Historical What if: Socrates Dies at Delium

[DinoDoc]

It was an accidental battle in a failed campaign in a backwater threater of the Peloponnesian War. Beyond the numerous corpses left to rot on the field of battle, the "skirmish" at Delium settled nothing. However, what would the consequences to Western thought have been if it had claimed but one more Athenian victim?

[Lefty Scaevola]

One less branch of hemlock leaves would have been used in ancient Greece.

[Arrian]

Impossible to say (except for Lefty's offering. That we can be reasonably sure of).

-Arrian

[Ramo]

Socrates was of course immensely influential, but the most important person he influenced was probably Plato, who had really funky ideas on the nature of reality that don't really make sense at all. So, without Socrates, Plato wouldn't be quite as influential if at all. And without Plato, Aristotle might've further investigated his revolutionary ideas on empiricism, and later Greek as well as medieval philosophers might've expanded on them. Thus perhaps leading to an early scientific revolution.

Also, if Socrates dies in battle, Socrates isn't killed by the Athenian state. Thus, you undermine one of the major arguments against democracy during the pre-modern times (interestingly enough, it was the democratic revolution that saved Socrates after he was about to be executed by one of the tyrants). This probably wouldn't mean much (the nature of goverment is primarily a reflection of the socio-economic conditions), but it's possible it might've significantly changed the political discourse at pivotal points in history.

[orange]

Well, we wouldn't have the socratic method, for one.

[Lefty Scaevola]

The influential, at least beyond his life, Socrates, was a character largely made up by Plato in his dialouges. Substantially an alter ego of Plato, not the actual Socrates.

[Ramo]

True.

[Andemagne]

interesting question Dinodoc.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ramo
Socrates was of course immensely influential, but the most important person he influenced was probably Plato, who had really funky ideas on the nature of reality that don't really make sense at all. So, without Socrates, Plato wouldn't be quite as influential if at all. And without Plato, Aristotle might've further investigated his revolutionary ideas on empiricism, and later Greek as well as medieval philosophers might've expanded on them. Thus perhaps leading to an early scientific revolution.

I have always thought that Aristotle was the most influential of the trio, being the most experimental type. His idea of nature of matter had immense influence until the Renaissance - it really was the foundation of the Geocentric theory.

[DanS]

Sympathy bump.

[Bereta_Eder]

is that like sympathy ****?

[Japher]

"Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" wouldn't have been so excellent.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by paiktis22
is that like sympathy ****?

I would have thought that you, of all people, would have had an opinion on the issue considering it deals with Greece and her history.

[molly bloom]

I believe that Socrates (and the 'Socrates' of the Platonic Dialogues) represents not so much a real person, but a general approach to philosophy, to life, to science, to abstract thought, to politics- one that would not have found its sole repository in Socrates, but would have been shared by a larger group of people, much like the philosophes of the French Enlightenment, or the scientists, mathematicians and writers of Great Britain's Royal Society of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Just think of the differing schools of thought that the Greek city states fostered, all the way from materialism to Dionysiac mysticism and the absolute rejection of the world symbolized by Diogenes and his tub. It's worth bearing in mind how little remains of one of the most fertile periods for human thought and discovery that the world has seen- how many more antikythera devices, how many more lost texts could have furthered human development?

http://homepage.mac.com/casewright/essays/antikythera.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/archimedes.shtml

[Agathon]

Not that much really. Plato may not have gone on to practice philosophy (assuming the tradition is true and Socrates was Plato's main influence) and the tradition of Sokratikoi logoi would have never happened.

Plato does not inaugurate western philosophy - that honour belongs to Parmenides, whose poem contains the first real philosophical argument in history. Now if Parmenides had not existed, Plato would never have written anything worth reading.

One good thing would have come out of Plato not writing anything - Christianity would be stuffed.