A Quest for the Historical Socrates: The Applicability of Historical Jesus Research in Historiographical Approaches to Socrates by Andrew Messing

1. Introduction One of the few certainties in the historiography of ancient persons is uncertainty. No matter what biographical sketch is outlined or detailed, and regardless of the individual in question, it is certain that this biography will fail to wholly encapsulate the historical reality of that individual. Any modern historical account or biography of Socrates, therefore is necessarily limited. Socrates as he actually was is beyond the reach of any historian. Before proceeding, however, this view must be differentiated from two other claims. The first is that all historiography is a construction which not only inevitably fails to reconstruct historical reality but which is in actuality little different from fiction.1 Although few historians or scholars in general wholly adopt this extreme position, a common theme within modern (or rather post-modern, a term which situates this view in its cultural context) historiography is expressing the ultimately fictitious nature of historical writings and the conception that any historiography is closer to a construction than to a reconstruction.2 The position adopted at the outset here is that while historical reconstructions are just that, good historical methods make it possible for these reconstructions to approximate historical reality. Thus, a modern biography of Socrates

may be more than simply (or mainly) a construction, and proper historical methodologies can provide an account of the person which best approximates Socrates as he lived. The other important distinction which must be made is not historical but psychological: no one, not even Socrates himself, could tell us who Socrates was. Even were it possible to capture on film every moment of Socrates life, including an in-depth interview asking the man himself who he is, the nature of the Self is simply too complex to capture, no matter the available evidence. Socrates own answer, for example, would vary not only depending upon when in his life he was asked, but even as his mood changed within a given day, or when a particular conversation, event, etc., made more salient in his mind certain aspects of his character. In other words, any biography, no matter the evidence available, will fail to encapsulate the Self of that individual simply because the Self is neither a stative nor constant entity. It is not simple enough that who an individual is (in her or his entirety) may be answered in any coherent fashion. We do not possess, however, anything close to a videographic recording of everything Socrates said and did. Nor are any of his thoughts, words, or descriptions of his actions directly available to us through his own writings. What remains are fragmentary and disagreeing accounts of what Socrates said and did and what he believed, a historical issue referred to as the Socratic problem.3 The essence of the Socratic problem is determining how to combine the varying representations of Socrates in ancient history into a single biography which best approximates (in every detail or generality it claims) the historical reality of Socrates. Providing a solution to this problem is not the point, nor within the scope, of the present paper. Rather, what I argue here is that there is another historical figure whose reconstructed biography presents challenges

and issues similar to those who face the Socratic problem. No single individual has been the subject of greater historical scrutiny than Jesus of Nazareth, and if there is any merit to biographical historiography at all, especially as it pertains to ancient persons, then the best (and worst) methods are to be found by examining the Quest for the historical Jesus while absorbing what is useful, and rejecting what is useless.4

2. The Socratic problem Sources for any event or person in history are wont to diverge. Even modern biographies and historical writings of living individuals, such as former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, disagree. What makes Socrates, and the disagreement between our sources for information of him, so different? The first part of the answer to this question is simple. It is no coincidence that perhaps the only other individual to have more scholarship devoted to his historical reconstruction is Jesus: in the case of both the historical figures whose influence on the life of humanity has been profoundest, Jesus and Socrates, indisputable facts are exceptionally rare5 The more interesting, influential, and relevant to society a person is, the more people will want to know about them. The name Socrates, as Jol poetically puts it, is ein Namehochgetragen von der Liebe und Ehrfurcht der Jahrtausendei Of the three philosophers whose names stand out from all others in the history of Western intellectualism (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), Socrates may have contributed the least to this tradition, but in his capacity as Platos teacher he made possible all that came from the other two. In fact, the lack of direct contributions to Western intellectual discourse seems to have made Socrates more interesting, simply because the absence of any copies of Socratic autographs makes
i

a namecarried high by the love and awe of millennia p. 730.

Socrates character more mysterious. This sense of mystery is only compounded by the long tradition (originating particularly in the works of Plato) 6 of viewing Socrates death as an unjust execution of the most just and noble of men. What emerges is an individual who not only founded the most important philosophical tradition in the West (by teaching Plato), but who gave his life for his beliefs and for his fellow citizens, whom he refused to allow live unexamined lives. All of the above lays the groundwork for a long and rich history of widespread interest (not simply scholarly) in understanding Socrates life. The Socratic problem, however, involves more than just an interesting figure and the typical problems with sources (e.g., scarcity of data, divergent traditions, disagreeing sources, late and/or pseudepigraphical sources, etc.). Actually, compared with many of Socrates rough contemporaries for whom we have some historical evidence (e.g., Euripides, Antiphon, Aristophanes, etc.), the extant texts which refer to Socrates are unusually numerous. Additionally, several individuals who personally knew Socrates, namely Xenophon, Aristophanes, and Plato, appear to give rather detailed accounts of the man himself in some of their works. Relative to the normal paucity of data available to the ancient historian, a lack of sources for information is clearly not the issue. This is in fact the heart of the Socratic problem. Given the sources we have, and their nature, it is hard to imagine that anyone who knew of them could conclude man mag in dieses Problem sich lange Jahre und immer wieder versenkenund kann doch am Ende von Sokrates sagen, was er von sich selber bekannte: wir wissen, da wir nichts wissen.ii Yet Jol reached this conclusion, which other scholars have shared or do share,

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[o]ne can immerse himself in this problem for many years, but can at the end only say of Socrates what he admitted himself: we know that we know nothing. p. 731.

after decades of study and several previous volumes on the subject. The Socratic problem results from the desire to know as much about Socrates as possible, a lengthy history of scholarly optimism concerning the difficulty of this task, and an increasing realization that the disagreements and historical accuracy of our sources are not problems easily surmounted. The figure of Socrates presented by Xenophon is just as different from that of Platos and Aristophanes as theirs are from one another. Moreover, the very idea that any of these individuals ever intended to represent the historical Socrates is questionable. Duprel, for example, declared of the Socratic figure that cest la creation littraire and that [a]u moral pas plus quau physique, la figure socratique ne constitue un portrait d'aprs nature; elle est une composition trs travaille.iii Gigon likewise referred to all the sources or works on Socrates (including modern ones) as Dichtung or poetic (literary) compositions.7 Realizations like these were what caused Jols despair in any attempt to find a solution to the Socratic problem. Yet we have skipped ahead too far, as Gigon and Jol are both fairly recent contributors to scholarship on the Socratic Problem, and in doing so we have prevented any proper understanding of the context for this despair. One of the first biographers of Socrates provides both a starting point at which we may begin exploring the sources, and also perhaps the earliest historical consciousness of the Socratic problem. Diogenes Laertius, a historian from the third century CE, wrote a number of Lives (or Bioi, early biographies)8 of various philosophers, including Plato and Socrates. In his Life of Plato, Diogenes reports that Socrates happened to hear someone reading Platos Lysis (a dialogue in which the main character is Socrates) and exclaimed
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it is a literary creation p. 334 The Socratic figure is not a life-like sketch, mentally anymore than physically; it is a well-wrought composition. p. 333.

. .iv The historical accuracy of this account is debatable, but it does indicate that by Diogenes Laertius time at least Platos depiction of Socrates had been questioned.9 What, however, was this depiction anyway, and what was the basis for questioning it?

