Socrates, Classical Philosopher, Man of Reason, had nonpsychotic auditory hallucinations—he heard voices—like people with multiple personality

When a nonpsychotic person hears voices that address themselves rationally to various situations, and have been doing so since childhood, they are probably the voices of alternate personalities, speaking from behind the scenes.

(Of course, discovering that a person had such voices would make for only a probable diagnosis. To confirm the diagnosis, you would have to enter into a dialogue with the voice; this would prompt the alternate personality to become overt, to come out, and temporarily take over; which would happen quite naturally, without hypnosis or drugs.)

Socrates (470 – 399 BC): His Hidden Side

With his Socratic Method of asking questions, and his chief claim of wisdom—that he appreciates what he does not know—he is a prototypical, above board, Man of Reason. But he also has a hidden side, a covertness:

“Perhaps the most interesting facet of this [covertness] is Socrates' reliance on what the Greeks called his "daimōnic sign", an averting inner voice Socrates heard only when he was about to make a mistake…Socrates' characterization of the phenomenon as daimōnic may suggest that its origin is divine, mysterious, and independent of his own thoughts. Today, such a voice would be classified…as a…hallucination” (1).

Plutarch (AD 46 – AD 120)

“…Socrates embraced a manner of teaching and speaking that had more of the true philosophic stamp…as for humbug…he sent it flying to the sophists…

“Very well, said Theocritus, but what, my dear sir, do we call Socrates’ sign [Daimonion]? An imposture?…[which] Heaven seems to have attached to Socrates from his earliest years as his guide in life…

“Simmias…had often heard Socrates express the view that men who laid claim to visual communication with Heaven were imposters, while to such as affirmed that they heard a voice he paid close attention. It thus occurred to us…that Socrates’ sign was perhaps no vision, but rather the perception of a voice or else the mental apprehension of language that reached him in some strange way…” (2, pp. 403-451).

Plato (427–347 BC)

Socrates: “…You have heard me speak, at sundry times and in different places, of an oracle or sign which comes to me; it is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from being a politician…” (3, pp. 289-290).

Xenophon (430 – 354 BC)

“…Socrates’ inner voice…Socrates calls it to daimonion, ‘the divine’, and claims it communicates with him…by warning him if he is about to do something that is not to his advantage…We should be wary of assimilating it too closely to our concept of ‘conscience’, if by that we mean a moral force, because Socrates’ little voice appears to have no moral function…” (4, pp. 34-35).

Comment

Socrates had a “little voice” just like Lee Child’s protagonist, Jack Reacher (see recent post).

In short, my past posts regarding voices, novelists, and multiple personality are not about something that applies only to novels and novelists. It’s been a phenomenon of human nature since antiquity.

1.Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates

2. Plutarch. “On the Sign of Socrates,” in Plutarch’s Moralia, Vol. VII, Trans. Phillip H. De Lacy and Benedict Einarson. Loeb Classical Library 405. Harvard University Press, 1959/2000.

3. Plato. “Apology,” in Essential Dialogues of Plato. Trans. Benjamin Jowett, Pedro de Blas. New York, Barnes & Noble Classics, 1871/2005.

4. Xenophon. Conversations of Socrates. Translated and Introduced by Robin Waterfield. London, Penguin Books, 1990.