Socrates
470-399 BC · Classical Athens · Household name
Socrates was the gadfly of Athens, who asked questions of confident men until they contradicted themselves and turned philosophy away from the heavens toward how a person should live. He wrote nothing down. Anyone who knew what was good would do it, he thought, so nobody does wrong on purpose and wrongdoing is a kind of ignorance. A life that is never examined is not worth living. Athens condemned him to death in 399 BC.
Signature
The position Socrates is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ignorance
- Bondage – Bliss
- Highest Good
- Knowledge
Positions on the 1 axes the sources answer
- Order
- leans Vertical (25 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
19 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Socrates refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Agnosticism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Epistocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Knowledge
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Phronesis
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Authority
- Rational Expertise / Benevolence
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Social Contract
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Agnostic
What happens at death? - Primary Bond
- Nation
What is your primary bond and loyalty?