2.2. Platos Socrates If anything from ancient history can be known, we can be certain that Plato was a student of Socrates, or at least spent a great deal of time around him listening to what he had to say.10 In his own words, from perhaps the most unquestionably authentic of his letters,11 Plato calls Socrates v and in most of his dialogues Socrates is the main character. Clearly, then, Plato knew at the very least a good deal about what Socrates taught and believed in his later years, and the doubt expressed at or before Diogenes Laertius that the Socrates in Platos dialogues is not an accurate depiction of the historical Socrates appears to be baseless prima facie. However, even without comparing the Socrates of Plato to that of Xenophon or that of Aristophanes, there are serious problems in equating Socrates in Plato with the historical Socrates, for Plato himself does not appear to offer a singular Socrates upon whom a historical reconstruction may be based. There is a person named Socrates in many of Platos dialogues. In many, such as the Republic or Apology, Socrates is the main character in that he that he is not only active in the dialogue but he appears to more or less direct its subject matter. In others,
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By Hercules, how many times that lad [Plato] has lied about me! DL 3.35. My elderly friend Apology 324c-324e.

such as the Sophistes or Timaeus, Socrates is present but oddly does not take part in the discussion. Given Platos depiction of Socrates elsewhere (see esp. Apology 21b-23b) as a man who can hardly resist questioning everyone and everything, his lack of participation in some dialogues is peculiar. Even more troublesome, however, is the apparent disparity, in thought and character, between Socrates as he is depicted in some of the works in which he is a central character and others. In the memorable words of the late scholar Gregory Vlastos, in various dialogues Socrates pursues philosophies so different that they could not have been depicted as cohabitating the same brain throughout unless it had been the brain of a schizophrenic. They are so diverse in content and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy you care to mention12 In other words, we can either accept that at least in some places the Socrates of Plato is not the historical Socrates, or we will be forced to conclude that the historical Socrates held such divergent beliefs that he might as well have been crazy. It is not possible to examine every divergence or seeming contradiction of Socrates character in Platos dialogues, but some important examples will suffice. In Platos Apology, Socrates asserts that he is accused of vi or of being a natural philosopher. Socrates then claims .vii Yet in other works, Platos Socrates appears not only interested in natural philosophy but a natural philosopher par excellence. Socrates, in the Republic (616b-617c), gives an account of the structure and movement of celestial bodies. In the Phaedo,13 Socrates gives an extraordinarily rich and detailed explanation of the form of the earth and that which is beneath it. A similar contradiction exists between
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investigating the things under the earth and celestial things Apology 19b. concerning these things [i.e. natural philosophy] I know nothing, neither great nor small.

Socrates statements on the immortality of the soul in the Apology and his view on the same in the Republic. In the Apology, Socrates appears not to know what happens to a person after death: , .viii This agnosticism stands in sharp contrast to the view Socrates expresses in the Republic: , ?ix Even within Platos dialogues, then, Socrates appears to think radically different things, making it difficult in the extreme to decide what aspects of Platos depiction are even intended to represent Socrates. At least part of this is due to the extent to which Platos writings represent original thought. An enormous hurdle, therefore, which prevents us from using Plato to understand the historical Socrates, is the necessity of separating Plato (his thoughts, theories, etc.) from Socrates. That is, how much of what Plato wrote was simply Plato himself speaking through Socrates mouth? Platos theory of Forms ( or ), for example, is perhaps his most influential and the most well-known of his contributions to Western thought.14 In several places in his dialogues15 Socrates espouses and/or develops this theory. Simply put, according to the theory of Forms all things (even abstract concepts like Beauty) exist independently and in an ideal Form or Type. However, according to Aristotle .x Aristotle did not have firsthand knowledge of Socrates, but he did know

For either it is such that [death] is nothingness, and the dead have no awareness of anything at all, or it is as is oft said, that [death] is a change and rehabitation of the soul from this place to another. Apology 40c. ix Dont you [Glaucon] know[that] our soul[s are] immortal and never destroyed? Rep. 10.608d. x Socrates did not grant independent existence to universals or definitions. Metaphysics 1078b. cf. 1086b.

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Plato very well and was certainly in a position to know the history and development of Platos theory of Forms.16 It is difficult, therefore, to ignore Aristotles differentiation between the historical Socrates and Socrates as he appears in Platos dialogues. After all, according to Gomperz (among others) Aristotles testimony is zwar knappen, aber unbedingt verllichen Zeugnisse...xi We can hardly conclude, then, that everything Plato puts on Socrates lips may be traced back in some form to Socrates himself. This position, however, has its proponents. Burnet and Taylor in particular argue that Plato is not simply the primary source for the historical Socrates, but that the ideas, views, and theories of Platos Socrates are almost entirely intended to represent those of the historical Socrates, not Plato.17 This includes the theory of Forms,18 despite Aristotles testimony. In support of this view, Taylor (agreeing with Burnet) notes that Plato shifts from Socrates as the key speaker and center of the dialogues to a Socrates on the sidelines and finally to dialogues in which he is absent altogether (e.g. Laws).19 The explanation for this can only be that Plato did not wish to put ideas on Socrates lips which werent his.20 There are several issues with this position, including the discrepancies in Platos Socrates mentioned above, and the differences between this figure and other depictions of Socrates (such as Aristotles). In addition, as Copleston points out, if Plato never uses Socrates as a spokesperson for his (Platos) views, then there is no reason to think he does so with any other character either (e.g., Timaeus).21 It seems extremely unlikely that one of the greatest philosophers in Western history, and the founder of the Academy, said almost nothing original in his writings and only reproduced the thoughts of others. Furthermore, there is the issue of genre to consider. Plato was not a historian, and as noted by Gigon and Duprel, the dialogues are literary creations. We
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admittedly scarce, but undoubtedly reliable evidence. 1896, p. 52.

must view them as such, rather than as primarily biographical depictions. Finally, even if there are points in his dialogues where Plato intended his Socratic figure to resemble the historical Socrates, nous sommes en face d'interpretations.xii We are limited not only by Platos intentions, but also by his understanding of his teacher. If we had some reliable means to discern where Plato intended to represent the historical Socrates, we would still be left with the problem of deciding whether Plato was right.

2.3. Socrates in Xenophon Thankfully, however, we are not left with only Plato to reconstruct the historical Socrates. Xenophon also devoted a great many lines in his corpus to Socrates (in e.g., his Oeconomicus and Symposium), including an entire work explicitly dedicated to his recollections of Socrates (Memorabilia). Xenophon, like Plato, was a young friend of Socrates. Moreover, unlike Plato, Xenophon was a historian, and even if his dialogues are less concerned with history than some of his other writings, he is still a man to whom historical recollections are important. His historical consciousness was, in fact, central to Boutrouxs argument to restore Xenophon as a principle source for the historical Socrates. Against Schleiermacher and his followers, Boutroux notes that it is Xenophon seul de nos tmoins qui ft historien de profession... and that therefore lhistorien a le droit aujourdhui, non seulement dinvoquer le tmoignages de Xnophon ct de ceux de Platon et dAristote, mais encore de le mettre en premire lignexiii Once more, then, we might expect to find a great deal of unproblematic information on Socrates, his

