Socrates: Who Influenced Him?

There’s a scene in Plato’s Theaetetus where Socrates compares himself to a midwife, not of babies, but of ideas. He helps others give birth to truth—not by telling them what to think, but by asking the right questions. That method, now known as the Socratic Method, didn’t come from nowhere. It was shaped by people, ideas, and a city that never stopped talking. Athens was a place of paradox: deeply religious yet full of skeptics, democratic yet ruled by tradition, philosophical yet often intolerant of dissent. Socrates grew up in this ferment, and his mind was shaped by the voices around him. Some were famous, others obscure, but each left a mark.

## Prodicus of Ceos

Prodicus was one of the itinerant teachers known as the Sophists—figures who traveled from city to city, offering instruction in rhetoric and argument. Socrates himself never claimed to be a Sophist, but he clearly admired Prodicus. In Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates expresses a desire to “catch up” with Prodicus early in the morning because, as he says, “he gets crowded later.” That admiration wasn’t just for Prodicus’s intellect—it was for his attention to language. Prodicus emphasized precise word choice, a habit that deeply influenced Socrates’s own careful questioning. When Socrates asked, “What is courage?” or “What is justice?”, he wasn’t just looking for a dictionary definition. He was following Prodicus’s lead in believing that clarity of language leads to clarity of thought.

## Anaxagoras

Before Socrates turned philosophy inward—toward ethics and the soul—he was drawn to the natural philosophers, especially Anaxagoras. In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates recalls his youthful fascination with Anaxagoras’s claim that the mind (nous) is the guiding force of the cosmos. He was thrilled at the idea that the universe wasn’t just a chaotic swirl of elements, but ordered by intelligence. But he was disappointed. Anaxagoras, in Socrates’s view, failed to follow through on his own idea. He explained thunder and lightning with physical causes, not with mind. This disappointment may have been a turning point—pushing Socrates away from cosmology and toward the moral world of human choices and values.

## Diotima of Mantinea

One of the more surprising influences on Socrates was a woman—rare in a world where most philosophical instruction came from men, in public spaces like the agora. But in Plato’s Symposium, Socrates credits Diotima, a priestess and prophetess, with teaching him about love. She explains to him that love (eros) isn’t just about physical desire—it’s a ladder that leads from beauty in the body, to beauty in the soul, to the abstract idea of beauty itself. This idea, that love is a path to higher truth, shows up again and again in Socratic thought. It’s a reminder that wisdom doesn’t always come from expected places—and that Socrates was open to learning from voices outside the usual circles of power.

## Pericles

Pericles wasn’t a philosopher, but he was the most powerful man in Athens during its golden age. A master orator and statesman, he shaped the democratic ideals of the city. Socrates must have grown up watching him speak in the assembly, and there are traces of Pericles’s influence in Socrates’s own belief in the importance of public discourse. But Socrates also seems to have been critical of Pericles’s successors, who used rhetoric to manipulate rather than enlighten. In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates compares politicians to pastry chefs, giving people what they want instead of what they need. That critique may have started with a deep admiration for Pericles—and a painful awareness of how far his successors fell short.

## His Mother, Phaenarete

Socrates’s mother was a midwife, a detail that Plato highlights in the Theaetetus. Socrates says that just as his mother helped women give birth to children, he helps people give birth to ideas. This metaphor wasn’t just clever wordplay—it reveals something deep about how Socrates saw his role. He wasn’t interested in giving answers; he was interested in helping others find them. It’s possible that his mother’s work gave him a model for his own: patient, supportive, and ultimately empowering. In a city full of self-proclaimed teachers, Socrates stood out by insisting he knew nothing—and by helping others realize they knew more than they thought.

## Athens Itself

Above all, Socrates was shaped by Athens. The city’s democratic ideals, its love of debate, and its tolerance for dissent created the perfect soil for his method to grow. But it also destroyed him. When Athens was at its weakest, after losing the Peloponnesian War, it turned on Socrates, accusing him of corrupting the youth and impiety. His death by hemlock was a tragic end, but it also immortalized his ideas. To understand Socrates, you have to understand Athens—not just as a place, but as a state of mind. It was a city that encouraged questioning, until it didn’t.

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