Socrates’ Motives
As a young man, Socrates was merely carrying on a long-standing tradition of reflection. For he was wonderfully desirous of that wisdom called, already, “inquiry concerning nature” (96a5–7, compare Laws 891b8–c9), which is said to go back to Thales.1 He desired this wisdom2 or this natural science, as we may also call it, as wonderfully as he did not for its own sake but because (96a7) of his opinion that it was “magnificent” or “overweening” to possess it, that is, to know the causes of each thing. Still, the young Socrates’ desire to know cannot be reduced altogether to this opinion, which stems from a desire on his part for something other than knowledge.3 His desire to know was indeed, at the outset, complicated or adulterated by the admixture of another desire, a desire for whatever was magnificent in his opinion. But had it not happened to seem magnificent to him to possess it, the young Socrates might still have desired such knowledge (on its own account), only not so wonderfully. That is to say, his unadulterated desire to know would perhaps be unencumbered by wonder. And Socrates’ well-known suggestion in the Theaetetus, that “this experience, wondering, belongs very much to the philosopher,” supports this. “For,” he goes on to say, by way of qualification, “there is no other beginning of philosophy than this” (155d2–4).4
The Uncertainty of Natural Science
Socrates goes on to cast light on the sort of things he used to examine as a result of his wonderful desire to acquire natural science by citing three or four examples. Before doing so, however, he gives the first of many indications that natural science is not free from difficulties. For the way in which he “frequently threw himself back and forth” in the course of the examinations he undertook in order to acquire it suggests that the results of those examinations fell somewhat short, at the very least, of complete certainty (compare 96a9–b1 with 90b9–c6). At most, inasmuch as their results evidently fell short of such certainty as would be incompatible with any ongoing vacillation or wavering in their regard, the examinations themselves could well appear Sisyphean. Among other things, the young Socrates vacillated or wavered as to whether it is “blood” or “air” or “fire” by means of which human beings think (96b4), or even whether it is “none of these things, but the brain” from which knowledge comes to be (96b4–5). His wavering or disagreement with himself on these matters as well as others foreshadows the fact that while all natural scientists believe there is “an Atlas”—a fixed and necessary being (108e5–109a2, 99b8) at the bottom of all things, a being they believe they will discover at some time (99c1–6)—they disagree with one another (within certain limits: 99c1–3) about what that being is, for instance, whether it is “vortex” (99b7) or “air” (99b8). For some reason, the natural scientists seem to be unable to reach a consensus. Could it be that the ultimate subject matter of natural science—defined provisionally as the cause or causes of generation and corruption (compare 95e10 with 96a8–9)—cannot in the last analysis be known with complete certainty? And if that knowledge remains uncertain or tentative, could it be that it remains exposed to endless revision or disagreement as well?
However that may be, the young Socrates’ vacillation as to the nature of the body (“blood” or “air” or “fire”) responsible for thought or knowledge in human beings (96b4) was very different from his wavering as to whether what was responsible for this was in fact “none of these things, but the brain” (96b4–5). For his wavering pertained in the first case to the nature of the matter (“blood” or “air” or “fire”) by virtue of which the compounds made out of it (“we [human beings]”) acquire a characteristic or power of their very own (“who are thoughtful”). In the second case, however, he vacillated as to this: whether that matter—whatever its nature or form may be—which gives to the compounds made out of it (human beings) some characteristic or power of their very own (thought or knowledge) is to be regarded as a whole in its own right (as “the brain” is); or whether, insofar as it is the matter (that is, “the blood”) of the very matter in question (“the brain”) that does this, that matter too (“the brain”) is to be regarded as a mere compound.
These examples of the two kinds of vacillation or wavering that Socrates was liable to as a young natural scientist, the only ones he specifies here, have far-reaching implications. Indeed, if they did not have sources embedded in natural science itself they would have no place here. Still, it remains to be seen what those might be. It will have to suffice for now to assert, and as we proceed to bear the possibility in mind, that while the first kind of vacillation will prove to stem from one of the difficulties that eventually made Socrates turn away from natural science, the second will prove to stem from another difficulty.
Natural Science at a Glance
After having cast a shadow of doubt over the possibility of natural science, Socrates gives a brief report of the makeup of the examinations entailed by it. But in keeping with the fact that their results remained uncertain or merely tentative, Socrates presents those examinations in the form of unanswered questions. What he says to begin with is that as a young natural scientist he examined “first” (96b1) the cause or causes through which animals come to be in general (96b2–3), and through which thoughtfulness (96b4) or knowledge (96b5–9) comes to be in human beings in particular. He expected to find the cause or causes which organize the animals, in all their complexity, in a specific blend of nonliving things or bodies (“some putrefaction”), on one hand, and the mindless changes or motions to which they are subject (“the hot and the cold”), on the other. As for how human beings, alone of all animals, come to be thoughtful, he expected to find the cause or causes of this in one or another simple body or matter (“blood” or “air” or “fire”). But as an alternative to this (96b4–5) he wondered whether it was not in fact some other more complex body or matter out of which our thought or knowledge comes into being (“the brain”). Then or “in turn,” after having examined in this manner the coming to be of these things, the young Socrates examined their perishing, too, presumably into the very matter from which they originally came to be (96b9). Finally, as if by the way, he adds that he examined the qualities of heaven and earth too (96b9–c1).
And with that addition, the objects of the young Socrates’ examinations, as he presents them here, fall into a certain order. Animals in general and human beings in particular depend on heaven and earth, which must be there before the former can come to be and which may perhaps remain even after they perish (Laws 889b1–d4). If the young Socrates examined each thing in light of its roots, and the roots of each thing in light of its roots, and so on, he would have been naturally led in the end from the examination of the coming to be and perishing of animals and human beings to the examination of heaven and earth. As the comprehensive and perhaps eternal order within which those transitory things come and go, heaven and earth would have soon become the favored objects of a young natural scientist’s examinations. And yet, precisely if this is so, the fact that Socrates gives to the favored objects of his youthful examinations such slight attention here must come as a surprise. But his reserve is clarified by and it clarifies in turn exactly what it was that, as a young natural scientist, he thought about the roots of (the qualities of) heaven and earth. For reserve would have been called for if Socrates, in his youth, thought such things about the whole or its roots as were at odds with piety.5 And had the young Socrates ascribed to the roots of heaven and earth the same soulless, mindless, or “Epimethean” (Protagoras 320c6ff., 361c2–d5) character he evidently ascribed to everything else—including even “soul” itself (96b4, 96b5–9)6—would his outlook not have been an impious one?7 How can blind necessities (108e5–109a2) such as “vortex” (99b7) or “air” (99b8) truly replace Zeus as “king”?8 Now, Socrates has already admitted, in effect, that the impression he gave at his trial, that is, that he was never, “ever” engaged in natural science, was a misleading one (Apology 19a8–d6). But has the report of his engagement with it that he allows himself to give here not also served to corroborate or confirm Meletus’ allegation that at some point in the past, if not also at present, he did not believe that the sun and the moon are gods but rather that the sun is stone and the moon is earth
