwifery, finally summed up the definition. This method is developed from the logical reasoning of Elijah School and Zhi Nuo's reduction to absurdity. In the negative form of Socrates' satire, there is a positive result of dialectical thinking that exposes contradictions. Socrates' method is the earliest form of dialectics in the history of western philosophy, that is, dialectics in the original sense.
Socrates' methodology puts forward the important issue of pursuing commonness rather than individuality. When he guided people to get rid of the so-called subjective feelings, self-righteous opinions and the confusion of individual accidents, the general principle was determined. This formed Socrates' conceptual theory. Looking for the concept of morality, or looking for the concept of things, is the goal of Socrates' dialogue and argumentation, and his methodology is the means to realize conceptualism.
From the development history of human cognition, Socrates' method touched on the process of human cognition from individual to general, and became the forerunner of formal logic inductive reasoning later. His conceptual theory emphasizes the relative stability and certainty of cognition, which has certain influence on the later formal logic definition theory. At the same time, his methodology and conceptualism also have certain significance for overcoming some sophistry tendencies among the wise. Socrates' methodology is characterized by generally rejecting individuals and denying the relativity and contradictory changes of things. However, his concept theory regards the essence of things reflected by concepts as absolute, unchangeable and transcendental, thus denying the authenticity of specific things. This idealistic viewpoint and method in Socrates' philosophy provides a direct theoretical premise for Plato's idealism.
The theory of immortality of the soul. Socrates' theory of soul further clarifies the difference between spirit and matter. Philosophers before Socrates have long said that the soul is immortal, and the opposition between idealism and materialism has sprouted. However, philosophers before him still had vague views on the soul, and some even regarded the soul as the finest substance, so the boundary between idealism and materialism was not clear. Until Socrates clearly regarded the soul as a spiritual entity that is essentially different from matter. In Socrates' view, the emergence and disappearance of things is just the aggregation and dispersion of something. The body is "many", which can be aggregated and decomposed; And the soul is "one", a single thing, without parts, it can't be dispersed, so it doesn't matter if it is aggregated, so the soul won't live and die, it will always exist. This single thing is not an "atom" of matter, but a spiritual entity. From the development of philosophical thought, Socrates put forward the distinction between spiritual entity and material entity, which made the opposition between idealism and materialism break away from the simple state of early philosophy and enter a more mature stage; He raised the maxim-like ethical thought of early Greek philosophers to the height of philosophy; He inspires thoughts and exposes contradictions by way of logical debate, and goes deep into the essence of things by way of dialectical thinking. All these are helpful to the development of philosophical thinking. However, as the first systematic idealist philosopher in the history of western philosophy, he began to exaggerate the subject and rationality, exaggerated abstract thinking, and replaced religious myths with philosophical idealism myths. Socrates explicitly opposed spirit and matter and became the founder of idealistic philosophy in the history of western philosophy.