Plato and Socrates Part 1: The Apology
Updated: Jun 11, 2020
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The Philosopher we begin with is Socrates. It is common knowledge that whatever we may know about Socrates is from Plato’s dialogues. So, we’ll practically be studying Plato and Socrates alongside but we’ll take a deeper dive into Plato in some upcoming episodes. Now, Socrates didn’t believe in written Philosophy. He focused much more on questioning his surroundings, his peers and finding out what wisdom his fellow citizens had. It was this line of questioning and critiquing that came to be known as the Socratic Method. Before we discuss Socrates, I think it’s best for us to discuss a bit of what this Socratic Method consists of.
The Socratic Method is a way to win an argument but I wouldn’t say it is the most effective way to win an argument but rather win discussions, discourses, or even non-competitive debates. The Method basically begins with your counterpart suggesting a statement or a hypothesis. You then confirm your opponent that his statement does seem to be true. For example, in one of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates deeply agrees with his friend Euthyphro on the definition of piety. But, then breaks down Eutbyphro’s definition and shows him where he was going wrong. Once, you have reaffirmed the opponent of the merits that his hypothesis has, you begin your argument by strictly stating your stance. It is important that you take this stance as there should be no doubt within the mind of your opponent that you’re correcting him/her. After stating your stance, you being with a series of Yes or No questions that must be designed in order to not only disprove the opponent’s hypothesis but also provide you with a new and more refined one. Now, if you see, this method has its discrepancies too. For example, you cannot expect your opponent to just hear you babble about your questions and inferences. They will strike back with more than one point that is not a response to a Yes/No question. But, the Socratic Method is used as a medium of learning as well as a way to carry out psychotherapy. For more information on this, I would recommend you to visit our website and you’ll find a lot resources on the Socratic Method attached to the transcript for this podcast.
The best way to get acquainted with Socrates would be through the Apology by Plato. It only makes sense if we start our Podcast from there. However, there are dialogues from before the Apology so even though we’ll be reading them later, we will get some context from those dialogues to discuss the Apology at length. The Apology is the story of Socrates’ trial. He was persecuted by Meletus, a poet, Anytus, a politician and Lycon, an orator. Meletus was the Principal Accuser and he is the one presenting the case in the Apology. So, what are they arguing about? Well, as it turns out, Socrates was accused of the following official charges:
Impiety against the gods of Athens: Socrates failed to acknowledge the gods that the people of Athens acknowledged and introducing new deities.
Corruption of the youth of Athens by pumping irrelevant wisdom into them.
The question in that court was whether Socrates was guilty or not. The question that burdens us is whether he was ethical or not; whether his acts were justified or not; whether he was being a man of honor or a traitor of the state. The dialogue begins with Socrates laying out some initial defenses but they are quite irrelevant to our pursuit. The main plot for the dialogue begins once Socrates starts talking about the Delphic oracle. Now, The Delphic oracle was a place prophecies were given. Socrates’ friend, Chaerephon asked the oracle if there was anyone wiser in Greece than Socrates, and the answer was returned, “No one is wiser than Socrates.” Now, anyone else would normally do a victory dance or celebrate such an occasion but Socrates was baffled. He did not believe the Delphic oracle. So he tried to find someone else who was wiser than him at that time. He had a couple of people in mind that he wanted to examine of sorts and find out whether they were wiser than him or not. After he would “examine,” that is, ask questions of others who would say that they know something, they came to dislike Socrates and others did as well. "Neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know. So I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think what I do not know" This is probably one of the most prominent positions that Socrates set up in the field of epistemology.
He examined men of politics, poets, tragedy writers, and craftspersons. He found out that the politicians were the most deficient in knowledge. For the poets, he said: anyone on the street could explain their poems better than them – so the poets must be inspired and have no knowledge of what they write. According to him, the craftspersons did know many fine things, but thought that because they were good at their craft, that they were experts at everything else. Socrates was happy to be as he is, and not to be someone who thinks he knows something when he really does not. Because of the oracle, Socrates says, “I do not have the leisure to engage in public affairs to any extent, nor indeed to look after my own, but I live in great poverty because of my service to the god.”
Now, I can give you the account of what exactly happened in the apology with no context whatsoever but that is not how I want this podcast to function so let's talk about the charges. There were not just three accusers but many more The accusers were divided into two categories: the first accusers (or the older accusers) and the later accusers (or new accusers). The earlier accusers raised the following charges:
1. Socrates busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth -Here, Socrates is charged with concerning himself with inappropriate topics of study. (Which is to say that he is worshipping Non-Athenian gods or is an atheist)
Socrates makes the worse argument into the stronger. (Pointing to his identification as a sophist in the Athenian city.
