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How Did Socrates Become So Wise? · The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: What comes up when you share that is my kind of image of someone who's deep in f in the philosophical way of life, obviously there's exceptions, but generally likes things and ideas and to kind of stick to their own crowd and read, whereas Socrates seems to love other human beings.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's a hard person to categorize, but I get that feeling from him.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: To me, is that he comes across as someone who has a very profound love of human nature and and human and beings.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Man, he loves he wants to spend all of his time around people.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: He just wants to talk to people all day long.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I keep telling people he reminds me of Jimi Hendrix, and I mean that quite seriously.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Although again, it sounds like I'm joking, right?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because Jimi Hendrick woke up in the morning, Jimi Hendrix went to bed with his guitar and his bed.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: He woke up in the morning, strapped his guitar on and started fra cooking his breakfast wearing his guitar.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: He went to lavatory wearing his guitar, allegedly.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: So psychologists call that time on task.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: He just had his guitar on all the time, right?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how Socrates is portrayed.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: He just did philosoph he didn't have a job, right?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: He used to possibly used to be a stonemason, and then we're told that he quit doing that and so that he could just dedicate his life to doing philosophy.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he just he just got up every morning and just did philosophy all day long, even with you know random people that he would encounter.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: So that means because he's using this questioning method, he's constantly honing his critical thinking skills all day long, every day.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and can you it's inconceivable.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like no one would do that.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Our culture doesn't really admit of that today.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: So to imagine what a guy would be like, he'll literally just spent all day every day.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we read these things in the ancient sources, and uh classicists will always tell us we can't take this too literally, you know.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Plato and Xenophon seem to be portraying Socrates in a somewhat semi-fictional way.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um but no one ever really disputes that you know, no one ever says Socrates didn't spend all day doing philosophy.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's ridiculous.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it seems to be generally accepted that that's a plausible portrayal of him.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um so he was uh he might he was definitely the Greeks refer to him as uh being a uh having a great soul.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's a term that they use, Megalosukia, um, which means having literally means having a big psyche or big soul.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's a uh towering character, like a unique individual, like in his era.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So normally that term that's a term is used for great military commanders and famous politicians, you know.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: But Socrates was one of these standout individuals, you know, he must have had incredible charisma in a in a peculiar kind of way.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and people say that when they met him, like it was you know uh a very kind of profound experience, but some people hated him as well.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, he was executed, he was placed on trial for corrupting the youth and impiety and forced to drink uh hemlock when he was about 71, 72 years old.