We are faced with interpretations. Robin, 1947, p. 211. alone of our witnesses who was a professional historian & the historian has the right today, not only to invoke the testimony of Xenophon alongside those of Plato and Aristotle, but, moreover, to put it first. Boutroux, 1908, p. 17.
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life and thought, in these sources. Indeed, there are some who have said that Xenophon, not Plato, Aristotle, or Aristophanes, is whom we should turn to for a depiction of the historical Socrates. As Hegel put it, wir uns in Ansehung des Inhalts seines Wissens, und des Grabes, wie sein Denken gebildet war, vorzglich an Xenophon zu halten haben.xiv Unfortunately, just as with Plato, problems with Xenophon abound. In fact, in one of the earliest modern attempts to solve the Socratic problem, Garnier declared that while we could perhaps find in Xenophon le grand principes de la morale Socratique it is not in Xenophon but dans Platon quil [Socrate] vit, quil respirexv The problems with Garniers conclusion have already been exposed. What, however, is wrong with using Xenophon as a source? An early and persuasive argument, originating with Schleiermacher,22 against using Xenophons Socrates as the foundation for the historical Socrates is how boring his Socrates appears to be. The Socrates in Xenophon is more or less a moralizing preacher. His chief concern appears to be giving moral instructions, rather than investigating morality, and he is uninterested either in metaphysics or other philosophical concerns.23 If the historical Socrates was essentially equivalent to Xenophons depiction of him, so the argument goes, it is hard to imagine how anyone could have ever thought him to be an important and influential philosopher. Nor is Xenophons work without the same problems found in Platos. As with Platos Socrates, the Socrates in Xenophon is difficult to differentiate from Xenophon himself.24 Whatever Xenophons skill as a historian, his writings devoted to Socrates are
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We have, principally, to look to Xenophon, with respect to the content of [Socrates] knowledge, and of the end point of the development of his thought. Michelet, 1842, p. 69. cf. Pfleiderer, 1896, Schlussbemerkung zum 1. Buch. xv The central tenets of Socratic morality & in Plato that he [Socrates] lives, that he breathes. Garnier, 1768, p. 163.

not histories but are just as much work[s] of art as the dialogues of Plato.25 And if Platos depiction of Socrates is but his interpretation of the historical Socrates, then so is Xenophons. Plato, however, was himself a philosopher, and therefore in a much better position to understand Socrates thought than was Xenophon.26 Once again, without the proper methodological approach, Xenophons writings are too problematic to use as a source for the historical Socrates.

2.4. Aristophanes and Socrates While the literary, rather than historical, nature of Plato and Xenophons writings were revealed only through modern scholarship, the last important contemporary witness to Socrates required no such analyses. Aristophanes, unlike Plato or Xenophon, clearly wrote about Socrates while the latter was still living.27 Also unlike the other two witnesses, Aristophanes plays portray Socrates in a negative light. Yet unfortunately Aristophanes writings are quite clearly artistic rather than historical. They are comic plays, and cannot therefore be used as a primary means for reconstructing the historical Socrates. 2.5. Turning from (Historiographic) Despair This does not mean we may not use Aristophanes as a historical source to understand Socrates. None of the problems outlined above preclude the use of these three witnesses in reconstructing the historical Socrates. Other sources too, such as Aristotle and Diogenes Laertius, though problematic, are nonetheless of great value. Our problem is not one of a lack of available data, but an inability to separate out fact from fiction in the data that we possess. Since the Socratic problem was first identified in modern

scholarship over two hundred years ago, the tendency among scholars has generally been one of selection. That is, most of their arguments consist of reasons to favor one source over another, especially by pointing out problems with competing sources. The end result of these efforts was a vast series of arguments (some small part of which we have seen above) against using any and all sources, and once these became widely known, the combination of these arguments left no source available. And with the realization that no source was the magical key to unlocking the historical Socrates came despair: But the Socratic question, as it was debated from the time of Schleiermacher to the beginning of the twentieth century, is not only an unsolvable problemas is shown by the lack of any agreementbut also a pseudo-problem. If the logoi Skratikoi are works of fictions, allowing their authors considerable scope for invention not only in the setting but also in the ideas expressed by the characters including Socrates, then it seems hopeless to try to reconstruct the thought of the historical Socrates on the basis of the logoi Skratikoi.28 This despair, already expressed above by Jol, is echoed elsewhere.29 Other scholars, rather than dealing with these problems, appear to reject all previous scholarship on the Socratic problem and proceed to use the sources as if the past two and a half centuries of historical Socrates scholarship had never been.30 Neither approach is useful, nor intellectually defensible. Both are simply different versions of the same easy out: if the sources are rejected utterly or uncritically accepted, we dont have to deal with the penetrating analyses which are the nexus for the current state of the Socratic problem.

What is lacking is a methodological approach capable of sifting through all the sources and determining holistically what pieces of the various portrayals of Socrates we possess are likely to represent the historical Socrates. Luckily, however, the methodologischen Schwierigkeiten for which Kuhn could not offer a Vorzeigung eines Geheimschlssels31 have already been addressed, though not as they pertain to Socrates. Questers for a different historical figure have already developed the necessary criteria with which the historicity of any aspect of the Socratic figure may be evaluated. The Quest for the historical Jesus has yielded hidden key to unlock the historical Socrates. If we examine the history of the Quest for the historical Jesus, where it has failed and where it has triumphed (or at least been productive), the applicability of historical Jesus quest methodologies will become apparent.

3. Von Reimarus zu die Fnfte Phase32: A brief history of historical Jesus Quest Jols declaration that the historical Socrates is unknowable has its parallel in the Quest for the historical Jesus: Denn freilich bin ich der Meinung, da wir vom Leben und von der Persnlichkeit Jesu so gut wie nichts mehr wissen knnenWas seit etwa anderthalb Jahrhunderten ber das Leben Jesugeschreiben ist, ist.phantastisch und romanhaft.xvi This oft quoted statement by Bultmann was a reaction against a long tradition among historical Jesus scholars. Their approach and results were similar to those of historical Socrates scholars: advocate one view, method, interpretation, and/or text while criticizing alternative proposals, finally resulting in intellectual bankruptcy.

I am certainly of the opinion that we can know almost nothing of the life and personality of Jesus. What has been written over the last roughly century and a half is fantastic and romantic. Bultmann, 1926, 10f.

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3.2. Erste Phase: Reimarus zu Strauss The period of time Bultmann was reacting against was not the first stage of the Quest. It is, in fact, often referred to as the second phase.33Although Albert Schweitzer, in his now famous survey of historical Jesus research (whence the title Quest for the historical Jesus originates), began with Hermann Reimarus (1694-1768),34 there were earlier and important historical-critical approaches (e.g., Thomas Chubb).35 What differentiates these from the posthumously published writings of Reimarus is mainly the scope of Reimarus work. While early critical approaches had challenged specific aspects of the Christian tradition (e.g., miracles in the Gospels),36 Reimarus intended to attack Christianity at its roots by exposing it as a tradition built on a historical distortion.37 The method he used to achieve this goal began with an attempt to show that the historical Jesus was not the Jesus of the Gospels. The historical Jesus was a political revolutionary, a fanatic who desired and promoted radical change in Judaism and Israel, but who failed and was executed. Next, Reimarus argued that Christianity resulted from the disciples despair. These, he claimed, when they lost their leader, declared that he was raised and would return. They thus transformed the conception of messiah from a largely political and cultural one (someone who would restore the rule of Israel to the Jews) into a spiritual and purely religious one. The first Christians, then, in an effort to solidify their new religion, had transformed Jesus into something he wasnt: a Son of God who was supposed to have died, and therefore who had not failed. Although Reimarus central goal was to show the invalidity of Christianity by exposing the lies upon which it was built, in attempting to do so he offered a thorough and historical-critical (rather than religious) reanalysis of Jesus.

