Throughout his lifetime, Socrates attracted a large number of followers and critics. He motivated his students to question and challenge existing knowledge and got in trouble for it. Even though he never wrote down any accounts of his life or oratory skills, his students Plato and Aristotle took up after him and gave detailed accounts of his life, philosophical perspectives, and his pursuit for moral values and ethics. One of the most powerful Athenian tragedies, Antigone, written by Sophocles depicts the philosophical perspective of Socrates in matters related to governance. Through the conflict of the characters Creole and Antigone, Socrates portrays the essential nature of the relationship between the individual and the polis, the essential duties that an individual owes to those to whom he/she is connected either by family or civic, political ties. Sophocles also explores the essential nature of the proper ruler and the essential nature of the good and the just. These issues are later explored by Plato and Aristotle in very contradicting ways. This paper looks into the manner in which Plato and Aristotle would have understood the conflict in the tragedy Antigone. It explains whether or not they would have sided with Creon or Antigone and the fate of philosophy in relation to the problem of the polis.
Socrates believed in the philosophy of ideals. In his perspective, ideals belonged to a world only the wise man had the capability of understanding. He believed that a perfect regime as that which was led by philosophers and for this reason, he objected the Athenian democracies. The tragedy Antigone by Sophocles reveals what he thought of the Athenian regime under the leadership of King Creole. In his perception, Creole is a man devoid of philosophical knowledge. This forms the basis of the tragic occurrences at the end of the book. Sophocles depicts the entire regime as composed of people lacking in philosophical knowledge and unaware of their lack. He goes against the reigning democracies of Athenians, terming them as lacking in philosophical ideologies and therefore incompetent as leaders.
Socrates constantly admitted his ignorance with the statement ‘I know that I know nothing (Barker 2015).' He considered the need for though sense and judgment in the pursuit of wisdom. He believed that the lack of virtue or wrongdoing resulted from ignorance and that those who engaged in them knew no better. In the tragic play Antigone, Sophocles perceives King Creole as ignorant of the wrath of the gods and the importance of heeding to the words of the prophets. His ignorance leads him to commit deeds that are unvirtuous before the gods, and he has to pay for his sins. Ignorance is therefore not an excuse for unvirtuous actions. However, ignorance becomes a point of correction and exposes an individual to the much-needed knowledge that would prompt a philosophical perception of things. Creole learns from experience. In the final stages of his book, he is faced with the realization that he had been ignorant and lacking in knowledge and had made the wrong choice.