The Need for a New Socrates: A Review of Ann Ward’s “The Socratic Individual”

Ann Ward. The Socratic Individual: Philosophy, Faith, and Freedom in a Democratic Age. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020.

What can account for the renewal of interest in Socrates and Socratic philosophy in the nineteenth century? In The Socratic Individual, Ann Ward argues that nineteenth-century thinkers—namely, Søren Kierkegaard, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche—returned to Socrates in reaction to G.W.F. Hegel’s claim that philosophy as the search for wisdom becomes superfluous with the emergence of the perfectly rationalized, modern liberal state at the end of history. Challenging Hegel’s deification of the modern state and concomitant putting to rest of Socratic skepticism, these nineteenth-century thinkers showed that the democratic age cannot thrive without the kind of individuality exemplified by the Socratic philosopher. While each recovers a different model of the Socratic individual, all three portray Socratic philosophy as encompassing more than the rational comprehension of universal truths.

Against purely rationalistic depictions of Socrates, each of the nineteenth-century thinkers discussed in Ward’s book present Socrates as the embodiment of a way of life or, as Ward puts it, “the embodiment and object of an eros that draws human beings toward a higher individuality rather than the universality of the ideas or forms.” For Kierkegaard, that way of life is fundamentally one of faith; for Mill, it manifests itself in diverse ways of thinking and acting that contest the dogmatic views of the majority; and for Nietzsche, it emerges in a “new,” Dionysian Socrates who questions democratic values themselves. As Ward acknowledges, in many respects her argument aligns with the central claims of Catherine Zuckert’s Postmodern Platos.[1] Yet, by bringing Kierkegaard and Mill into the conversation, Ward weaves a somewhat different story about the nineteenth-century recovery of Socratic philosophy, one in which the importance of individuality comes to the fore.

The book consists of an introduction, one chapter on Hegel, two on Kierkegaard, one on Mill, two on Nietzsche, and a brief conclusion. In the chapter on Hegel, Ward argues that, on the one hand, Hegel dubs Socrates “a type of philosophical World-historical individual, and thus as someone possessing greatness,” due to Socrates’ advancement of philosophy beyond Anaxagorean materialism and toward contemplation of the rational human soul and the universal good. Yet, in Hegel’s view, Socrates does not go far enough; his theory of ideas fails to grasp the inherent perfectibility of humanity. As such, while essential to the unfolding of the nature of Spirit, Socratic philosophy necessarily ceases to be valuable at the end of history. In fact, it is destructive in that it encourages skepticism toward the modern state which, for Hegel, is the concretization of the universal, rational, and divine.

Ultimately, Ward agrees with Leo Strauss’ assessment that Hegel erroneously equated Socratic philosophy with rationalism and the doctrine of ideas. Turning to the recovery of a more passionate form of Socratic philosophy in nineteenth-century political thought, she begins by uncovering Kierkegaard’s “eulogy of Socrates and the philosophic life.” Kierkegaard’s eulogy starts, however, with Abraham. Abraham’s greatness lies in his understanding that God, being beyond the rational moral and social order embodied by the state, can command its violation. In entering into a personal or private relationship with God, Abraham recognizes the radical particularity and ineffability of love. He thereby provides a model of human greatness that entails differentiation. But Kierkegaard does not stop there. Rather, he suggests that Abraham “can retain his individual identity in love without relinquishing human community altogether” by employing ironic speech à la Socrates. For Kierkegaard, the “emptiness” of Socratic irony, in contrast with the “fullness” of Platonic speculation, creates both awareness of one’s ignorance—a precondition for learning—and access to the truth itself, which is that there are no stable truths accessible to human reason. The existence of universal truths must thus be held on faith, and hence at the core of both philosophy and faith lies an eros for the unknown “as a passionate particularity beyond the universal.”

Though Mill shares Kierkegaard’s identification of human greatness with the passions that differentiate us, he moves away from the latter’s religious belief, critiquing Christianity for its suppression of individual thought and action. Mill’s Socratic individual, by contrast, refuses to accept any doctrines passively, including the existence of God. Driven by an erotic “energy” that, if properly educated, can be channeled toward intellectual activity, such individuals are “more exemplary of humanity than their peers” in that they act not as automatons, but as full human beings “exercising choice and freedom.” In the absence of such individuals, Socratic dialectic itself may provide the necessary antidote to the consolidation of opinion at the end of history. Ultimately, the Socratic way of life functions, Ward suggests, as a modern substitute for the disregard of public opinion exhibited by social elites in aristocracy.

This leads us to the fourth philosopher studied in The Socratic Individual: Nietzsche. Known for blaming the death of Greek tragedy—specifically, the sensual Dionysian element within it—on Socrates and his excessive rationalism, Nietzsche seems a most unlikely thinker in whom to find admiration for Socrates. Despite Nietzsche’s virulent critiques of Socrates, however, Ward contends that his discussion of the conditions for the coming of the philosopher of the future points to an ironic mode of philosophy along the lines of the Socratic model. In contrast to Mill’s appreciation of liberal society, Nietzsche, on Ward’s account, believes that human greatness cannot arise in “open, cosmopolitan and culturally tolerant societies.”[2] While critical therefore of Socrates’ destruction of the noble, aristocratic moral code of ancient Athens, his writings nonetheless recognize the value in Socratic questioning itself. As Ward puts it, “perhaps a new Socrates, or the return of Socratic dialectic in our time, can be helpful in leading democrats to question the dominant moral code of the democratic age, therefore opening us to the noble.”

In her conclusion, Ward returns to the thinker with whom she starts the book: Leo Strauss. Although she does not draw this implication, her discovery in Nietzsche of a “new Socrates” seems to echo Jenny Strauss Clay’s words about her father: “He began where good teachers should begin, from his students’ received opinions, in order to scrutinize their foundation. At that time, as is still true today, academia leaned to the left; hence such questioning required an examination of the left’s tenets. Had the prevailing beliefs been different, they too would have been subject to his skeptical inquiry.”[3] Ward’s own conclusion is that “of the philosophers explored in this study [Strauss] comes closest to Kierkegaard” as he shares Kierkegaard’s mission of disassociating Socrates from his apparent theory of ideas, though he diverges by seeking to disentangle Socratic (and Platonic) philosophy from Christianity. In the end, we are left to wonder whether there is anything higher for a human being than the experience of love for a divine teacher.

The Socratic Individual is one of those books that gestures beyond itself, provoking much delightful contemplation even beyond its pages. It is a must-read for those interested in Socratic reception, particularly the treatment of Socrates and Socratic philosophy in modern political thought. It is also a book for anyone interested more broadly in the themes of reason vs. passion, philosophy vs. faith, and, of course, the individual vs. the collective. While Ward’s portrayals of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Mill, and Nietzsche may at times diverge from more traditional interpretations, her overall argument that these thinkers offer a more truly “Socratic” Socrates is compelling. It is hard to dispute that Socrates was an exemplar of human greatness, even though (or perhaps because) he himself called this into question.

NOTES:

[1] Catherine H. Zuckert, Postmodern Platos: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

[2] See Rebecca LeMoine, Plato’s Caves: The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

[3] Clay, Jenny Strauss. “The Real Leo Strauss.” The New York Times. June 7, 2003, Section A, p. 15.

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