Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens and to place it in cities, and even to introduce it into homes and compel it to inquire about life and standards and goods and evils.

Cicero attributes to Socrates a decisive shift in Greek philosophy: away from speculative “heavenly” or cosmological inquiry and toward ethical questions grounded in ordinary human life. Cicero makes this remark while surveying earlier philosophical traditions and explaining why Socrates became a turning point for later schools. Writing in the late Roman Republic, Cicero often presents Greek philosophy in a form useful for Roman civic and moral life; highlighting Socrates as the figure who brought philosophy into the forum, the household, and practical deliberation supports Cicero’s broader project of linking philosophy with virtue, duty, and public conduct.

The image of “calling philosophy down from the heavens” contrasts abstract theorizing about nature with inquiry into how one ought to live. Cicero’s Socrates democratizes philosophy: it belongs not only to specialists but to citizens and families, because questions of “goods and evils” and “standards” govern everyday choices and political judgment. The line also implies a moral mission—philosophy should not merely describe the world but examine life, test values, and hold people accountable. In Cicero’s hands, Socrates becomes an emblem of philosophy as practical ethics and civic education rather than remote speculation.