The Problem of Socrates
E320420
The Problem of Socrates is a section in Friedrich Nietzsche’s late work where he critically examines Socrates as a symptom of cultural and philosophical decline, challenging his traditional status as a moral and rational ideal.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Problem of Socrates canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3037375 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Problem of Socrates Context triple: [Twilight of the Idols, containsSection, The Problem of Socrates]
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A.
Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten
Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten is a philosophical work by Johann Georg Hamann that reflects his critique of Enlightenment rationalism through Socratic-style reflections and aphorisms.
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B.
Socrates' Thinkery
Socrates' Thinkery is the fictional philosophical school and absurd intellectual workshop depicted in Aristophanes' comedy "The Clouds," where Socrates leads comically exaggerated sophistic and scientific inquiries.
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C.
La Mort de Socrate
La Mort de Socrate is the original French title of Jacques-Louis David’s famous 1787 Neoclassical painting depicting the philosopher Socrates calmly accepting his death by hemlock.
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D.
Plato's Charmides
Plato's "Charmides" is a Socratic dialogue that explores the nature of temperance (sophrosyne) through a philosophical conversation between Socrates and the young Charmides, with characters like Critobulus appearing in the discussion.
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E.
Apology of Socrates
Apology of Socrates is a Platonic dialogue that presents Socrates’ defense speech at his trial in Athens, exploring themes of justice, wisdom, and the examined life.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Problem of Socrates Target entity description: The Problem of Socrates is a section in Friedrich Nietzsche’s late work where he critically examines Socrates as a symptom of cultural and philosophical decline, challenging his traditional status as a moral and rational ideal.
-
A.
Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten
Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten is a philosophical work by Johann Georg Hamann that reflects his critique of Enlightenment rationalism through Socratic-style reflections and aphorisms.
-
B.
Socrates' Thinkery
Socrates' Thinkery is the fictional philosophical school and absurd intellectual workshop depicted in Aristophanes' comedy "The Clouds," where Socrates leads comically exaggerated sophistic and scientific inquiries.
-
C.
La Mort de Socrate
La Mort de Socrate is the original French title of Jacques-Louis David’s famous 1787 Neoclassical painting depicting the philosopher Socrates calmly accepting his death by hemlock.
-
D.
Plato's Charmides
Plato's "Charmides" is a Socratic dialogue that explores the nature of temperance (sophrosyne) through a philosophical conversation between Socrates and the young Charmides, with characters like Critobulus appearing in the discussion.
-
E.
Apology of Socrates
Apology of Socrates is a Platonic dialogue that presents Socrates’ defense speech at his trial in Athens, exploring themes of justice, wisdom, and the examined life.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
philosophical text section
ⓘ
work by Friedrich Nietzsche ⓘ |
| arguesThat |
Socrates is a symptom rather than a cause of decline
ⓘ
Socratic reason arises from physiological and psychological conditions ⓘ philosophy can express health or sickness of a culture ⓘ |
| author | Friedrich Nietzsche ⓘ |
| contrasts | Socratic rationalism with tragic Greek culture ⓘ |
| criticizes |
Socratic dialectic
ⓘ
Socratic ethics ⓘ identification of virtue with knowledge ⓘ optimism of reason ⓘ |
| evaluates |
Socrates from a cultural-historical perspective
ⓘ
Socrates from a physiological perspective ⓘ |
| genre |
aphoristic essay
ⓘ
philosophical critique ⓘ |
| influences |
20th-century interpretations of Socrates
ⓘ
critical studies of classical philosophy ⓘ |
| language | German ⓘ |
| mainSubject | Socrates ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
critique of Socrates
ⓘ
critique of rationalism ⓘ cultural decline ⓘ decadence ⓘ health and sickness in culture ⓘ instinct and reason ⓘ morality ⓘ |
| originalTitleLanguage | German ⓘ |
| partOf | Twilight of the Idols ⓘ |
| perspective | genealogical critique of values ⓘ |
| philosophicalMovement | Nietzschean philosophy ⓘ |
| philosophicalOppositionTo | Socratic identification of reason with virtue ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | Continental philosophy ⓘ |
| portraysSocratesAs |
enemy of instinct
ⓘ
representative of rationalism ⓘ sign of cultural sickness ⓘ symptom of decadence ⓘ |
| positionInWork | early section of Twilight of the Idols ⓘ |
| publicationPeriod | late 19th century ⓘ |
| questions |
traditional image of Socrates as moral ideal
ⓘ
value of Socratic rationality ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
Ecce Homo
ⓘ
On the Genealogy of Morality ⓘ The Birth of Tragedy ⓘ The Gay Science ⓘ |
| usesConcept |
decadence
ⓘ
instinct ⓘ life-affirmation ⓘ |
| workContext | Nietzsche’s late critique of Western morality ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Problem of Socrates Description of subject: The Problem of Socrates is a section in Friedrich Nietzsche’s late work where he critically examines Socrates as a symptom of cultural and philosophical decline, challenging his traditional status as a moral and rational ideal.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.