The Thinker 115
Of course Socrates cannot answer any of these diffi cult questions
either, or so he indicates. But at least he knows that he cannot do
so. Socrates is unsure what justice and Truth and beauty are, but
he knows what it is he doesn’t know. Unlike Socrates, his fellow cit-
izens believe that they know things that they do not—so they are
constantly in a state of error. (As the old American slave adage goes:
“It’s not that there’s so much we don’t know; it’s that most of what
we do know ain’t so.”) Socrates may be in a condition of ignorance,
but he’s not ignorant and self- deluded.
It’s clear that Socrates never quite stops searching for someone
who is truly wise. He traverses Athens taking one person after an-
other by the collar and questioning him as to why he lives the way
he does. In time, a group of young men begins to follow him, taking
delight in his enquiries and examinations. Socrates, it turns out at
his trial, thinks of his task quite seriously. He compares himself to
a gadfl y who lives to sting a lazy thoroughbred horse— the city of
Athens. He has always gone about his business with the per sis tence
of a buzzing fl y, whether Athens has swatted him aside time after
time or not. A stinging fl y is nothing if not per sis tent. If he is judged
innocent, Socrates tells the court, he will go back to doing what he
has always done. His vocation comes from the gods, and it would
be a crime not to follow it.
He goes so far as to compare himself to the man he calls Thetis’s
son. Achilles was born to be a hero, born to fi ght, born to distin-
guish himself at arms. It would be impious for him to leave the
battlefi eld and walk off and live a calm, prosperous life. Just so, it
appears to Socrates that he was born to ask questions and to help his
fellow citizens refl ect on how to live as they should. The comparison
to Achilles is startling, for by making it Socrates is claiming that the
life he lives— the phi los o pher’s life—is as im por tant as the life of the
warrior.