Socrates V. Leo Tolstoy on the Meaning of Life

Socrates V. Leo Tolstoy on the Meaning of Life

Much of what philosophy stands for can be captured in Socrates’ proclamation that an “Unexamined life is not worth living”. Any thinker who has followed since Plato’s teacher can be judged, in part, by their fidelity to this simple yet powerfully compelling creed. Leo Tolstoy’s life can stand as the perfect exemplar of Socrates’ life-guiding principle. To do so, this paper shows that the seemingly contradictory mechanisms used in each of their searches for truth: Socrates running toward reason and Tolstoy away from it, are compatible approaches to examining life’s meaning. Tolstoy is not so much abandoning reason as he is transcending it, a difference that dissolves the seeming paradox.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was a classical Greek philosopher who is credited with laying the fundamentals of modern Western philosophy. He is known for creating Socratic irony and the Socratic Method (elenchus) (Famakinwa, 2012). He has had a profound influence on Western philosophy, along with his students Plato and Aristotle. It is also argued that Socrates believed “ideals belong in a world only the wise man can understand” making the philosopher the only type of person suitable to govern others (Famakinwa, 2012). In Plato’s dialogue the Republic, Socrates openly objected to the democracy that ran Athens during his adult life. In his later life, Socrates was accused of corrupting the truth of the Athens and impiety, or heresy. He chose to defend himself in court. Instead of proposing he be exiled, Socrates suggested he be honoured by the city for his contribution to their enlightenment and be paid for his services, the sentiments that come to succeed (Famakinwa, 2012). In Socrates’ theory of knowledge, he argues that “the only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing,” Socrates emphasized knowledge about all his life because he believed that “the ability to distinguish between right and wrong lies in people’s reason, not in society” (Famakinwa, 2012).  The philosopher presupposes reason is essential for a good life. One’s true happiness is promoted by doing what is right. When your true utility is served through attending your soul, then you are achieving happiness.

Further, Socrates suggests that an unexamined life is not worth living. While some argue for the worthlessness of an unexamined life, others support the superfluity of self-critical examination (McElwain, 2013). In the Apology further, Socrates famously says that the unexamined life is not worth living. Additionally, Socrates, according to Platonic dialogues, believes that in life we should seek eudaimonia as our ultimate end (McElwain, 2013).  This refers to a state of well-being, a healthy spirit, or a type of happiness. This means that for the Socrates, living a philosophical life means living with the idea that reason, conceived as the capacity for argument and analysis in pursuit of the truth about things, is humans’ highest and most essential capacity (McElwain, 2013). Socrates furthermore claims that knowledge is the most valuable thing in life, however, he believed that it is better to seek knowledge and be conscious of your ignorance than to claim knowledge that you do not have.

On the other hand, Leo Tolstoy was born in the year 1828 in Tula Province, Russia. In the 1860s, he wrote his first great novel, War and Peace (Leon, 2015). Tolstoy in 1873, set to work on the second of his known novels, Ann Karenina, whereby he explored most diverse approaches to human experience with life. He continued to write fiction throughout the 1880s and 1890s (Leon, 2015). However, his later life has been described by A.N. Wilson as one of the unhappiest in literary history.

Leon, (2015) states that Leo Tolstoy in his controversial sentiment against Socrates’ reasoning approach, “Only faith can give truth” he claims that the meaning of life cannot come from art, science, or philosophy, but only the irrational knowledge of faith can provide the meaning of life, in recognition of the fact that death is the only certainty in life (Leon, 2015). Contrary to Socrates’ philosophy on knowledge about reason for life, for Tolstoy, faith is the knowledge of the meaning of human life. Giraldi, (2014) suggest that Tolstoy argues that “for a human to be capable to live he should either opt not to see the infinite, or have that kind of explanation of life’s meaning as will link the infinite with the finite” (Giraldi, 2014).

Contrary to the meaning of life, according to Socrates, which is more of finding happiness, Tolstoy, at age 50, got into full blustered mid-life crisis. Although he was famous, fortunate, and had a loving family, he felt life meaningless (Beard, 2013). Having been the author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace, he became one of the most distinguished writers in human history (Beard, 2013). However, Leo Tolstoy found that he was still engrossed in despair. Tolstoy had already fallen into the transcendence. Most of the crisis of Tolstoy was stemming from his desire to be perceived in a particular way and the desire to be more competitive than the others. Tolstoy completed all sorts of his attempts to solve the crisis of life’s meaning. He explored religion and science. His activities presented no release from the pain he suffered. 

Tolstoy’s life can stand as the embodiment of Socrates’ insight that to examine one’s life and live according to the answers you find is the highest form of living. The seeming “reason paradox” between Socrates’ embrace of reason and Tolstoy’s seeming abandonment of it is resolved if we consider Tolstoy’s supposed abandonment of reason as in fact a case of transcendence.