The publication of Reimarus writings quickly resulted in numerous attempts to rescue the historicity of the traditional view of Jesus and the historical reliability of the gospels.38 Despite their reactionary and defensive nature, these contributions are important because they were historically grounded.39 History is concerned with what most likely happened. Miracles, by nature, are unlikely, and therefore are precluded from any historical analysis.40 After Reimarus, attempts to reconcile Jesus and the Gospels with the historical-critical mindset of the day consisted of historical explanations for the miracles within the gospels.41 The end of the first phase of the Quest is marked by the devastating attack of D. F. Strauss (1808-1874) on these attempts.42 Strauss showed that the miracles could not simply be explained away, because they were vital components of the texts.43 By removing them or attempting to explain them away, one did not rescue the texts but destroyed them, because this method failed to recognize the centrality of non-historical elements in the texts.44

3.3. The Liberal Lives and the Lies of Liberalism Thus began attempts to write biographies of Jesus. These are often referred to as liberal lives because of the liberalism of the day which, according to these biographies, the historical Jesus somehow embodied centuries earlier. This phase in the Quest, which Bultmann and Schweitzer reacted against, did not simply try rescue the traditional Jesus from critical analysis but attempted to uncover Jesus as he actually was.45 Alas, the liberal questers faired no better than those who wished to uncover the historical Socrates. Despite notable improvements in historical-critical methodology, historical Jesus questers still lacked any coherent valid framework from which sound analyses could be

conducted. Schweitzer and Bultmann, among others, convincingly demonstrated that the tools used to build the liberal lives of Jesus in the second phase were inadequate.46

3.4. The current phase The reason the Quest for the Historical Jesus is so important to historical Socrates research is not simply the problems faced by would-be biographers of both. The longer, vaster, more nuanced, and more wide-ranging (in terms of both approaches and opinions) nature of the historical Jesus Quest meant that the equivalent to the current state of historical Socrates research was reached almost a century ago in the Quest for the historical Jesus. The lack of defensible results from the initial stages of the Quest forced scholars to borrow findings across fields and subfields (sociology, orality, psychology, literary theory, etc.) and combine these with an increased understanding of the cultural and historical context of Jesus and the sources for we have for him.47 This combination allowed scholars to construct a firm methodological foundation for analysis.

3.5. Applicability to historical Socrates research In order to see how these methods may be borrowed (or stolen) to reconstruct the historical Socrates, we must first understand how the problems historical Jesus scholars faced and overcame in a way never achieved by historical Socrates scholars were similar enough to those facing historical Socrates scholars. There are, after all, clear differences. The Gospels are religious texts, and therefore Jesus (unlike Socrates) is shrouded behind the miraculous and theological purposes of the primary sources for him. The Gospels were also written anonymously, while the primary sources for historical Socrates research

were written by people who knew him. Despite these and other differences, the problems faced by those who would historically reconstruct the lives of Jesus or Socrates are similar enough that certain methods (as well as the general approach) may be borrowed from the current phase of historical Jesus research and applied to Socrates. First, as Navia points out, neither Jesus nor Socrates themselves wrote anything we know of.48 Our understanding of both Jesus and of Socrates is filtered through texts written by others. Second, these texts were not intended solely or even primarily to represent the historical figures in question. Genre, authorial intent, literary concerns, etc., are therefore all at play in the primary sources for Jesus and Socrates, and a proper framework for understanding each text and author is necessary before any historical content can be culled. Disagreements among sources require methods which allow historians to determine which source or sources are more likely to accord with history given any disagreement. Finally, any historical reconstruction of either Jesus or Socrates requires a holistic approach to the sources grounded in a cultural and social understanding of the period and place in which they were written and to which they refer.

4. Lessons Learned: Successful methods and their application to the Quest for the Historical Socrates Given the similar problems facing questers for the historical Jesus and the historical Socrates, what methods might a historical Socrates quester borrow from the Quest for the Historical Jesus? We may leave for another time the comprehensive application of useful historical Jesus methodology and the resulting reconstruction of the historical Socrates, but simply pointing out the possibility that this application would be

fruitful is not enough. By way of compromise, let us therefore investigate some specific examples of problems for historical Socrates research which might be resolved by applying methods already used in historical Jesus scholarship. We may also divide these into two broader categories: macro-level strategies and micro-level strategies. The former help to lay a solid foundation for historical reconstruction by providing a way to approach the texts, while the latter consists of the methodological framework for determining historicity in the texts.

4.2. Texts, historicity, and genre When looking for a solid foundation from which one may evaluate the historicity of aspects or components of a text, it is only natural to begin with the proper understanding of the texts themselves. Perhaps the most devastating attack on the validity of the sources for the historical Socrates has been to identify them as literary, rather than historical documents. This was a determination of genre: histories, like those of Thucydides or even Xenophon, were valid sources for historical inquiry in a manner impossible for literary works (whatever that might mean). A similar determination dominated the Form-critical (or Formgeschichte) approach to the Gospels. Scholars like Bultmann and Schmidt explicitly rejected not only the possibility that the Gospels are in some sense biographies, but also that their authors were even interested in the historical Jesus.49 The problem with these treatments, both that of Xenophon and Plato on the one hand and the Gospels on the other, concerns a lack of proper understanding of genre and of textual theory.

Genre is a framework of convention (often broad) which facilitates communication.50 This wonderfully academic (and thus vague) definition, however, tells us nothing useful. So let us move from description into exemplification. This text (the one you are reading) is a part of the communicative process. Communication is the relaying of information from source to receiver. Here, the author of this text is trying to relay information about historiography, Socrates, the history of particular historiographic approaches, and various other notions which will hopefully result in a coherent and convincing argument. In order for this (or any) transmission to be successful, or even possible, both sender (in this case, me) and receiver (a part played by you, and spectacularly so, I might add) rely on shared understanding. The text you are reading is, for example, written primarily in English. To anyone who cannot read English, this text is meaningless, and no communication is possible. Yet shared language is not the only necessary conventional framework for communication. Because the arguments made in this text are academic, particular conventions are followed. Footnotes, citations, quotations, formalized speech, particular lexical choices (e.g., the word lexical rather than word or vocab) all result from conventional frameworks within which academic discourse takes place. Academic is a rather broad category or genre, and we can and should narrow it. Scholarship in the behavioral sciences, for example, utilizes few if any quotes. As with scholarship in general, conventions in the behavioral sciences require arguments to be bolstered by numerous in-text citations, but quoting from these same texts constitutes a deviation from convention which erodes the communicative process. The resulting text, no matter the content, is too unusual and unexpected to be considered appropriate and therefore may simply be ignored. In literary studies, classics, philosophy,

and a number of other disciplines (particularly those which rely on texts, rather than experiments, as their primary form of data and subject matter) not only allow quoting but encourage it if used according to convention. Of course, in academic discourse, as within all genres and other conventional frameworks like registers (see below), variation is possible. Many academic texts do not use the first person pronoun. This one does. Such variation is acceptable until the deviation is too great. If the structure of this text resembled a Socratic dialogue, even if the arguments for the thesis offered here were many times more convincing then they are at present, the deviation from conventional academic discourse would render the text useless. In communication, the receiver (reader, listener, etc.) possesses a stock of communicative frameworks from which style, lexical choice, textual (oral or written) structure, and so forth, serve as clues to aid understanding. Like the use of a particular language, these clues convey information to facilitate communication. Academic texts rely on conventional use of scholarly prose, erudite lexical usage, and complex linguistic constructions. Poetry, by convention, deviates from typical linguistic usage in order to communicate its artistic nature. Each genre, including oral genres,51 relies not only on language but on conventional patterns to facilitate information.52 Within and across genres, other similar conventions further govern structural and expressive components of texts. Register, which often overlaps with genre, refers both to the context in which communication occurs and the conventional patterns governing allowable structures within that context.53 Religious contexts require religious registers, informal discourse requires informal registers, and so forth.

