notes on The Apology

Socrates (470 - 399 B.C.)

Plato (427-347 B.C.)

The Apology

‘Apology’

from apologia

(defense speech)

Literally: “The Defense”

There were 501 jurors. We don’t know whether what we have is an accurate transcript, but since it was a public event witnessed by many, it is probably fairly accurate. We don’t know what the prosecutors said when making their case, although Socrates accuses them of lying. Plato’s omission of the prosecution’s case makes Socrates’ defense difficult to evaluate.

Questioning Authority

Some authorities felt threatened by Socrates’ questioning But why?

“They would not want to tell the truth, I’m

sure, that they have been proved to lay claim

to knowledge when they know nothing. These

people are ambitious, violent and numerous …”

(23de)

A person does not have legitimate authority

to exercise power over a domain D,

Unless he has knowledge of D.

Knowledge is thus a necessary condition

of legitimate authority, a prerequisite:

If you actually have authority, then you

have to have the requisite knowledge.

More formally:

If some person has legitimate authority to

exercise power over a domain D,

then that person must have knowledge of D.

But then, if some person does not have knowledge of D, then that person does not have legitimate authority over D.

Thus, by showing various authorities to be ignorant, Socrates was challenging their authority.

Socrates’ Accusers

The following text about the accusers is by Douglas Linder, from his excellent Trial of Socrates web page.

Meletus, a poet, initiated the prosecution against Socrates, although most scholars consider him to a "puppet" of the best-known and most influential of the three accusers, Anytus.

Anytus, a powerful middle-class politician from a family of tanners, is generally considered to have been the driving force behind the prosecution of Socrates. Prior to his political career in Athens, Anytus served as a general in the Peloponnesian War.

Little is known about the third accuser, Lycon. He is described as "an orator," a profession Socrates held in especially low regard. Socrates contended that orators were less concerned with the pursuit of truth than in using their oratorical skills to obtain power and influence.

The Thirty Tyrants

In 404, a group known as the “Thirty Tyrants” instigated a coup and overthrew Athenian democracy. They were led by Critias, who had been a close associate of Socrates. In 403, the Tyrants were themselves overthrown and democracy was restored (Anytus was a leader of the counter-attack).

Socrates denounced the Tyrants as wicked, but was a known critic of democracy. In his testimony, Socrates recounts how he was ordered by the Tyrants to arrest a wealthy enemy of the Tyrants. Socrates refused and went home. Had they not been overthrown shortly afterwards, Socrates might have been arrested by the Tyrants himself.

However, Socrates’ criticisms of democracy and association with a leader of the insurrection probably made him a dangerous person in the eyes of many Athenians, including Anytus.

The Sophists

The Sophists were a group of professional philosophers who made their living teaching law and rhetoric to wealthy young Athenian men. They professed to be relativists, denying that there was any absolute truth. Mastering rhetoric was not a way of discovering truth, but of making oneself more persuasive, and hence more powerful. Socrates was believed by most Athenians to be a Sophist, a charge that he denied.

To this day, “Sophistry” is known as the art of using bad but persuasive arguments (or, as Socrates puts it, “making the worse argument appear the better”). Sometimes this is accomplished using semantic tricks, such as equivocation.

Socrates was an outspoken critic of the Sophists, which may explain why Lycon is one of his accusers.

The actual Charges

Socrates is accused of (24b)

1. Corrupting the young

2. Not believing in the gods of the city

3. Believing in other spirits (daimonia)

The Royal Stoa in Athens, where Meletus presented his charges against Socrates

Socrates: Says that prosecutors have told many lies about him. He goes on:

Two kinds of accusers…

“My accusers are of two kinds; one recent, the other old: and I hope that you will see the propriety of my answering the latter first, for these accusations you heard long before the others, and much oftener.”

“…the old accusers… began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse argument appear the better… and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others. It is just what you have yourselves have seen in the comedy of Aristophanes, who has introduced a man whom he calls Socrates swinging about and saying that he walks on air and talking a deal of nonsense concerning matters of which I know nothing.”

Here Socrates refers to The Clouds, a play by Aristophanes which portrayed him as a Sophist teacher. Socrates denies that he is a natural philosopher or a sophist and implores the jury to ask those present if anyone has heard of him engaging in natural philosophy or being paid as a teacher. No one comes forward...

Where there is smoke, there is fire…

“I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply, 'Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations which are brought against you; there must have been something strange which you have been doing?”

The Story of the Oracle at Delphi.

“…Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether, as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt, he asked the oracle to tell him whether any one was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser.”

His friend Chaerephon went to the shrine of Apollo at Delphi and asked the priestess of the shrine whether there was anyone wiser than Socrates. The priestess, speaking for Apollo, answered that no one was wiser than Socrates.

“When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men?

And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him,' Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.'”

“Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him; he was a politician whom first among I selected for examination…When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present… So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: conceit of Man, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is, for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him.

This “advantage” is what is sometimes called “Socratic Wisdom”.

[It is as if the god said]: “O men, he is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.” And so I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then I show him that he is not wise.”

The shrine at Delphi, present day

Artist’s depiction of Delphi as it once was

In order to take Socrates seriously when he talks about the god, we have to suppose he really believed that the priestess at Delphi was channeling the words of Apollo. Though the shrine at Delphi was very important to the ancient Greeks, it is hard to believe that a great critical thinker such as Socrates would have been so gullible. It is noteworthy that Pythia was paid in gold for her prophesies, and that they were usually open to interpretation. It is as though Socrates were basing the defense of his way of life on something he was told on a psychic hotline (though a very famous and widely revered psychic hotline). The jurors were probably skeptical of Socrates’ claims of being ignorant and of being on a divine mission. They may have felt insulted by what they regarded as an obviously dishonest defense.

Corrupting the youth?

“There is another thing:—young men of the richer classes, who have not much to do, come about me of their own accord; they like to hear the pretenders examined, and they often imitate me, and proceed to examine others; …and then those who are examined by them, instead of being angry with themselves are angry with me: this confounded Socrates, they say; this villainous misleader of youth!, and then if somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practice or teach?, … in order that they may not appear to be at a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and making the worse appear the better cause”

End of defense against the “old accusers”

Socrates offers three defenses against charges of corrupting the youth

Socrates asks Meletus who improves the young, as opposed to corrupting them. After a series of questions, Socrates expands the list of improvers:

Socrates: “Then every Athenian improves and elevates them; all with the exception of myself; and I alone am their corrupter? is that what you affirm?”

Meletus: “That is what I stoutly affirm. “

Socrates: “Happy indeed would be the condition of youth if they had one corrupter only, and all the rest of the world were their improvers. But you, Meletus, have sufficiently shown that you never had a thought about the young: your carelessness is seen in your not caring about the very things which you bring against me.”

Implicit argument:

(a)

1. To charge someone fairly with corrupting the youth, one would have to know what it is that actually corrupts.

2. But Meletus says the Socrates is the only corrupter. This is totally implausible, and shows he knows nothing about the subject.

3. Therefore, the charge is unfair (coming from Meletus).

After questioning, Meletus now claims that Socrates intentionally corrupts the young, despite his admission that living among bad citizens is harmful. This raises the following argument:

(b)

1. Wicked people have a bad effect upon their associates.

2. