Proceedings of the 7th International Scientific Conference Rural Development 2015
Edited by prof. Asta Raupelienė
ISSN 1822-3230 / eISSN 2345-0916
eISBN 978-609-449-092-7
Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2015.112
SOCRATES AND KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOCIETY, OR RURAL TRACE IN
THE DIALOGUE CULTURE
Edvardas ČIULDĖ, Department of Philosophy, Psychology and Vocational Education Science, The Centre of Cultural
Communication and Education, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Universiteto g. 10, Akademija LT–53361, Kauno raj., Lithuania,
[email protected]
Asta STEIKŪNIENĖ, Department of Philosophy, Psychology and Vocational Education Science, The Centre of Cultural
Communication and Education, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Universiteto g. 10, Akademija LT–53361, Kauno raj., Lithuania,
[email protected] (corresponding author)
Knowledge is the engine of change in every society, and within this structure, training of philosophical perception is essential. This
article analyses how modern philosophical education is compatible with the ideal of knowledge society – how teaching material changes
when knowledge becomes a commodity. The article searches for parallels between the opposition among the sophists and Socrates and
the modern day approach to fostering a culture of dialogue, focusing on knowledge and innovation society.
Keywords: knowledge, dialogue, sophistry, creativity, self-conscious, Socrates.
INTRODUCTION
Knowledge and innovation are treated as inseparable concepts in modern society. However, such aspirations and ideals
of public, although once appeared as an illusion, a mirage, are based on the absoluteness of Socratic knowing and giving sense
to his ideas. Nowadays, it is clear that knowledge is the source of the highest-quality power and is the key for the future.
It is understood that such a parallel immediately raises grave doubts. Could there be something more incredible
than an attempt to link philosophical school of Athens of the ancient Greek with modern times which main identity is the
ideal of knowledge society, even if we pay tribute to a thinker whose suggestion transcends his time? The distance or it
even could be said – abyss, is not the most discomposed element of the imagination when one tries to compare concepts
mentioned in the title. The more important fact is related with widely known saying of Socrates: "I know that I know
nothing, and Protagoras does not even know this”; the saying is fixed in the memory of his epoch for its deep paradox,
and at first glance looks diametrically opposite to the subject of this article. As one can easily predict, this statement of
Socrates is known for everybody, even if a person knows nothing more about Socrates and is not particularly bothered
about the destiny and survival of philosophy in the Western culture’s transformation.
Does the understanding of one’s ignorance is also a message of some kind (even a particular message), or whether
the awareness of meaningful factual givens is a fact of epistemological sequence? Maybe the opponent of Socrates,
Protagoras, was nearer the ideal of knowledge – he who refused to swear the love for wisdom and called himself “wise
man” and sophist?
All modern authors agree that future belongs to the people endowed with knowledge. The issue of knowledge
society is discussed from different points, views and positions during last decades. George Siemens, an educator and
researcher on learning, in his book “Knowing knowledge” (2006) defined our being as existence in a knowing era, because
of focusing our works and lives on creation and application of knowledge. The author explored theoretical views of
knowing and learning, emphasizing the changes of knowing from categorization and hierarchies to network and ecology.
He gave a useful remark on the nature of knowledge, reminding us that all knowledge is information, but not all
information is knowledge. The researcher raises an interesting question – why did so many things in our society look as
it was already done in the past, like a deja vu? In particular, this applies to the area of education, where we can observe
succession and continuity of Socratic Method. The article of David R. Knox “Socrates: The First Professor” (1998)
proposes Socrates as archetype of educator, as well as an analysis of his career, character and teaching methods. The
author hopes that the example of Socrates can inspire our teaching today because of his dialectic method being
indispensable as powerful pedagogical tool. No wonder Socrates’ contemporaries, Plato (2009) and Xenophon (1997),
admired their teacher, though portrayed him differently.
Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Aleksandras Stulginskis University. This is an open-access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Proceedings of the 7th International Scientific Conference Rural Development 2015
The emergence of sophists in ancient Greece and the beginning of knowledge era commercialization marks the
advent of urban civilization. However, by mentioning this fact we do not claim nor suggest that the biggest critic of the
sophists – Socrates – was a representative of rural culture. More likely it is so that Socrates is a representative of more
universal things than urban culture, which allows not to scatter oneself in the rush of the world. Conversely, it enables to
stop once in a while. Naturally, here we speak about the earth principle in a Heidegerian meaning of the word, which is
emphasized in his Dispute between Earth and the World (Heidegger, 2003). It is possible to put such a man in comparison
with rural environment only because former invites to cultivate one’s conscious as thoroughly a farmer takes care of his
crop. Moreover, it is possible to observe that the farmer knows better what he does not know than the arrogant urban
dweller (even it if not possible to confirm this via statistical research).
The aim of the article is to draw attention to the collisions of ancient philosophical thought (during the conflict of
Socrates and sophists), which are important not only as excesses of former times, but as the starting point to identify the most
important cultural contradictions and greatest challenges of our time, and to assess how the task of modern philosophical
education is in line with the ideals of knowledge society. The object of this article is the historical precedent of clash between
Socrates and the sophists and the reiteration of this in contemporary university studies. If we are to make this point of analyses
and insights of Socrates more relevant to modern times, it becomes obvious that usual methods of historical comparison
and critical analysis of texts will be not sufficient, since Socrates didn’t leave any written texts. Some modern authors note
the utilization of knowledge today, when they are common denominated of mere economic instrumentalism (Delanty, 2001).
Socrates model could be a pretext to reveal spiritual lesson in modern days, a lesson which has been accumulated
throughout history, and could be even treated as “a door-knock to the future”. In that case, a methodological line drawn
by Wilhelm Dilthey is of great importance, which obligates so-called spiritual sciences to rely on methodological
procedure of understanding, in contrast to natural sciences with their prevailing method of explanation. The guiding task
of understanding from methodological point of view is to overcome the exteriority of object, trying to grasp the essence
of subject within; the natural science always is based on nature, as a never insurmountable external factor to inwards of a
man. However, the article focuses on negotiation of the subject-object distinction in methodological way of hermeneutics;
it is possible to use another point of view, moving in the same methodological paradigm, but the opposite direction, trying
to peek into our times with eyes borrowed from Socrates'. However, today we can rely on the hermeneutic method,
purified by such authority of philosophy as Martin Heidegger (Heidegger, 1992, 2014). Hans-Georg Gadamer notes that
those who have a language have the world itself (Gadamer, 1999). Jean Grondin, professor of Montreal and Ottawa
universities, presents hermeneutic philosophy from antiquity to the present day (Grondin, 2003).
By entering the topic of Socrates in such an unusual context, we are taking responsibility for the risk of this test
and do not hide behind the shadow of well-known standing. Undoubtedly, the most authoritative witness of Socrates life
is Plato with his dialogues, or, in other words, philosophical drama, whose main character is Socrates. However, here we
care about the real, historic Socrates and the example of his life and teachings, not Socrates as a character of Plato's
dialogues, where Socrates often becomes the face mask of Plato; one must only remember the problem of distinction
between these levels, where basis for us is the same textual analysis of masterful Plato's dialogues.
The reference “example of Socrates life and teachings“ does not challenge the simple fact that Socrates was not
so famous by any training in rigorous sense of the word, how famous were his attempts of calling people to seek truth by
themselves, supporting each other in such a process. But Socrates' life and, if you like, death is an example and lesson of
fidelity to the truth which meaning was never completely decrypted.
THE NEGATIVE AURA OF THE WORD "SOPHIST" AND IDEAL OF A DIALOGUE
The emergence of sophists and the birth of sophistry at 5th century BC in ancient Greek for a long time were
considered as an evident phenomena of a decline in philosophy. It was treated as internal event of philosophy which
distorts the idea of the right path, leads to mistakes and is an establishment of trivial brain. In turn, the history of greatest
critic of the Sophists life – Socrates – is used as an example of fidelity to the truth. Sometimes Socrates is exalted like a
living icon of philosophy and even called the pagan Christ.