The reason understanding genre and similar conventions is vital to reconstructing the historical Socrates is due to the invalid divide between literature and history and the conclusions drawn from this division. The Gospels are literary and religious documents. They are clearly biased and apologetic, they include much which even ancient historians like Thucydides would deem inappropriate to historical narratives, and are certainly not biographies in the modern sense of the word. Nonetheless, after Bultmann and the form critics failed to adequately account for the genre of the Gospels, a series of detailed studies convincingly showed that the Gospels do indeed fit into a historical genre of ancient biography or Lives.54 In other words, they accord well enough with a particular conventional pattern (in style, structure, focus, etc.) that it is clear the authors desired their creations to be read in a particular way and so wrote according to that (broad) convention. While this does not mean the Gospels immediately become historically accurate, it does mean that, contra Bultmann and the form critics, the authors were interested in the historical Jesus and were also concerned to a certain extent with adhering to history. If the inclusion of mythical and miraculous accounts, as well as other artistic and literary devices,55 does not preclude an ancient text from membership in a historiographical genre, then neither should the use of dialogue, stories, and other literary aspects in the writings of Plato and Xenophon. There is no reason to assume, a priori, that just because Plato and Xenophons writings were literary and artistic creations, they therefore were never intended to depict the historical Socrates. Let us return, then, to a part of Dorions conclusion quoted earlier: If the logoi Skratikoi are works of fictions, allowing their authors considerable scope for

inventionthen it seems hopeless to try to reconstruct the thought of the historical Socrates on the basis of the logoi Skratikoi. First, even taking for granted the categorization of this genre as fiction, the conclusion does not follow from this premise. Dorions use of logoi Skratikoi implies genre: certain conventions dictate and govern patterns within these text which make it possible to call them logoi Skratikoi. This is also not a modern categorization. Aristotle, who opens his discussion of poetry with the issue of genre,xvii mentions the lack classification when it comes to writings .xviii Among these and other mixed types which have no named genre, Aristotle includes . Ancient and modern commentators agree, then, that the logoi Skratikoi belong at least in many ways to a specific genre. There is no reason to conclude that the conventions required by this genre do not restrict or limit the invention of the authors in ways which allow historical reconstruction of the type Dorion states is impossible. Perhaps, for example, while this genre allows the character Socrates to do and say things the historical Socrates did not, there may be limits to these. In other words, it may be that the character of Socrates could not deviate from the historical Socrates in ways which completely hid his philosophy, thought, and customary manner. The fact that Plato did not use Socrates as a character all the time may indicate not that in all other instances he intended his character to be Socrates, but that at these times the deviation was too great. Support for this interpretation can be found in Diogenes Laertius. In his short biography of Simon the

xvii

/concerning poetry both itself and the many forms it has Poetics 1447a. xviii Using bare words alone (i.e. prose without meter). Poetics 1447a-b.

shoe-maker, whom Diogenes credits with the invention of the logoi Skratikoi genre, he states that ,.xix Whether the story itself is accurate is hard to determine. However, what is important is that to an ancient historian like Diogenes Laertius, these dialogues appeared to be a historical genre, in that they sought in some sense to record actual conversations and sayings. We should remember that it was Diogenes Laertius who recounted a story of Socrates calling Plato a liar, and thus was clearly capable of understanding that these dialogues could contain fiction, yet he describes them as historical nonetheless. Therefore, before concluding that these dialogues are pure fiction and nothing in them is intended (or required) to represent the historical Socrates, a better understanding of this genre in these terms (i.e. to what extent, given that ancient history does not preclude fictional components, are these dialogues designed to represent the historical Socrates) is required. In what ways do various depictions vary, both within the respective dialogues of Plato and Xenophon and between them, and in what ways are they the same? What do other characters do which Socrates does not, particularly in dialogues in which Socrates is present but does not speak or is not present at all? If conventional patterns in the depictions of Socrates can be identified, it may very well be that the limits to these conventions (i.e. how Socrates cannot be portrayed) will be instructive. Furthermore, other methods (see below) may reveal that the fictional aspects of these dialogues are not intended to prevent identification of the historical Socrates. As with the Gospels, literary and fantastical elements do not, a priori, preclude historiographical intent.
xix

Whenever Socrates came into his workshop and they discussed something, he would remember these talks and would take notes. DL 2.122.

4.3. Post-Easter Socrates That neither Jesus nor Socrates wrote anything we possess is not the only commonality between these two which is vital to developing a proper methodological approach to the data. It is almost impossible to overestimate the importance of the execution of both Jesus and Socrates. Nor is this importance limited to the impact of their deaths in our sources. An enormous issue running through all the liberal lives of Jesus Bultmann and Schweitzer demolished was the incongruence between their portraits of Jesus and his execution. As Temple put it: Why anyone should have troubled to crucify the Christ of Liberal Protestantism has always been a mystery.56 Jesus was executed, and any biography of him must portray a Jesus who was objectionable enough to contemporaries to be executed. The same is true for Socrates. Whatever aspects of Xenophons writings may be traced back to the historical Socrates, it is hard to imagine this moral preacher was ever considered harmful enough to be executed, and therefore Xenophon left something out from, or even altered, his account of Socrates. Our sources for Socrates, after all, were almost all written after his death, and largely because of his death. In addition to the logoi Skratikoi genre, another entire genre of apologies originated from Socrates death.57 These genres defined themselves by their dedication to the memory of Socrates, and defenses against the charges he was executed for, not to mention the trial itself, infuse them. We cannot even begin to analyze the Socratic dialogues and texts without a conscious awareness of how the authors and their literary products were shaped by Socrates death. Nor is the effect of his death limited to a single trend or tendency as far as historicity is concerned:

La nature des , lamour et ladmiration de Platon pour Socrate, entranent deux consequences. En vertu de la nature mme des genre littraire quAristote classe parmi les imitations qui plaisent notre sensibilit par leur vrit et par leur exactitude, lidalization de Socrate dans les Dialogues ne saurait trop sloigner de loriginal. Dautre part, ladmiration mme de Platon pour Socrate tmoigne dune certaine fidlit du portrait. Mais seulement dune fidlit relative parce quelle se trouve contrebalance par laspect crateur de lart potique.xx That two of our chief witnesses, Plato and Xenophon, were in some sense disciples of Socrates and were attempting to honor, defend, and remember him in their works, was a direct result of Socrates execution. Montuori is among the few to fully recognize the importance of Socrates death in that it shapes virtually everything we possess about him.58 As with Jesus then, any biography of Socrates must start from the acknowledgment that he was executed. It is certainly true that this execution took place during a period of religious fundamentalism and a wave of extremely conservative thought.59 However, to conclude, therefore, that no truth lay in any of these charges is foolish. This is especially true given what is contained in the only full depictions of Socrates we possess which were written before his execution: those from the plays of
xx

The nature of the Socratic Dialogues, the love and admiration of Plato for Socrates, engenders two consequences. By virtue of the very nature of the Socratic dialogue literary genre which Aristotle classifies among those imitations which are pleasing to our sensibilities by their truth and by their accuracy, the idealization of Socrates in the Dialogues cant stray differ much from the original. On the other hand, the same admiration of Plato for Socrates shows a certain faithfulness in the depiction. But only a relative faithfulness because it is counterbalanced by the creative aspect of the poetic art. De Magalh`es-Vilhena, 1952, p. 180.

