Socrates-The Smartest Person in Athens

I wrote this vignette, using valid ancient sources as my base, for my middle school classroom.  Rereading it, I realized that I still really liked it and that it sort of falls into both “Historical Perceptions” and “The History we Take for Granted.”

The TL;DR version: The Socratic Method is awesome;  or more simply- ask questions and you might just learn something!

The Smartest Person in Athens

In ancient Greece the Oracle of Delphi was regarded as the most accurate prophet in the world. The Oracle of Delphi was one day asked: Who is the smartest person in all of Athens? The Oracle replied that the smartest person in Athens was Socrates.

The news came to Socrates as quite a shock.  “I couldn’t be the smartest person in Athens!” he said “The only thing I know is that I don’t know anything!”  He decided to put the Oracle to the test. He would go around to all the most prominent men in Athens and interview them, and that is how he would figure out who was the smartest person in the city.

He went and interviewed the cities politicians, poets and then the skilled craftsmen.

When he interviewed the politicians, those who ran the government, he discovered that though they thought they were smart, they in fact did not know much of anything at all.  He next interviewed the poets- many of whose writings survive to this day. Socrates was astonished to find out that though these individuals were able to create great works of genius, they could not explain them at all. He also discovered that even though the poets could speak using beautiful language about many different topics, they really did not really know what they were talking about.  Lastly, he interviewed the most skilled craftsmen in the city. These were the men who created things that the city needed.  Some of them molded metal, others created pots and vases and others built great buildings.  Socrates discovered that these men were really smart when it came to do their job.  Socrates also discovered that because the craftsmen knew their field, they thought they could speak with authority about everything else too, even if they really didn’t know what they were talking about.

Socrates realized that everyone else was only pretending to know everything. He was the only person that really understood that there was so much stuff in the world to know, and that he could not know all of it.  He also understood that the only way to learn about something was to ask question after question, until he understood.

Socrates now understood that he was the smartest man in the city because he knew that he did not know anything.  He did not pretend he knew things when he did not know. He asked questions until he learned.

Socrates, the man who knew he knew nothing, is widely considered one of the smartest people to ever live. The greatest gift he gave us is the “Socratic Method.” The Socratic Method is simple. Just ask questions about a subject until you actually understand it.

Question everything around you. That is what Socrates would do.