Socrates what is truth

To call those things causes is too absurd. If someone said that without bones and sinews and all such things, I should not be able to do what I decided, he would be right, but surely to say that they are the cause of what I do, and not that I have chosen the best course, even though I act with my mind, is to speak very lazily and carelessly.

Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause. It is what the majority appear to do… [my emphasis] [iii]. These are logical fallacies. Essentially, this is the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive knowledge: while scientific knowledge does play a very important and useful role in human society, we must never commit ourselves to the grave error of scientism , thinking that science can extend beyond describing what happens into prescribing what ought to happen sorry Dawkins.

Science cannot prescribe us our morality, nor more than it can replace religion and faith. The second truth is that we must seek for the highest truth of things in what is best. Instead of just wondering how one thing comes to be from another, we ought to wonder about how anything comes to be at all.

Instead, the purpose of episteme systematic knowledge is to expand our knowledge, working from what we know to be true to reach a new and deeper knowledge of what is. As Aristotle famously said, we must start with what-is-better-known-to-man and seek what-is-better-known-by-nature.

On this basis, we suggest that dialogue is the ethical and methodological constitution of the meaning of philosophy proper. Philosophy is an ethically grounded dialogue proceeding from the recognition of the other as other and accepting the responsibility to respect the other to the extent of not being an obstacle to the other's pursuit of survival and happiness. On this reasoning, philosophy demands both the "internal" and the "external" dimensions of truth, as already discussed.

It demands truthfulness. The practical implementation of truthfulness brings to the fore the exigency of justice. In this way, philosophy as engagement in an ethically grounded dialogue demands the commitment to truth and justice as a matter of personal conviction.

This understanding of dialogue restores Socrates as its champion. It makes him a partner ready to engage in dialogue with Africa on the basis of equality. Such is the relevance of Socrates to African philosophy. One of the basic lessons of Socrates' declaration in the Apology is that he teaches that under no circumstances may truth be sacrificed at the altar of compromise.

The fashionable conventional wisdom that "politics is a dirty game" supported by its equally fallacious claim that "politics is the art of the possible" provides countless examples of the sacrifice of truth at the altar of compromise. It is necessary to underline the fallacy of this wisdom and stress that the political domain is pre-eminently an ethical sphere. Politics, as Socrates argued, is inherently ethical. Ethics precedes politics in logic and in fact.

Politics is the creature of ethics and ought to serve the good prescribed by ethics. Justice is the aim and the measure of the good in politics. It is linked inseparably to truth. This is right reason and he who knows this will act it out in practice as a personal conviction Ladikos Socrates invokes "the soul" to explain the above understanding of truth and justice as the manifestation of a personal conviction in practice.

In Socrates' view, justice is something personal, an internal harmonious ordering of the human soul seen in its complex tripartite nature, and not as external social convention to keep some order and peace in the everyday dealings of the partners in a given political association. The former is to be found in one of the fundamental principles of African ethics, namely, I am related, therefore I am cognatus sum ergo sum Bujo It is to be noted that this relationship is with human beings and encompasses all that there is.

The "soul" or the spiritual dimension gives meaning to this relationship. It prescribes responsibility in a specific and direct ethical sense by laying down yet another fundamental principle of African ethics, namely, "promote life and avoid killing" Bujo On this reasoning, ethical responsibility means taking the standpoint of "promote life and avoid killing" and then using it to respond to one's conditions of existence. This ethical responsibility must be applied in all three spheres of the African understanding of community, that is:.

The living. This encompasses overall responsibility towards human beings, the plant and animal kingdoms; the land that is the mother of life and the air that we breathe.

The living-dead "ancestors". Re-membering those who died but continue to live with us through our joys and sorrows Bujo Leaving the land as good as we found it so that the following generations may live from it. Participating in procreation and in that way becoming active builders of the new community is the responsibility to ensure the continuity of the lineage and the survival of the wider community in which one lives.