Aristophanes. The coherence between how Socrates is portrayed in Aristophanes and what Xenophon and Plato state he was accused of make it almost certain that at least some people shared Aristophanes view of Socrates. Furthermore, that the Socrates of Xenophon is virtually harmless, and the Socrates of Plato is the most just and wise of men executed wrongly, are portrayals which must be understood in light of their postexecution and apologetic realities. This does not mean that Aristophanes is unbiased or that Plato and Xenophon cannot be trusted to accurately depict Socrates, simply that any would-be biographer of Socrates must at every turn keep in mind two things: that Socrates was executed for something, and virtually all our sources are laden with reactions to that execution.

4.4. Accounting for the tradition The importance of Socrates death in reconstructing his life is related to another beginning methodological concern we may borrow from the historical Jesus quest. Robins statement (quoted above) that we are faced with interpretations of Socrates rather than Socrates himself is true, but there is perhaps a superior way of viewing our surviving sources. We are dealing with Socrates as he was remembered, and these memories (because of the importance and significance of the man behind them) quickly became part of certain traditions. Part of these traditions involved the writing of texts according to Socratic genres. Other aspects included stories of Socrates such as we encounter in Xenophon and Diogenes Laertius. To be sure, not everything in the Socrates traditionxxi consists of pure recollections recorded by eyewitnesses. However, just as with the
xxi

The term Socrates tradition is used here in a way parallel to Jesus tradition within historical Jesus and NT scholarship. This usage also helps to differentiate between the Socrates tradition, or Socrates as he was remembered, honored, depicted, etc., and the Socratic tradition which is a philosophical one.

Gospels and other sources for Jesus,xxii this remembered Socrates constitutes the foundation of the Socrates tradition. In reconstructing the historical Jesus, we must envisage a Jesus who is big enough to explain the beginnings of Christianity.60 The same is true of Socrates. In addition to a reconstructed Socrates consistent with a tried and executed Socrates, any biography must also account for the fact that Socrates was very influential in his day. Even before his death, Aristophanes clearly thought him important. Aristophanes believed Socrates customs and manner dangerous, but if Socrates had been a nobody, Aristophanes would never have thought it necessary ridicule Socrates on the comic (and public) stage.61 Another aspect of the importance of the Socrates tradition has already been discussed. The earliest Christians wrote letters and Gospels. The followers of Socrates wrote dialogues and apologies. Understanding these genres is key to understanding the Socrates tradition and therefore the historical Socrates. Also important is the realization that despite a clear theme of witnessing and remembering running through our sources for both Jesus62 and Socrates, for various reasons (e.g., apologetic, a desire to know more, etc.) both traditions involved additions and alterations. This is reflected in (among other places) the many stories which are almost certainly unhistorical found in later works such as Diogenes Laertius Lives or the infancy gospels of Jesus. To begin a valid reconstruction of Socrates, we must then utilize an approach to the sources which aptly takes into account the effect of his death and their membership in a tradition resulting from it (and from his life). The reconstruction of Socrates must be consistent with a Socrates who was at once executed and also influential

So important is the concept of a remembered Jesus to any historical approach to our texts that Dunn titled his large volume dedicated to the historical Jesus Jesus Remembered.

xxii

and important enough to have such a tradition. This reconstruction must also be based on a view of the sources in light of this tradition.

4.5. The proper way to weight The final component of the macro-level approach is not a novel contribution to the Socratic problem. Rather, it is the Socratic problem. The Socratic problem began with an awareness of disagreement among our primary sources for Socrates (Xenophon, Plato, and Aristophanes) as well as secondary (particularly Aristotle). The Socratic problem became the proper weight to give particular sources. Should Xenophon be ignored because, in Russells words, he is not very liberally endowed with brains63 and is therefore unworthy of consideration? Or can we trust Xenophon and not Plato, because Platos Socrates is just Plato? These types of questions did not just frame discussion of the Socratic problem, they were the Socratic problem. All solutions to the problem therefore involved picking a source as the best or most accurate and if not stopping there, then making that source the foundation for historical reconstruction. The unacceptability of this method, and the beginnings of a better methodology, are already present in Lacys Our Knowledge of Socrates: The early Plato is rightly regarded as our main source, but no source can be trusted or ignored entirely, and no source can be assumed to be equally reliable throughout. We simply have to go about it the hard way and examine the available evidence ad hoc for the particular problem that we happen to be concerned with.64

Lacey is quite right to realize the necessity of a holistic approach to the texts, but quite wrong to suggest that an ad hoc approach will work. Any analysis that doesnt have a firm foundation and use a valid methodological approach will continue to lack the hidden key Kuhn spoke of (see above). Much of this has already been outlined above, but what is required now is a means for properly weighing the sources. The earlier approach rightly rejected by Lacey did not fail because it sought to weigh the sources at all, but because it involved equating to an unacceptable extent one author or set of sources with the historical Socrates. Determining that certain sources are a priori more likely to contain historical information is a necessary component of a framework for a valid methodological approach. The lessons (from successes and failures) of the historical Jesus quest are instructive here. The difficulties involved in dating Platos dialogues relative to one another, and how these have been ignored rather than overcome, have their parallel in historical Jesus research. There is a tendency among scholars in any field to think know or can know more than is actually possible. This is perhaps best represented in terms of early Christian scholarship and historical Jesus research by treatments of Q. That a common source lies behind parts of Matthew and Luke other than Mark (called Q) is widely (but not universally) accepted among NT scholars.65 Even though this text is a hypothetical reconstruction, some conclusions drawn from it are simply breathtaking in how far beyond the evidence they go. As one commentator said in reaction to certain treatments of Q of this type, to treat Q as a document at all is controversial. To treat it as a gospelis more so; to postulate two or three stages in its development is to build castles in the air; to insist that the document was composed in the fifties, and possibly at

