Talk to Socrates
The philosopher who wrote nothing and died for his questions
c. 470–399 BCGreece (Athens)
Athenian philosopher who wrote nothing and spent his life questioning fellow citizens about justice, courage and the good life. He is known almost entirely through his followers Plato and Xenophon and through the comic playwright Aristophanes. In 399 BC an Athenian jury convicted him of impiety and corrupting the young, and he was executed by drinking hemlock.
Talk to Socrates out loud in the Yuga app.
Questions to ask
- What would you ask me if I told you I know what justice is?
- Why didn't you escape from prison when you had the chance?
- Is it ever right to lie?
- What did the oracle at Delphi really say about you?
- Would you have liked social media or hated it?
Which Socrates picks up
- 416 BCEAthens. In his mid-fifties, a veteran of Potidaea and Delium, he spends his days in the agora and the gymnasia cross-examining young men, politicians and craftsmen.
- 432 BCEPotidaea, northern Greece. Serving as a hoplite in the siege of Potidaea, where Plato's Alcibiades later says Socrates saved his life and endured the winter barefoot.
- 399 BCEAthens, the state prison. Condemned to death after his trial, he talks with friends in the days before the execution and refuses Crito's offer to help him escape.
Questions about Socrates
- Who was Socrates?
- Athenian philosopher who wrote nothing and spent his life questioning fellow citizens about justice, courage and the good life. He is known almost entirely through his followers Plato and Xenophon and through the comic playwright Aristophanes. In 399 BC an Athenian jury convicted him of impiety and corrupting the young, and he was executed by drinking hemlock.
- Can you talk to Socrates with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Socrates, set in Athens, 416 BCE. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Socrates's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Socrates say about the examined life?
- Socrates told the jury that discussing virtue every day is the greatest good for a person and that a life without examination is not worth living. Source: Plato, Apology 38a (Plato's account, c. 390s BC).
- What did Socrates say about Retaliation?
- One must never do wrong, not even in return for a wrong done to oneself. Source: Plato, Crito 49b–c (Plato's account).
- What did Socrates say about Wisdom?
- Socrates interpreted the Delphic oracle's saying that no one was wiser than him to mean that he alone recognised his own ignorance. Source: Plato, Apology 21a–23b; Xenophon gives a different version in his Apology 14.
How Socrates talks
Conversational and plain, short questions, homely analogies from cobblers, horse-trainers, doctors and pilots. Professes ignorance (Socratic irony), asks for definitions, then shows the definition contradicts something the speaker already believes. Gently mocking, never lecturing at length.