Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Socrates (469-399 BCE)

If you saw him on the street you’d probably cross to the other side. He had a donkey’s lips, and crabs’ eyes. He was averse to bathing. Often he had his “posse”: youths whose minds he stirred with anti-establishment stirrings. And yet before him, there was nothing; while after him, there’s all of Western philosophy. Not bad for someone whose life would end, before long, with some large gulps of poison.

How did Socrates do it? He himself wrote nothing, but his student Plato wrote lots -- long dialogues in which Socrates would challenge self-proclaimed “experts” -- about politics, or love, or justice -- and by asking them pointed questions would show that they actually knew nothing -- all the while humbly protesting that at least he himself knew that he knew nothing. When asked why he did this, his famous answer was that the unexamined life is simply not worth living.

With hindsight it seems inevitable that Socrates would end up on the receiving end of some poisonous hemlock. The official charges were believing in false gods and corrupting the youth. But the real offense was being a royal pain-in-the-neck. Yet his practice in life and dignified bearing in death have invited comparisons to great religious figures. And so the question for any student of philosophy is not so much “What did Socrates believe?” -- but rather something we should see on a lot more bumper stickers: “What would Socrates do?”