Tiberias in Galileee, is to let imagination run riot.66 Assumptions are used to validate assumptions, then treated as facts, and used to construct further assumptions. Similar problems are at play in dating Platos dialogues. The earlier dialogues are assumed to be those which more closely represent Socrates (rather than Plato), because they date to a period where Plato was more concerned with remembering and honoring his teacher rather than developing his own thought, which was too incomplete at this time anyway.67 The dialogues then are sorted largely by how closely Plato adheres to Socrates philosophy versus his own. Then this representation of Socrates can be used as a basis for the historical Socrates. The first issue, of course, is that almost all of this rests on initial assumptions about the philosophy of both Plato and Socrates, which are then used to reconstruct those same philosophies.68 Often enough, these dating techniques are no more than very erudite, scholarly, expert, and otherwise dressed-up versions of common circular reasoning. Another issue in this approach involves the assumption of linear development and expression of thought. In other words, grouping Platos works together on the bases of certain linguistic expressions or themes assumed to constitute a stage in his philosophical thought ignores the very real possibility that he could vary his rhetorical techniques and themes at any stage. Moreover, this grouping also requires knowledge of Platos philosophy and intent we may not possess. Rowe, for example, points out that one common dating method is to characterize the early dialogues based on modern understanding of their philosophical value, which probably distorts their intended purpose and certainly isnt valid.69 Dorion, in his defense of Xenophons portrayal of Socrates, argues that the modern characterization of Xenophon as anything but a philosopher merely illustrates a disconnect between modern understanding of philosophy

and ancient.70 If we cant even understand ancient philosophical conceptions well enough to know who would have been considered a philosopher, dating Platos dialogues based on such understanding seems foolhardy. Finally, even if some rough chronological divisions are more or less accurate, we cannot then simply decide that earlier ones will inevitably better depict the historical Socrates. This tendency to equate the early Platonic Socrates with the historical Socrates, however, is an outgrowth of the Socratic problem and the approach to it which must be rejected. A particular author or selection of texts (e.g. early Plato) should not be the basis for historical construction. Rather, the likelihood that a given source will contain more historical information is a matter of weighting the sources based on genre, the authors knowledge of Socrates, the bias of the work, and so forth. This weighing should also be dynamic. For example, Aristophanes (as a critic of Socrates) very likely offers us a good many historical reasons for Socrates execution, and there is almost certainly an element of truth in at least some of his depiction, given Socrates execution. In fact, that all of our sources intended to portray a Socrates recognizable as Socrates means that there is something of the historical Socrates distinguishable in them. However, because Aristophanes wrote plays, which were intended to be comic distortions of reality, no individual words or actions of Socrates should be deemed historical unless we have independent reasons for thinking so (see below). In other words, we can heavily weight Aristophanes when it comes to how Socrates was commonly understood, and for the reasons behind his execution, but for details about Socrates philosophy and thought we cannot give Aristophanes much weight. Plato and Xenophon, given their intimate knowledge of Socrates, their desire to honor him and remember him, are a priori likely to

contain a great deal of historical information on Socrates, and in particular his philosophy and thought. As with all sources, methodological criteria are required to sift through this content, but these two witnesses should be given the most weight initially.

4.6. Criteria for historicity This brings us at last to the methodological criteria we may borrow from the historical Jesus quest. Once a firm foundational framework to approach the texts is developed, we can use these criteria to determine the historicity of individual components within them (e.g., reported events in Socrates life or his mannerisms). The most important criteria for the historical Jesus quest are given by Meier,71 but we need not proceed in the order that he does. Perhaps the most useful criterion is that of multiple attestation. The fact that Aristophanes, Plato, and Xenophon agree that Socrates was believed to be impious or an atheist very likely means people did think he was. We can also note that our two chief witnesses, Plato and Xenophon, appear to agree that for Socrates self-mastery is important. Xenophon opens his memorabilia with his memory of Socrates and his capacity for enkrateia or self-control.xxiii Platos Socrates likewise states , .xxiv The reason for this agreement is very likely its relationship to the historical Socrates, in that he believed this.

Of course, if the sources all agreed, we wouldnt have a Socratic problem in the first place. The criterion of multiple attestation is useful, but what we really need are
xxiii xxiv

Xenophon Memorabilia 1.2. Yeilding to ones self is nothing other than ignorance, while self-control is nothing other than wisdom.

criteria which allow us to decide what his more likely to be historical given disagreement, not agreement. This is not to say that the criterion of multiple attestation is useless when there is disagreement. As quoted earlier, the Socrates of Plato, in the republic, is very clear that the soul is immortal. That this reflects Platos view more than it does Socrates is likely first because Plato himself elsewhere depicts Socrates as more or less agnostic as far as the souls immortality is concerned, and second because this view is attested to in Xenophon. However, what do we do when there is disagreement but no third source which supports either view, or when the third source is too remote (e.g., Diogenes Laertius) or too unhistorical (e.g., Aristophanes) to count as multiple attestation? Here other criteria are very useful. One such important criterion is the criterion of embarrassment. By way of illustration, consider that Plato and Xenophon desired to depict Socrates in a positive light. If either includes details about Socrates which are embarrassing or weaken this positive depiction, they are likely to be there because they are historical. Thus, for example, the Socrates of Xenophon is predictable, normal, and agreeable in speech throughout almost all of Xenophons works. The Socrates of Plato, however, is frequently depicted as being outrageous, rude, mocking, or otherwise shocking with respect to his manner of speech.72 It is more likely that Xenophon, in an attempt to portray Socrates in a better light, reduced the caustic or disturbing aspects of Socrates style of speaking than that Plato added them. This is particularly true given the depiction of Socrates in Aristophanes. Likewise, while Xenophons Socrates speaks highly of political leaders like Pericles and Themistocles, Platos Socrates, in response to an assertion that Themistocles and Pericles (among others) are great men and speakers, responds [] .xxv Once
xxv

I am not able to speak that such a one exists among them. Gorgias 503c-d.

again, it must be remembered that Socrates was executed and (as shown in Aristophanes) had a history of getting on peoples nerves. It is again, therefore, more likely that Xenophon attempted to make Socrates more patriotic and Athenian than he was, and that Platos Socrates, who is critical of politicians, is closer to the historical Socrates. Another criterion worth mentioning is that of coherence. Once other methods have established certain aspects of Socrates life and thought, we can use these to determine the historicity of other pieces within our sources. If, for example, there is evidence that Socrates really did attempt to test others to see if they were wise (as the Socrates of Plato claims), then depictions of Socrates which cohere with this inquisitive nature are more likely to be historical. This includes the portrayal of Socrates as interested in natural philosophy found in Aristophanes and in parts of Plato (see above). Xenophons Socrates, who completely lacks any interest in natural philosophy, can in this respect be dealt with according to the criterion of embarrassment. Xenophon simply wished to clear his teachers name.

5. Conclusion There are, of course, other criteria of historicity used in the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Some of them will be of no use for historical Socrates research, and methods of historical reconstruction unique to the Socrates tradition will likely be possible or even required. What we have seen, however, is that the Socratic problem, as it is typically conceived and approached, is indeed a pseudo-problem. This does not mean, however, that Dorion is correct in thinking that the reconstruction of a historical Socrates is impossible given our sources. Similar problems, including more difficult ones, exist in

reconstructing the historical Jesus, and yet thanks to many brilliant minds and several centuries of intense study a methodological framework was constructed making possible historical reconstruction of Jesus. This does not mean that all scholars agree who the historical Jesus was, or that it is even possible to know. Rather, the methods employed allow us to determine a great many things that are certain or highly probable about Jesus life and teaching, and propose other aspects which are less sure. The same is possible with Socrates. It is time for us to leave the Socratic problem behind to embark on the Quest for the historical Socrates.

