Socrates

Socrates (Сократ; 469–399 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of Athens.¹

In A Confession

Socrates is the first of the four whose answer to the question of life A Confession (Исповедь, 1879–82) gives as one and the same: Socrates, Arthur Schopenhauer, Solomon and the Buddha (VI.10).²

• VI.11–12. “We approach truth only inasmuch as we depart from life,” said Socrates when preparing for death. The passage goes on to the wise man who “seeks death all his life and therefore death is not terrible to him.”³ The PSS commentary identifies it as a free, shortened translation of two extracts from chapters XI and XII of Plato’s Phaedo, which gives Socrates’ last conversations with his pupils. Tolstoy knew Greek and may have read the dialogue in the original.⁴
• VI.22. The four answers are then given again in short. For Socrates: “The life of the body is an evil and a lie. Therefore the destruction of the life of the body is a blessing, and we should desire it.”⁵

In a list he made in 1891 of the books that had impressed him, Tolstoy put the Phaedo among those that made a “very great” impression between the ages of 20 and 35.⁶

Open questions

• Whether Tolstoy took the Phaedo passages from the Greek or from a translation is not settled by the commentary (“possibly”).

Dive provenance

• 1879-1882-a-confession — the text of A Confession (PSS 23:1–59) and its commentary (PSS 23:515–537); Johan’s reader notes of 10 October 2026 asked for this page.