Socrates Did Not Invent Philosopy

Rather than address concepts themselves, divorced from unnecessary references to historical philosophers, many thinkers (though the word may be too generous) prefer to focus on the names and lives of dead philosophers.  Particular figures like Socrates are practically credited with bringing philosophy into existence, as if humanity was incapable of considering philosophical matters before him, and as if familiarity with Socrates or other figures is necessary to engage in philosophy.  Socrates did not invent philosophy, but I do not mean that the Pre-Socratics (consisting of incompetent thinkers such as Thales, a naturalist who claimed everything is made of water) did so.

Though few acknowledge it, philosophy is not about people or books, but about ideas and the correspondence of those ideas to reality [1].  The discipline of philosophy exists as long as there is even a single mind that contemplates philosophical issues--and since these issues encompass every aspect of reality, it is impossible for a human to never brush up against them.  There is no need to study or live alongside someone like Socrates to become a philosopher (especially considering that he ironically imitated the sophists in their willingness to use fallacies [2]); all one needs to be a philosopher is an intellect and the desire to explore reality.

Thus, philosophy preceded Socrates because, if even a single person lived before him, it is impossible for him to have been the first human to pose philosophical questions or to at least attempt to use reason to establish answers.  Everyone is a philosopher to some extent, although most people are very shallow and assumptive philosophers at best, Socrates included.  The problem with many people is not that they cannot understand or contemplate philosophy, but that they are unwilling to put effort into forgoing assumptions.  Indeed, it is this very unwillingness that keeps the average person shackled to false or unproveable worldviews.

Furthermore, there is hardly an academic or historical figure that is any different than the average person in this regard.  Many in academia even gratuitously and erroneously look up to the past thinkers that helped fashion academia into the cesspool of fallacies that it is.  The person who reveres Socrates and other historical philosophers trivializes or denies originality, rationality, and autonomy; the philosophers studied by academia overlooked many key truths and used legions of fallacies, and are often held up in a way that ignores intellectual autonomy, as if people cannot discover truths without reading published works.  Socrates is no example of enlightenment or intelligence, and he is certainly not responsible for the existence of philosophy.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/09/philosophy-is-not-about-books.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/07/socrates-sophist.html