The development and expression of this extreme view, and convincing arguments against it, may be found in Keith Windshuttles The Killing of History (1996). 2 ibid. Also, the motivation for this view resulted at least in part on wider critiques of academic disciplines and a resulting epistemological skepticism, such as the critiques of the new feminism or even earlier of Marxism. Outside of historical studies, a good review of the history and effect of such critiques may be found for psychology in Thomas Leos work on the subject (2005). Within historical studies see e.g. part IV of Lambert & Schofield (Eds.) Making History (2004). For examples of this constructionalist approach to history and/or the philosophy of historiography, see e.g. Goldstein (1996) and Munslow (1997). For defenses of reconstructionalist or realist views against the critiques offered by constructionionalist philosophies of history, see especially Appleby, Hunt, & Jacob (1994) Windshuttle (1996), & Harlon (1997). 3 The origin of the term appears something of an enigma. Navia (2007) states, We confront in the end a problem, the Socratic problem as this is known and so clearly indicates that the disagreement between sources is commonly referred to in this way. Much earlier, Popper (1966) refers to the so-call ed Socratic Problem [italics in original]. In an article in The Philosophical Review, as far back as 1927 Dubs wrote an article entitled The Socratic Problem. Yet just when it became common among English speaking scholars to refer to this historical issue with this designation is unclear, as is who first coined (or translated?) the term. Russell (1945) comments briefly on the issue, yet never uses this term. The highly influential scholar John Burnet (1914) discusses the issue at some length, yet again nowhere do we find this particular descriptor. 4 Bruce Lee 5 Taylor, 1932, p. 9. 6 , , , , , / such was the end, Echecrates, of our companion, a man such that we may say of him that of those living then whom we have put to the test, [he was] the best and the wisest and the most just. Phaedo 118a. 7 Gigon, 1947. 8 Momigliano, 1971. 9 Lest too much weight be placed on this early tradition, preserved or perhaps created by Stoics (who saw themselves as the intellectual ancestors of Socrates (Brown, 2009)), there is the even earlier statement from Platos second letter: , , / for these [reasons] I

have never yet written anything, nor is there any composition of Plato nor will there be, but rather the [compositions] so named are [instead] of Socrates become fair and young. 10 Rowe, 2009. 11 Navia, 2007, p. 94. 12 Vlastos, 1991, 46. 13 108d ff. 14 Russell, 1945. 15 e.g., Republic 7 & 10, Symposium. 16 Copleston, 1946, p. 103. 17 Burnet, 1914; Taylor, 1932. 18 Ibid. 19 Taylor, 1932, p. 25-27. 20 Ibid. 21 Copleston, 1946, p. 101. 22 Dorion, 2009. 23 Copleston, 1946, p. 99. 24 Lindsey, 1910, Introduction. 25 Ibid. 26 Taylor, 1932; Russell, 1945. 27 Socrates, for example, in Platos Apology (19c), mentions Aristophanes by name. This is said in the context of what Socrates has been accused of (19b), behaviors which are quite similar to those of Socrates as he is depicted in Aristophanes Clouds. 28 Dorion, 2009, p. 93. 29 Maier (1913), for example, does not simply discuss the problems with die Gestalt des Sokrates but explicitly states that this problem will remain hopelessly unresolved. 30 Nails (2009), for example reconstructs the trial and death of Socrates using Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato. She relies especially on the dialogues of Plato. However, no criteria for historicity are offered. Nor does she anywhere describe her reasons for determining that the works she uses in her reconstruction can be so used. Despite over two hundred years of critical investigation, Nails reconstructs the end of Socrates life as if no problems with the sources existed. 31 Kuhn, 1934, p. 135. 32 This header is a play on the title of Albert Schweitzers monumental work Von Reimarus zu Wrede. 33 Theien & Merz, 1996, 1.2. 34 Schweitzer, 1906. 35 Dunn, 2003, 4.2. cf. Wright, 1996, 1.3.1. 36 Dunn, 2003, 4.2. 37 Wright, 1996, 1.3.2. 38 Dunn, 2003, 4.2. 39 Ibid. 40 This does not mean, of course, that accounts of miracles cannot be the subject of historical analysis (see on this point e.g., Meier, 1994, chap. 17). That historical events seen by historical people have been interpreted as miraculous, whether they were or not, is certainly something with which historians can and sometimes must deal. It is, therefore, part of a historians responsibility (to the extent possible) to determine whether or not a particular magical or miraculous deed or event corresponds to something that actually happened (Jesus, for example, was almost certainly believed to have healed the sick). What a historian cannot do, without leaving the realm of history, is determine the historicity of the miracle itself, rather than the event behind it. 41 Ibid. 42 Theien & Merz, 1996, 1.1. 43 Dunn, 2003, 4.2. 44 Dunn, 2003, 4.2. 45 Theien & Merz, 1996, 1.3; Dunn, 2003, 4.3. 46 Schweizer, 1906; Bultman, 1926.

47

On the history of this approach, see e.g., Wright, 1996, chap 3, Theien & Merz, 1996, 1.3-5. On the general methodology used in this approach, see e.g., Meier, 2005; Dunn, 2005. For examples of historical Jesus research based on this approach, see e.g., 47 Theien & Merz, 1996, Wright, 1996; Dunn, 2003. 48 Navia, 2007, p. 16. 49 Bultmann, 1921; Schmidt; 1923. 50 Bawarschi, 2003; Burridge, 2006. 51 Orality studies often make use of terms from literary and textual studies, including terms like oral text or oral genre. The Gospels, for example, are typically seen as the product of oral transmission (see eg.., Kelber, 1983, Wansborough (Ed.), 1991). Of primary importance, then, is the proper model of orality used in the transmission of the Jesus tradition. If Jesus sayings and the stories about him were informally transmitted by anyone without any control, they could be added to and altered beyond recognition. If, on the other hand, various mechanisms of control (e.g., transmission by an authoritative source who was viewed as an expert, correction by the larger community, etc.) could limit this process. Additionally, the various oral genres which form this tradition could be handled differently. The teachings of Jesus, for example, might be transmitted in a more stable form than stories about him. Even his teachings could be broken down into different oral genres, such as apothegms versus parables. 52 Ibid. 53 Biber, 1988; Biber & Finegan, 1994; Ferguson, 1994. 54 Talbert, 1977; Aune, 1987, Burridge, 1992; Frickenschmidt, 1997. 55 A famous example of such a device is Wredes (1901) arguments for the messianic secret in Mark, a literary device with theological designs. 56 Temple, 1945, p. xxiv. 57 Navia, 2007, p. 74. 58 Montuori, 1984. 59 Nails, 2009; Janko, 2009. 60 Dunn, 2005, p. 168. 61 Navia, 2007, chap. 2. 62 Dunn, 2005. 63 Russell, 1945, p. 82. 64 Lacey, 1971, p. 49. 65 Meier, 1991, chap. 2; Theien & Merz, 1996, 2.2; Dunn, 2003, 7.4. 66 Wright, 1996, p. 48. 67 Copleston, 1946, 18.2; Navia, 2007, Chap. 4; Rowe, 2009. 68 Dorion, 2009; Rowe, 2009. 69 Rowe, 2009. 70 Dorion, 2009. 71 Meier, 2005. 72 See e.g., Symposium 221d, Gorgias 494d, Phaedrus 229c.