Socrates in love: who actually laid the foundations of Western philosophy

Dear women! Congratulations on International Women's Day and finally spring.

Although I was a little late with congratulations, I think I will be forgiven. And as a gift, I offer a translation of an article on the role of women in history ...

Where did Socrates, the founder of Western philosophy, get inspiration for his original ideas about truth, love, justice, courage and knowledge? A new study that I conducted shows that, as a young man in the 5th century BC. e. In Athens, he communicated with an extremely intelligent woman, Aspasia of Miletus. I affirm that her ideas of love and excellence inspired him to formulate key aspects of his ideas, as Plato conveyed.

If the evidence for this thesis is accepted, a serious revolution awaits the history of philosophy: a woman who has been almost erased from history should be recognized as the founder of our 2500-year-old philosophical tradition.

The painting of the nineteenth-century neoclassicist artist Nicolas Monceau depicts Socrates sitting at a table opposite the luxuriously dressed, gesturing Aspazia. A beautiful young soldier Alcibiades looks at her. The image captures the standard view of Socrates: poor and ugly. The son of a mason, from middle age he was known for walking without shoes and wearing torn clothes.

Fig_1. The debate of Socrates and Aspazia.

But Socrates also, according to Plato, was taught eloquence by Aspazia, who for more than ten years was the companion of the leading statesman Athens Pericles. Presumably a highly educated “courtesan,” Aspasia is depicted in a painting listing moments of conversation on her fingers. Her gaze is directed at the aristocratic youth Alcibiades, who was a pupil of Pericles, and probably the great-granddaughter of Aspazia. According to Socrates, she was fascinated by the beauty and charisma of Alcibiades, and, as described in the Platonic dialogue at the symposium, he saved her life at the battle of Potidea in 432 BC.

Is this picture true of Socrates? His main biographers, Plato and Xenophon, knew him only as an elderly person. But Socrates was once young, and was a direct contemporary of Aspazia. And the preserved descriptions of the philosopher, rare information is given by his biographers, and the ancient written texts, which were generally ignored or misinterpreted, draw a different view of Socrates: this is a well-educated young man who grew up to become no less brave a soldier than Alcibiades, and passionate lover of both sexes, no less intense thinker and debater.

Fig_2. Socrates found Alcibiades in the house of Aspazia.

Diotima / Aspasia

Socrates is known for saying: “The only thing I know is that I don’t know anything.” But Plato, in a symposium (199b), says that he learned the “truth about love” from a skilled woman. That woman received the name “Diotima” - and at the symposium Socrates expounds her teachings.

Scientists almost universally reject Diotima as fiction. In the dialogue, she is described as a priestess or prophet and is considered at best an allegorical figure - spiritualization or diviner of wisdom that could dedicate a thinker, such as Socrates, into the secrets of love. But Plato leaves some curiously accurate clues about the personality of Diotima, which until now have never been clarified. In my book, I present evidence that Diotima is in fact a thinly veiled disguise for Aspasia.

Aspasia came from a high-born Athenian family, akin to the Pericles family, who settled several decades earlier in the Greek city of Miletus in Ionia (Asia Minor). When she moved to Athens around 450 BC, she was about 20 years old. Socrates then was also about 20 years old.

A few years later Aspazia became attached to Pericles, who at that time was a leading politician in Athens - and already twice her age. But Aristotle’s pupil, Clearch, notes that “before Aspasia became the companion of Pericles, she was with Socrates.” This is consistent with other evidence that Socrates was part of Pericles's entourage in his youth. He would surely have known Aspasia in that setting.

Fig_3. Socrates, Pericles, Alcibiades, Aspasia at the debate.

Given that in his youth he was part of this privileged elite, what prompted Socrates to turn to the existence of the mind, to shun material success and to reorient the philosophical thinking of the next generation? No one ever tried to trace the path of young Socrates, because biographical sources are rare and fragmentary, and it seems that little is said about his thinking. But since Socrates became well known in Athens as a philosopher by his thirty years, we must look for evidence of changes in his direction of becoming as a thinker, which he became in an earlier period. I affirm that the acquaintance of Socrates with Aspasia is this missing link.

Aspasia was the smartest and most influential woman of her time. The companion of Pericles for about 15 years, she was widely slandered and insulted by comic playwrights, tabloid journalists of that time, for her influence on him. Part of the circle of thinkers, artists and politicians of Pericles, she is portrayed by Plato, Xenophon and others as a revered mentor of eloquence, as well as a procurator and marriage counselor.

In the dialogue of Plato Menexenus, she describes how she taught Socrates to give a funeral speech, just as she supposedly once taught Pericles. In other words, she was known for her ability to speak and, like “Diotima,” in particular, to talk about love.

Is Socrates in love?

Yes. Could Socrates and Aspazia fall in love with each other when they first met and talked in their twenties? The fact that Plato endowed Aspasia with significant intellectual authority over Socrates alarmed generations of scientists who largely rejected Menexen's version as a parody of oratory.

Meanwhile, they were happy to consider Aspazia the owner of the brothel and a prostitute based on quotes from comic poets of the time. In the best case, scientists raised Aspasia to the status of a getter , a courtesan. However, this term has been given to her more than once in ancient sources.

If we accept the evidence that Aspazia was, like Diotima, an authoritative mentor of eloquence and an expert on love issues, and not an ordinary prostitute or even an influential courtesan, an amazing opportunity arises. The concepts attributed to the symposium “Diotime” occupy a central place in philosophy, as well as the lifestyle that Socrates should adhere to.

Fig_4. Socrates.

The doctrine embedded in the mouth of “Diotima” teaches that the material world can and should be put aside in favor of higher ideals; that the education of the soul, and not the satisfaction of the body, is the highest duty of love; and that particularity should be subordinated to generality, temporary to the permanent, and material to the ideal.

These ideas can be recognized as the basis of Western philosophical tradition. If so, then the definition of the fictional “Diotima” as a real Aspasia leads to a historically sensational conclusion. Looking back, it can be said that this identification is so obvious that the refusal to see it clearly so far may perhaps be attributed to conscious or unconscious prejudices regarding the status and intellectual abilities of women.

It is time to restore the beautiful, dynamic and smart Aspasia to its true status as one of the founders of European philosophy.