Doing this gives harmony to the "soul". Only those who live according to this ethic of responsibility are full members of the triadic community and cannot but be committed to upholding truth and justice in the conduct of their own affairs and those of the community at large.

Socrates' second lesson is that "Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state". This echoes Solon who advised ancient Greece when it was ethically destroyed by timocracy. It is an irony of history that "the silent takeover" as Hertz so aptly describes it, has eroded democracy in our time and surreptitiously substituted it with timocracy.

It is once again time to recall the wisdom of Socrates and Solon and bring an end to the irrational immoderate pursuit of wealth before it is too late. African ethics holds that whenever one ought to make a choice between accumulating and holding onto excessive wealth on the one hand and preserving the life of another human being on the other, then one ought to opt for the latter.

This is the meaning of the Sotho vernacular proverb "feta kgomo o tshware motho" meaning: bypass the cow - the symbol of wealth - and hold onto the human being. Here we find yet another coincidence of ethical insights between African ubuntu and Greek Western philosophies. The two coincidences of ethical insights identified above must show their knowledge and virtue by acting according to the insights.

Knowledge and virtue must be owned as personal convictions for which an individual is prepared to die a hundred times. Against this background we now turn to consider the "arms deal" of South Africa. It is important to justify and clarify the treatment of the "arms deal" of South Africa. This is because our topic, Socrates on truth and justice, appears at first glance to have neither direct nor specific connection with the "arms deal" of South Africa.

Indeed, this is merely a question of appearance. At a fundamental level, namely, the ethical; there is a direct and specific connection between Socrates' understanding of and commitment to truth and justice and the "arms deal" of South Africa. We have already argued that ethics precedes and is the mother of politics. The political is therefore the ethical by definition. This means that at the core of politics lies the ethical principle of the equality of all human beings.

Justice emerges as the necessary means and measure by which to deal with this principle of equality in relation to the fundamental right upon which all other rights revolve, namely, the human right to life Ramcharan This means that in practice human interaction in the domain of politics is already under the ethical obligation to recognise, respect, protect and promote the right to life of every human being. This is the mandate conferred conditionally by ethics upon politics.

The laws made by politics and the institutions it establishes ought to have the sole aim of upholding this ethical mandate. This mandate is conditional because if politics does not live according to its precepts, then it loses its reason for existence. On this reasoning, politics is from birth already charged with the ethical obligation to know only the one truth it ought to serve, namely, the principle of the equality of all human beings and the recognition, respect, protection and promotion of the right to life of every human being by resort to justice.

The "arms deal" of South Africa or any other country, must answer to this mandate: it must demonstrate its knowledge of the only truth it ought to know and act out in the name of justice.

It must show commitment to truth and justice first by being fearless in its defence, and second by being willing to die a hundred deaths in defence of truth and justice.

There is, therefore, a direct and immediate connection between Socrates' understanding of truth and justice and the "arms deal" of South Africa..

The argument in the preceding paragraph justifies and clarifies our treatment of the "arms deal" of South Africa. It underlines the argument of Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic - as cited by Feinstein - that "politics [is] selfless service to one's fellow human beings, [it is] morality in practice, based on conscience and truth" Feinstein Politics is the ethical domain fecund with political holiness attainable through political love: "love for those most deprived of life and working so that they may have life" Sobrino Having thus shown the connection between our topic on Socrates and the "arms deal" of South Africa, it is now time to turn to the context in which government as the bearer of the conditional ethical mandate, operates.

By way of a very broad generalisation, we suggest that many governments across the world today are operating in the context of neo-liberal capitalism holding onto defective democracy subordinated to timocracy.

In practice sovereignty is no longer vested in the people. It is also nominally transferred, and conditionally so, to government. The substantive and actual exercise of transformed sovereignty, namely, economic sovereignty, is in practice vested in the unelected owners of capital and money generally referred to as business or the corporations. These are the economic sovereigns.