Today, the word "sophist" is widely used beyond the limits of philosophy and assumes, in its common sense,
additional negative connotations. Nowadays, sometimes the word "sophist” is seen as the synonym of the word
"demagogue", and at best, “the sophist” may be called a man who has the gift of eloquence, but also is a professional in
equilibristic of words and amateur of logical tricks; he does not care about the truth, and the most important goal for him
is to suggest the choices that benefit only him as our common interest.
Why has the negative aura formed around the word "sophist"? Maybe Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, as well as other
followers of classical philosophy were exaggerating showing their distaste to the content of sophists‘ training and,
especially, to their manner? Who was a sophist in this reality of the fifth century BC in Athens and throughout ancient
Greece – a human type which embodied the epoch identity and witnessed it himself?
“Sophist” was a public teacher, and the emergence of sophistry movement forced the appearance of philosophy in
the public life of society. Philosophy left the closed schools and went to the market square. A fundamental change must
be noted – knowledge begins to turn into commodity and this transformation altered the nature and content of education.
In addition, it caused decisive changes in the field of pedagogical ideas, though usually poorly reflected. The most
important consequence of such knowledge transformation is the guidance of knowledge and education to utilitarian
direction; benefit of knowledge often has been assessed higher truth, which, in turn, is important itself, rather than any
potential or applied value.
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Proceedings of the 7th International Scientific Conference Rural Development 2015
Sophists’ appearance during the fifth century BC identified the universality of education which Greek society at that
time acquired. In fact, the sophists were the first Western-style teachers, so certainly all the blame and criticism for sophists
easily can be directed to Western educational system in general. As G.W.F Hegel aptly observed in his famous writing
“Lecture on the History of Philosophy”, the challenge the sophists posed for themselves was to provide people with better
education. They deserved a lot in this respect and if we were to accuse them for some things, one needs to accuse education
in general. Moreover, the vision of University, which is now enshrined in the Lisbon Strategy documents and causes the
higher commercialization of the University, is nothing more than an extreme obligation in favour of sophistry or even
unmatched triumph of hyper-sophistry. On the other hand, there always is a place for discussions regarding new educational
alternatives and sometimes such task of modernization forces to remember the old forgotten, but good examples.
It is important to assess the teaching opportunities, suggested by Socrates’ example as alternative to sophistry in the
epoch when human education seeks to focus on serviceable knowledge. Of course, the teachers of special subjects must think
about various alternatives with caution and do not foster the process artificially; but teachers and lecturers of philosophy
sometimes must give pause and discuss if their truly follow Socrates example and do not go by beaten tracks of sophists.
However, the question is what example of Socrates we should try to remember or, at least, pretend to remember.
Socrates established the dialogue as norm and model of Western philosophy in all aspects of his life and teachings.
Striking the ideal of dialogue, the lectures of philosophy at a modern university have to be something like a chess game, where
the white figure (teacher) starts and the black one wins (students). The fact is that all the moves in chess game are described
and tested for thousands of times, and teacher’s steps in the game are reflected too. However, any preconceived theory cannot
replace unique face to face experience, while the principal chance of veering the game to unexpected direction exists
The task to foster dialogue as the form of a philosophy lecture reveals the different ways and, especially, the
meaningfulness of high-tech use in a process of philosophical education. Technologies are seen as an indicator of progress
during learning process, but such a model may be more harmful than beneficial to the philosophy lecture, as causing the
greatest threat to the development of the dialogue. Despite today's view regarding modern technologies in the teaching
and learning processes, the use of multimedia in this particular situation – studies of philosophy – should be viewed with
extreme caution; even more, it could refused as a method of teaching since it maybe facilitates awareness, but is
destructive in terms of specific dialogue culture during philosophy. Naturally, after this explanation it is easy to attack
the authors of this article and mockingly ask them – do you offer to bring back the times when there teachers walking
around villages and teaching children in secret? No, definitely not. However, this phenomenon in the history of Lithuania
is not as unimportant as it may seem to a modern technology-armed teacher. This archaic example is valuable in a way
that it epitomizes an example of individual communication – what we nowadays lack in a university.