Socrates corrupts the young by teaching him the above activities.
The later accusers followed up on those and formally tried Socrates in court, which is exactly what the dialogue covers. The latter accusers accused Socrates of:
Corruption of the Youth
Disbelief in gods
How do you imagine Socrates replied to this?
Socrates began his defense by questioning the jurors themselves. He then later criticizes the jurors for not being real judges.
Socrates' second argument during his initial defense helps him build a solid fundamental ground against the first accusers. He says that he has not studied inappropriate fields nor has he charged a fee for teaching people especially the youth. This is how he separates himself from the Sophists who were a group of people who charged others for teaching them the art of rhetoric. Athenians hated Sophists and their food they were against Socrates and his way of teaching people.
Let’s take a deeper dive into what Socrates talked about the Corruption of the Youth Charge because that conversation really highlights the Socratic Method for us:
Socrates and Meletus agree that it is of great importance that our young men be as good as possible. Socrates asks who improves the young, and says that Meletus charges Socrates as the harm of the young. After a brief period of time, Meletus finally answers, “The laws.” Socrates says the laws are not persons, and asks who has knowledge of the laws, and Meletus answers, “The jury.” Meletus argues that every jury member, the Assembly, the Council, and the audience (and Socrates extrapolates this to every Athenian and Meletus agrees) educates and improves the young. Socrates responds (paraphrasing): “Does this apply to horses? That is, do all men improve horses and one individual corrupts them? Or is it rather that one individual, the horse breeder, improves them and the majority, corrupts them? It would be a very happy state of affairs if only one person corrupted the youth and many improved them. Meletus does not answer, so Socrates concludes that Meletus has given no real thought to either the youth or the subjects relevant to the charges and this helps show the Athenians that the charges are baseless. Socrates reaffirmed Meletus’ hypothesis at first and then used a certain line of questioning to disprove the hypothesis. This was the perfect execution of the Socratic Method.
Socrates then continues, is it better for a man to live among good or wicked fellow-citizens; do not the wicked do some harm to those who are ever closest to them, whereas good people benefit them? Meletus affirms this. Socrates then asks, “Does the man exist who would rather be harmed than benefited by his associates?” Meletus answers, “Of course not.” So you accuse me of corrupting the young and making them worse willingly or unwillingly? Meletus answers, “Willingly”. Socrates responds, “Are you so much wiser at your age than I am at mine that you understand that wicked people always do some harm to their closest neighbors while good people do them good, but I have reached such a pitch of ignorance that I do not realize this, namely that if I make one of my associates wicked I run the risk of being harmed by him so that I do such a great evil deliberately …? … Either I do not corrupt the young or, if I do, it is unwillingly, and you are lying in either case. Now if I corrupt the young unwillingly, the law does not require you to bring people to court for such unwillingly wrongdoings, but to get hold of them privately, to instruct them and exhort them; for clearly, if I learn better, I shall cease to do what I am doing unwillingly.” [“No one errs willingly.” We all desire happiness, not unhappiness; when we err, we have false beliefs that make us think that an action is what will bring us happiness. So it is only ignorance that leads us away from happiness, and not our desire. If no one errs willingly, then Socrates isn't harming others willingly. If he is harming the youth, he is not consciously trying to do so. So someone who recognizes that Socrates is harming someone should just point out why he's harming others, and he'll stop. Socrates assumes that harming others harms one's soul (the harmer), and always will come back to oneself in one way or another.
For the charge of Atheism/non-Athenian Gods:
Socrates confirms the charge again, that he teaches the young “not to believe in the gods in whom the city believes but in other new divinities.” Socrates asks Meletus to clarify the charge, and Meletus says that it’s that Socrates does not believe in gods at all, and that this is what he teaches to others, and adds that Socrates believes that the sun is stone and the moon earth. Socrates asks Meletus if he thinks he is prosecuting Anaxagoras since that view of the planets is his. Socrates says Meletus is contradicting himself by saying that Socrates does not believe in gods and believes in gods. Socrates then goes on to ask if anyone believes in human affairs but not in humans, in equine affairs but not in horses, in flute music but not in flute players, and then asks if, similarly, any man believes in divine activities but not in divinities? Meletus is forced to answer by the jury and answers no. Socrates then reviews: Meletus has said in his deposition that Socrates believes in divine activities, and now he is saying that I am an atheist. Now, if we look at this from a learning perspective, we realise that Socrates is convinced the audience that Meletus is not clear of the charges himself and therefore his argument has no ground whatsoever. We can see Socrates using his famous Socratic method to make sure that the audience is undoubtedly convinced that the charge regarding Socrates preaching to non-Athenian God or Socrates believing in atheism is scratched.