Even before they are elected to form a government, political parties need to survive as entities independent of the electorate. Their quest for survival is linked to their need for money.

This renders them objectively dependent on the economic sovereigns. It can bring political parties into a politically problematical funding relationship with the economic sovereigns. Where this relationship plays itself out most explicitly is in the arena of party political funding.

In the US, campaign funding is a quagmire that in my opinion severely weakens American democracy. It is virtually impossible to run successfully for meaningful office in the US without either being extremely wealthy or having the backing of very well-resourced interest groups. The consequence is that once in office you are expected to deliver for your special interest backers.

The Bush administration is the most venal manifestation of what has been a reality of American politics for decades Feinstein This malleability of political parties to the will of the economic sovereigns means that they are at risk, objectively, of sacrificing the sovereignty of the people in order to ensure their own survival.

Thus the political party can become anti-democratic by failing to uphold its permanent conditional ethical obligation to obey the sovereign will of the people. The preceding paragraph shows that in the contemporary context in which governments operate, the potential for corruption in pursuit of either individual or political party survival is a living and immediate danger. This may be illustrated further:. The Congress Movement in India, so indomitable a political force, was laid low by the Bofors arms scandal, which 14 years after it was signed, brought down Rajiv Gandhi's government.

It has been regularly reported in the media and in recent books that Mark Thatcher was paid [twelve million pounds Sterling] as a middleman in the Al Yamamah arms deal which was signed between Saudi Arabia and the British government, led at the time by Mark's mother Feinstein To these we wish to add the experience of Willy Claes, a former Belgian politician who held different cabinet positions in several Belgian governments.

He was legally pursued even while he was Secretary General of NATO because of the accusation of a bribe paid during negotiations with the Augusta firm for the purchase of military helicopters at the time when he was Minister of Economic Affairs in Belgium. He was stripped of his professional immunities to make way for the court proceedings. On 23 December the Highest Court in Belgium Hof van Cassatie confirmed the decision of the Lower Court which convicted him and imposed a conditional three year jail sentence, the suspension of his citizen rights for five years and the payment of a fine of sixty thousand Belgian Francs.

These cases show that the potential for corruption is a living and immediate danger in the sphere of the secret world of arms deals Feinstein They also affirm that governments and individuals acting in the name of the government may fall in the cause of truth and justice. It is a moot point whether or not the outcome of the current Commission of Inquiry into the "arms deal" of South Africa the Seriti Commission will culminate with the fall of any government or individuals having acted in the name of the government Feinstein A detailed history of the "arms deal" of South Africa is contained in many sources.

It is unnecessary to recount it here. Of importance for us in this history, are the following questions:. It is clear that we have to await the end of the protracted inquiry into the arms deal before we can find definitive answers according to the law. However, it is vital to recognise that legal answers are exactly the kind of answers that take only juristic facts into account and even so, the admission of such facts is dependent upon prescribed legal procedures.

It is to be hoped that even within this restricted and exclusivist domain of law, the final outcome of the inquiry into the "arms deal" of South Africa shall reaffirm the enduring maxim of let justice be done though the heavens may fall - fiat justitia ruat coelum. The truth of the law will not necessarily coincide with the only truth that any government ought to know and act upon, that is, upholding the principle of the equality of all human beings and the recognition, respect, protection and promotion of the right to life of all the citizens of South Africa.

Commitment to this is the only way to emulate and affirm Socrates' example of leadership in Africa. It shows that the interaction of governments globally with regard to arms deals poignantly reaffirms the urgency of the three questions posed. Answers to them are equally urgent in view of the historical, structural, systemic and systematic impoverishment and death of the many for the benefit of the few.

So far experience of world politics suggests that answers according to Socrates' commitment to truth and justice are yet to come. We have argued that there is a relationship between Socrates and African philosophy.

The question of the meaning of truth and justice was selected as an example to illustrate the relationship. The coincidence of insights between Western and African philosophies with regard to truth and justice was used as the prism for the argument that the political is pre-eminently the ethical and, for this reason, political leadership ought to consciously pursue political holiness even to the point of dying a hundred deaths like Socrates was prepared to do.

