Oil on Canvas 25x35 (2022)

*Before Socrates drank the poison that would kill himself his companion Crito asks;

“...Crito: And in what way shall we bury you?

-In any way that you like; but you must get hold of me, and take care that I do not run away from you. Then he turned to us, and added with a smile:—I cannot make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead body—and he asks, How shall he bury me? And though I have spoken many words in the endeavour to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the joys of the blessed,—these words of mine, with which I was comforting you and myself, have had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito.” (Plato, Phaedo)

Socrates's whole philosophy is towards death, preparation for it. Socrates, who remembers the immortality of the soul, thinks that it will pass from the inadequacy of the body to the resistance of the soul, to the source of vitality, through death, that is, liberation from the body. However, this transition will only be possible with the purification of the ignorance that will weigh on the ascent of the soul/mind. For Socrates, knowing and learning is remembering what our souls know before our lives, while philosophy will be a means of purification and living a true life in accordance with the truth.

So “The Other Socrates” is trying provocate us to remind the only thing that we have: us. We are all sharing same destiny, rule or curse; there will be a “other us”. Hence we can review our lives and what it means again.