The aim to cherish a dialogue culture requires the teacher of philosophy to be: a) unarmed, b) hermeneutic, c) nonepistemological.
“Unarmed” here means the refusal of all consciousness enabling technologies. Living linguistic expression is the
biggest booster of thought, and additional measures only deform the thought and block dialogue. Socrates and Plato
repeatedly drew attention to the fact that it is impossible to convey philosophy in writing, even more controversial is
philosophy teaching in all forms of visualization and attempt of graphic depiction. Hermeneutical attitude here means a
willingness to see the world through the eyes of the dialogue partner.
The principle of non-epistemology means that philosophy does not construe scientific knowledge as science does;
science usually performs deconstruction of living reality. Philosophy does not cognize but helps a person to recognize
unbroken shape of scientific knowledge – what is closest to him and the most remote, which is his “self”, being, God.
Philosophy or theory in its primordial meaning of the word is “uninterested monitoring of the reality and fostering of
the truth”. Moreover, it could be said that philosophy tends to challenge the concept of such university type, where the
University itself is treated only as makeweight of production. Paraphrasing Joseph Pieper, a famous German philosopher of
XX century, who awakened the spirit of Western society, philosophy is an act that goes beyond the limits of the pure working
world. The difference between philosophy and the working world is essential condition of philosophical culture preservation.
The question which logically arises in similar situation is – does such an understanding of philosophy fit or is it compatible
with knowledge ideals cherished in non-humanitarian faculties of universities? Finally, a discussion focuses on the
deliberation how we can use the dialogue theory, or, in other words, how Socratic approach enables us to solve this collision.
ASYMMETRY OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN PROFILED UNIVERSITIES AND
NON-HUMANITARIAN FACULTIES
It is often required to adapt the philosophy studies to the specificity of faculty or even to a specific field of study.
This requirement sometimes appears in even more formalized form, as the lecturer’s task is to describe the need of
philosophy in the form of syllabus. On the other hand, such a requirement may be forced again, often using indirect forms.
However, it is easy to imagine that too zealous, literal execution of this precept inevitably leads to a cartoonish teaching
of philosophy and serves as propagation of some falsification type.
Hence, there is a need to overcome the practice of multiplying the falsification and to loudly declare that due to
the nature of philosophy itself, the subject cannot be fully integrated into specialty programs, which means that any
attempt to integrate the philosophy courses in specific studies is not needed; perhaps it is more important to try to
understand the necessity of philosophy as additional factor of education and as disclosure of human nature versatility, as
well as kind of counterpoint to specialty studies too. The word "counterpoint" we perceive as a term of musical theory,
denoting the ability to harmonize dissonances, to enter into a whole different sounding melodic lines and highlight the
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Proceedings of the 7th International Scientific Conference Rural Development 2015
contrast within the harmony. Just the way to understand philosophy can allow achieving its mission and becoming a
useful and necessary for the public, helping to establish a dialogue between people of different educational type in their
discussions on key issues of cultural identity and human existence.
It should be noted that philosophy must help to discover a new understanding about the Earth especially for the
students of agriculture. The earth should not be understood only as a material for agricultural exploitation and financial
manipulation. Not disregarding the earth’s image as food provider, it is also important to value it as a source for wisdom
and humanitarian knowledge. As it was once noted, “consumerism can block the consciousness, so the people would not
value the Earth neither as an inspiration, nor as a basis for meaning of life, which changes history to destiny, and gives
substantiality to the truth. Earth is an element of being” (Čiuldė, 2013, p.19).