The contemporary context of government action in national and international politics was identified as the terrain within which political leadership of the kind and quality of Socrates ought to emerge. To give substance to this, the "arms deal" of South Africa was given as an example.

The cumulative conclusion is that a metanoia is required to bring about a fundamental change in the prevailing relationships between governments and the holders of economic sovereignty. To be consciously aware of this requirement and to implement it in practice - in emulation of Socrates - is to act in defence of truth and justice.

Ajei, M. From "man is the measure of all things" to money is the measure of all things: a dialogue between Protagoras and Africa philosophy. In Phronimon, Vol 9 1. Beder, S.

Business managed democracy: the trade agenda. In Critical Social Policy, 30 Bohm, D. Thought as a system. Bujo, B. The ethical dimension of community, trans Cecilia Namulondo. Nairobi, Nganda: Paulines Publications. Foundations of an African ethic, trans B. Nairobi: Paulines Publications. Copleston, F. But for most of us, what we see around us is all there is -- what we can see in our material existence.

For Socrates and Plato, this is not the real world, this is the sensible world. It could not be real because it is always changing, always in flux. The world is constantly deteriorating and things get worse with time; things just do not last in this life. Take a chair, for example, no matter how well it has been made, it will eventually fall apart and one day it will not be here at all.

Even objects made of precious metals will change and tarnish, but the real world, the world of Plato's Forms, cannot be changeable. Life is a fusing of a body with a soul, but to philosophers like Plato and Socrates, this combination is not the best one for acquiring Knowledge. The body with all of its necessities and desires "keeps us busy in a thousand ways because of its need for nurture.

If things are constantly changing, how can we learn about them anyway? Once something is learned about a particular thing, there is a good chance the object has already changed. We always end up playing catch up. For Socrates, the body is, in theory, an evil tomb that imprisons our "Goodness," 14 and will try to fool it at every opportunity it can.

Most of us would say that on a clear summer day the sky is blue, but what about the people who have colour blindness? Is the sky really blue to them? Or what about someone with jaundice? For them, sense of sight seems to be tinted yellow. Will the sky be blue to them? Socrates saw many such examples and came to the conclusion that by their very nature, our senses do not grasp reality. Of things that are changeable and imperfect, there can never be knowledge.

Our reality is impeded by them. The Forms are eternally perfect and are known only by the soul. Knowledge of them is not found through exercising our senses, but in the exercising of our souls. We may be able to recognize different kinds of things through our senses, but that is only because we have previous knowledge of the Forms.

Socrates claimed that in another life, our souls existed with the Forms in the real world and from participating with them, our souls gathered all of the knowledge that is possible to possess. Perhaps due to trauma of our births, 19 we lose most everything we learned in the other world.

But recognition is possible. For example, we will be able to understand that an object is triangular, because all triangular objects participate in the Form of Triangularity.

We are able to see the resemblance because of the participation and because of our previous knowledge. When one hears of a person going into a burning building because they heard a child crying for help, we are able to recognize this behaviour as courageous. We are able to because all courageous acts participate in the Form of Courage -- not because our senses tell us so. However, the senses can at least remind us of the True Forms.

Socrates believed that all people had to do to know everything again, was to remember. Try to remember all that has been forgotten. In questioning his audience, Socrates usually proceeded by asking them for a definition of a concept, a moral concept such as justice or piety were often chosen.

He tried to use this method to prove that knowledge is inside of our souls and is independent of our sensory capabilities. So for Socrates, the senses do not grasp reality in any way and try to detour us from our path to wisdom. He believed that our bodies are useless in the process of acquiring knowledge and deceive the soul when it tries to learn the truth. The only way the soul can truly know anything is when it is by itself, and for that reason, Socrates believed that philosophy is best achieved when one tries to separate the body from the soul as much as possible.