Socrates, Oedipus and Indefinites

What do we do when we don’t know?

Written by Katharine Radice

You might be interested in this article if:

●       you’re studying Greek and have reached Chapter 5 of Greek to GCSE

●       you know the story of Oedipus the king (or would like to know it!)

●       you have heard of Socrates, the famous philosopher

●       you are interested in how the shape of a language affects how we think

What’s Socrates got to do with anything?

Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived in the 5th century BC.  If we believe the stories told about him, he was determined to show the Athenians how little they knew about pretty much everything. Most of what we know about Socrates comes from Plato’s philosophical texts: typically these describe meetings between Socrates and other Athenians, during which Socrates asks a question (e.g. ‘What is justice?’), the others answer, and then Socrates sets out to show why each of these answers are wrong.  Unsurprisingly, perhaps, he irritated many of the leading Athenians and in 399 BC he suffered the death penalty, charged with the crimes of not believing in the gods and corrupting the young.

One of the most famous stories told about Socrates, however, centres around the idea that although Socrates loved to prove others wrong, he didn’t think himself particularly knowledgeable.  The oracle at Delphi had declared that Socrates was the wisest man of all: when Socrates heard this he was so surprised that he set out to prove the oracle wrong.  He went around anyone he could find who had a reputation for wisdom.  When he questioned each of these, he found out that none of them really understood the things that they claimed they knew.  In the end, Socrates admitted defeat: he hadn’t found anyone wiser than he was.  He decided that the reason why the oracle had judged him the wisest of all was simply because Socrates wasn’t foolish enough to claim that he knew something when he didn’t.

What’s Oedipus the king about?

As this article explores, there is some interesting overlap between Socrates and the mythical king of Thebes, Oedipus.  Oedipus the king is arguably the most famous Greek tragedy and rightly so.  It’s written by the playwright Sophocles and it tells the story of Oedipus, the man who killed his father and married his mother by mistake.

If you’re thinking that this sounds like a bizarre plot line, that would be an understandable reaction: how could anyone marry their mother by mistake?  In Oedipus’ case, it all happens because his birth-parents - the King and Queen of Thebes - receive a terrifying prophecy that their son will kill his father and marry his mother.  Determined to avoid this dreadful outcome, Oedipus’ parents hand baby Oedipus over to a household slave and tell him to leave him out in the mountains to die.  Unfortunately for everyone involved, the slave is a kind-hearted man who can’t bear to leave a little baby to die.  Instead, he gives baby Oedipus to a friend and one thing leads to another: Oedipus ends up growing up in the royal household in Corinth, believing his parents to be the Corinthian King and Queen.

Greek tragedy gets its dramatic power from its readiness to provide an outlet for big and difficult emotions.  Often a tragedy focuses on a theme that we might find unsettling; watching difficult storylines unfold on stage creates the chance to explore or understand difficult aspects of real life but in a safe and contained way.  At face value, Oedipus’ life story doesn’t seem to have much in common with day to day real life, but the themes it explores certainly do: for example, the play is interested in human strength and weakness.  Oedipus achieves great power, but he is powerless to escape his fate: coming to terms with parts of life that we have no control over is something we all have to do. 

The most frightening theme in the play, though, is the idea of knowledge.  Oedipus is really, really clever: the play opens partly by celebrating this, reminding the audience that Oedipus had been able to solve a riddle that no-one else could, thus saving Thebes from the grip of the terrifying Sphinx.  The play’s action is driven by Oedipus’ investigation into the death of the former king of Thebes: through his own logic and careful questioning, Oedipus ends up believing the unbelievable and understanding that the former king was his real father, and that he is the one who killed him.  By the end of the play we are faced with the horrifying idea that even someone as clever as Oedipus might not know the most basic truths about his own life, such as the identify of his own parents, and that this ignorance can led to terrible actions (murdering his father, marrying his mother). 

Why is this relevant to Greek to GCSE Chapter 5…??!?

Socrates was a historical figure, Oedipus a character from myth, but the stories told about both of them highlight the idea that people are often oblivious to their own ignorance.  Think about this in the context of your own life: sometimes we know when we don’t know something, but sometimes we can be absolutely sure about something, only to find out later that we were entirely mistaken.  Realising that you’ve been mistaken can be unsettling and painful: it’s unnerving to think how often this takes place.

All this might seem a long way away from learning Greek verbs and nouns, but it’s not.  One of the most exciting things about Ancient Greek is how different it is from English: as your knowledge of Greek deepens you’ll find out that its grammatical structures mean that it shapes thought differently.  Think about what you already know, for example, about the definite article: Greek can use this to create a noun out of anything - e.g. το νυν - ‘the present time’.  This is a phenomenal capacity: it’s no surprise that lots of Greek philosophy explores abstract concepts - the language is built for it!

In Chapter 5, though, you get to meet another really interesting part of the language: the indefinite article τις, τι.  It’s tempting to think about this just as its English translation ‘a, a certain’, but what it really does is flag that there is something a bit unknown about the noun mentioned.  Think about the sentence στρατηγος τις ἀφικετο - A certain general arrived.  What τις does is show that a general arrived, but the writer doesn’t quite know who it was.  τις isn’t the only word that can do this: Greek has a whole host of indefinite words that can be used to point out that the time, place, manner, extent, duration or type of action that took place is in some way unknown to the speaker or writer.  When you get on to complex Greek grammar, you’ll also discover that Greek can reshape entire clauses via something known as the ‘indefinite construction’ to add even more focus on the idea that knowledge about that event is not entirely complete.

I’ve always loved Greek’s indefinites and its readiness to admit how often our knowledge is lacking.  People often like to talk in certainties or as if life is a matter of simple truths that can be easily understood.  Greek’s grammar reminds us that we should be more wary than that: it’s better to keep an eye out for what we don’t know or understand fully yet.  But there’s something even better than this within Greek’s grammatical structures: you don’t have to get very far into Chapter 5 to find out that - with a small change in accent - τις can be turned into an interrogative, a question word.  In one easy step we move from flagging that we don’t know something to asking the question that will help us understand something a bit better.

Socrates, Oedipus, indefinites: these can all act as reminders that we should be alert to what we don’t know and then grab the opportunity to find out more.  It’s not always easy to understand something, as Socrates’ conversations with the Athenians revealed.  Sometimes, the answer is not what we want to hear, as the Oedipus myth explores.  But the alternative is to sit unquestioningly in the midst of ignorance, making mistakes because we don’t understand things properly.  So, the next time you come across something you don’t understand, make use of what language allows us to do: ask a question, then another one and keep going until you understand it better.  It’s not always easy, other people don’t always welcome it, but it’s definitely better than refusing to ask the question in the first place.