Now, Socrates was practically acting like a little child. How? Well, he was asking a lot of questions just like a child does and he was quite annoying to the people who thought themselves as wise men. Even during the trial, he says to the people of Athens that they would be harming themselves if they convicted Socrates for the crime and sentenced him to die. Socrates says the gods have attached him to Athens, and calls himself a gadfly (a fly that is attracted horses) - as if Athens is a great and noble horse, and Socrates tries to rouse and awake them from being sluggish or unreflective by means of persuasion and reproach. Socrates calls himself a gift to Athens because “it does not seem like human nature for him to have neglected all his affairs and to have tolerated this neglect for so many years while he was always concerned with people of Athens, approaching each of them like a father or an elder brother to persuade them to care for virtue.”
Now we are into the second phase of the dialogue. In the second phase, we see that Socrates has been found guilty as charged. What's funny in this part is that is known as an accomplished Debbie do and conversationalist you would expect Socrates to talk his way out of this and settle this matter with a very small punishment. However, Socrates proposes that they should celebrate Socrates as an educator and give him free meals at the Prytaneum. Imagine the audacity he has that even after being found guilty he's not begging his way out of punishment. Rather he is still standing his ground and is still trying to make the Athenian people realize his importance and the importance of wisdom in general. Although this is a small phase in the whole dialogue the fact that Socrates asks for free meals as a just punishment or a repayment plays a crucial role in how the Athenian people decide the actual punishment to be.
In the third phase, we get to know that Socrates has been sentenced to death by the jurors. At least now, you would think, that Socrates would've realized that he needs to get out of this problem by using his skills as a conversationalist. However, Socrates continues to mark the Athenian people who convicted him and hence sentenced him to die. He says “…you will acquire the reputation and the guilt, in the eyes of those who want to denigrate the city, of having killed Socrates, a wise man, for they who want to revile you will say that I am wise even if I am not”
Back in that time, it was common practice to bring your family in the trial and beg for forgiveness for the convict and his family. But, Socrates doesn’t do that and he is quite proud of his defense. He says: Perhaps you think that I regret not crying and bringing my family in to appeal to pity. Socrates says that he does not “now regret the nature of my defense. I would much rather die after this kind of defense than live after making the other kind. Neither I nor any other man should, on trial or in war, contrive to avoid death at any cost. It is not difficult to avoid death… it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death.” “I leave you now, condemned to death by you, but they are condemned by truth to wickedness and injustice”
Another fascinating thing about the third phase is Socrates’ reference to death. He says: “What has happened to me may well be a good thing and those of us who believe death to be an evil are certainly mistaken. … there is good hope that death is a blessing, for it is one of two things: either the dead are nothing and have no perception of anything, or it is, as we are told, a change and a relocating for the soul from here to another place. If it is a complete lack of perception, like a dreamless sleep, then death would be a great advantage. …If death is like this I say it is an advantage, for all eternity would then seem to be no more than a single night” (40b-d). A night of dreamless sleep is great!
He ends with: Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god
Now, if you see Socrates accepts whatever the Athenian people decide for him. This goes to show that Socrates has faith in the system. Moreover, Socrates, in the middle of the dialogue, also states that he thinks the Athenian people to be just and wise. The apology is one of the earlier works of Plato and therefore it is common to see that he still has feet in the system whereas when you move to little walks of Plato you see how he diverges from democracy and tries to form an oligarchy. As I said, in the beginning, all of Plato's ideas and I love Socrates’ ideas are combined and presented to us in one single format: Plato's dialogues.
Therefore when we say that Socrates has feet in the system we are basically saying that Plato has faith in the system.
Now that this episode has ended, I want to ask yourself a couple of questions. Some of them are going to be related to the dialogue itself while others I want you to question society as a whole. When Socrates says that he is merely undertaking this mission to “serve the God,” do you really believe him? Is this really the only thing he's doing? When Plato talks about death, can you see a relation between his analogy and the analogy present in various religions? There can be other obvious questions as well like was Plato doing the right thing or was Plato really corrupting the youth. But I'm sure you know the answer to these questions. One last thing that I wanted to ask yourself as you shut down this podcast and maybe move onto the next episode, was Socrates asked by the Delphic oracle indirectly to become a teacher for the whole of Athens? Thank you for listening to this episode The Philosophy Junkie. I’ll catch you guys in the next episode.
I want you to ask yourself a question when this episode ends: Socrates says that he is merely undertaking this mission to “serve the god”. Do we believe this? Is this really the only thing he's doing?
Resources:
2. http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~davpy35701/text/plato-apology.html
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