Lingering issues undercut ‘Questions of Socrates’

Six Questions of Socrates

A Modern-day Journey of Discovery Through World Philosophy

Christopher Phillips

W.W. Norton: 320 pp., $23.95

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Today, some lament, the unraveling of the traditional moral fibers holding our families and communities together continues. And some of the blame is surely placed upon the counter-influential forces of television, videos and other hedonistic media that can bend and alter human behavior. Is there any hope of a remedy to our ongoing social ills? Christopher Phillips thinks there is a remedy, supplied by a 2,500-year-old figure, the Greek philosopher Socrates.

In “Socrates Cafe” and now “Six Questions of Socrates,” Phillips attempts to make this ancient teacher, who never wrote anything down (thank goodness for Plato, who did), relevant to our world and needs. A self-anointed Socratic follower, Phillips surveys the world’s religions and philosophies, from Buddhism and Christianity to Navajo spirituality and ancient Greek thought, to answer six questions: What is virtue? What is moderation? What is justice? What is good? What is courage? What is piety?

“Wherever I go,” Phillips writes, “I’ve been asking six questions asked by the historical Socrates.... By doing so, I’ve taken for my own his quest to discover more about the nature ... of human excellence.”

His style is conversational as he leads discussions with various people, creating an overall effect of a Socratic dialogue. But Phillips’ actions and what Socrates did are quite different in their scope and especially in their ethos. Phillips’ dialogue is global, inclusive of all ages and walks of life, and open-ended. Socrates, who lived between 470 and 399 BC, was confined to Athens, and his Herculean labors had a very definite goal of improving the souls of whomever he met (but especially the politicians and the poets). Eventually, these two groups brought dubious charges against him, leading to his martyrdom with the infamous cup of hemlock.

Although the book’s title includes the name Socrates, Phillips doesn’t treat deeply the highlights of this magnificent man. It was Plato who exalted Socrates as pure and simple, imbibed in truth, setting aside the comforts of life, caring only for virtue and willing to sacrifice his life in this pursuit. “I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own,” Socrates says in Plato’s “Apology,” “but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.” Such humility, also found in writings about his trial and death, offer an example of dignity and heroism that society could benefit from.

But unfortunately, for all of his intentions, Phillips’ mixture of philosophy with conversation only seems to scratch the surface. Taking on the formidable universal moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, for instance, Phillips writes: “Your actions should be based only on maxims that you would like to see become universal laws.” But this is different from Kant’s own words: “So act only according to your own maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should be a universal law.” Phillips’ “like to see” is not the same as Kant’s “will that it should be,” which suggests the perils of oversimplifying complex principles in the hope of reaching more readers.

Elsewhere Phillips’ facts are incorrect: He refers to Confucius having “witnessed the collapse of the ruling Chou Dynasty” even though Confucius died about 479 BC and the Chou Dynasty ended about 249 BC. Confucius had been dead for about 230 years.

Such lapses should be troubling to any student of philosophy even if there are still some valuable insights to be gained from “Six Questions of Socrates.” Phillips’ visit to a Navajo reservation, for instance, is refreshing and enlightening in its discussion of the Native American concept of hozho, or beauty, harmony and order. The description of hozho and its opposite, hochxo, in fact, are comparable to the yin and yang elaborated on throughout Laotzu’s “Tao-te ching” (a source that Phillips, however, overlooks).

Ultimately, “Six Questions of Socrates” promises much more than it delivers, raising issues and ideas but without a deeper exploration. For a newcomer to philosophy, this might be OK. For other readers, fortunately, the spirit of Socrates’ life lives on throughout history in Plato’s writings.