The Gospel of Hellas - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

the rise of philosophy
sacrifice. “The world does not see that dying and death are the only study of
men who rightly engage in philosophy,” he said in Plato’s Phaedo.
Plato indicated that the ancestor of Socrates was Daedalus, the mythical
architect of Athens, who paid the price for his intellect in the death of his
son, Icarus. “I must be greater than Daedalus,” said Socrates in the Platonic
dialogue Eutyphron. “For whereas he only made his own inventions to move, I
move those of other people as well. And the beauty of it is that I would rather
not. For I would give the wisdom of Daedalus and the wealth of Tantalus to be
able to detain them and keep them fixed.” 162
Socrates’ sacrificial death brought to birth a new type of man. He saved
sophia (wisdom) and phronesis (reason) from sophistry, (sophistication). He
gave back to thinking its foundation of awe and wonder. He showed that
thinking must not cut itself off from the past but must pave the road for the
future. In the hour of death when he had to drink the hemlock which unjust
accusation brought him, he offered a cock to Asclepius, the son of Apollo, the
god of healing. His last words which the dialogue Crito preserved, show his
supreme confidence in the immortality of the soul which thinks: “I owe a cock
to Asclepius, will you remember the debt?”
3. PLATO
The Triumph of the Thinking Soul
The death of Socrates marked the rise of Plato as a philosopher. Before this
event Plato had posed as dramatist, orator, actor and poet. It was only the death
and martyrdom of his teacher which brought him, a wealthy Athenian of an
aristocratic family whose ancestor was Solon, to the decision to devote his life
henceforth to writing down the dialogues. His sole purpose was to glorify the
method of Socrates’ dialectic and to immortalize his words.
Instead of rushing into literary activity or hurriedly opening a school of
his own, Plato left Athens and went to Megara, there associating himself with
the geometrician, Euclid. Then he traveled to Egypt, Cyrene, Magna Graecia
and Sicily. In Italy he became acquainted with the Pythagoreans and this
connection deepened his mystical insight. His travels to the Orient led to an
apprenticeship in initiation. When he returned to Athens he was about forty.
He matured slowly but mounted steadily towards a majestic climax. It seemed