CORRECTING THE IDEAL OF KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY: ORIENTATION TO CREATIVITY AND
SELF-AWARENESS TASKS
Nowadays it is quite clear that the straightforward orientation towards knowledge-based society does not meet the
maximalist ambitions, and in some cases can lead society to mistaken paths. No one denies the importance of knowledge
and education in society, however, together we begin to understand that the greatest vitality in the future that the society
will focus will be the ability generate knowledge, and encourage and foster creative human imagination in new forms of
consciousness. It must be a society which will be not limited by inertia of only scientific consciousness and skills to
improve knowledge, often applying them blindly, and stressing the importance of knowledge exclusively on their applied
value. At this angle of assessment, a critical inventory of the situation and attempts to provide a breakthrough in the
direction of the knowledge society shows that it should be avoided simply by mapping of the knowledge and information
society, despite the well-known fact that basic tools of knowledge society today are perfected tools of information and
communication technologies.
Information society could easily be renamed a “disinformation society”, imagining how it is easy today to multiply
the lie deliberately in so-called information wars or unconsciously “sink” the human consciousness by an uncontrolled
flow of information.
Socrates was the first thinker in Western tradition who saw a big risk of information surge and an increasing
upgrade of universal education, where the self- consciousness of humans rises during the process of knowledge acquisition
by consciousness. It was obvious to Socrates that the information can be more or less meaningful only if it is consistent
with the skills of thinking that are not like the information acquisition source.
It is regrettable that famous Socratic saying "I know that I know nothing, and Protagoras does not even know this"
is usually understood as a play of words, interesting only as an example of oral equilibristic, in other words, as
sophistry – demonstrating the possibilities of the word plastic. But, in fact, the affirmation of Socrates is that knowledge
starts with perceived fact of our ignorance. This knowing is of great importance when one lives in the society of universal
education, choosing and selecting the priorities of life in the environment of superfluous information noise. On the other
hand, it is even more important to note that Socrates affirmation is a kind of postulate of human self-awareness.
The famous thinker of antiquity is noted as a master of dialogue development; his questions had helped a person
to understand the alleged character of their previous knowledge, its incompleteness and conditionality. The man was
encouraged to seek more meaningful, problematic responses and was forced to think about his own thinking and to
ask – “why do I persistently keep to this approach, rather than the other, during discussions with people who hold different
opinions, but work jointly for a greater or lesser degree of consensus, detecting objective, or, in other words, the universal
mind position in some expression of inter-subjectivity.”
According to definition, self-consciousness is a quality of consciousness, when consciousness contemplates its
own richness, when thinking begins to think about itself.
The type of Socratic dialogue is a process of self-consciousness on the basis of mediation, when thinking thinks
about itself and enables every participant of the debate to detect his true self. The focus on Socrates teaching and life
example is a major challenge of our time, in addition to the scientific construction of objectivity, which causes grading
of the individual human being; it’s a task of great importance to discover cultural objectivity of Socratic dialogue in its
inextricable link with the development of human consciousness, allowing to foster the ideal of living consciousness.
CONCLUSIONS
Socrates is neither a symbol nor a controversial figure of knowledge society; and actually he is also not an example
of personification of some anti-scientific ambitions, when philosophical speculation that is far away from reality opposes
verifiable facts of research. Rather on the contrary, Socrates's example shows that cognition developed into a new
qualitative level when we began to realize the limits and limitations of knowledge, based on the fact of awareness about
our ignorance, as well as awareness of actual finality of ourselves.
The incantation of society’ progress is an ambiguous concept, and so-called social progress is a controversial
process of acquiring one thing yet losing another somewhere along the way. Thus, for assessment of society dynamics in
terms of quality, sometimes it is not enough to have merely quantitative, very clearly recorded indicators of scientific and
technological progress. Socrates’ life and teachings example and his explicated dialogue theory promotes to force more
cumulative, to "gather" task-oriented consciousness, and also is one of most vigorous spring of self-conscious cultural
development, illustrating the richness of earth principle in the philosophical reasoning.
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Philosophy as critical inventory of time intentions, through the model of Socrates’ life and teachings allows us to
observe the greatest cartoon of our time- conscious, overloaded with information but with a clear deficit of selfconsciousness, or, even supposedly, zero degree of it. However, Socrates’ teachings and life history is an example which
mobilizes the resources of society’ creativity in order to preserve the indicators of culture quality and attempts to block, at
least partially, the conscious eviscerating processes. In this context emerges a longing for small, cosy university in rural area.
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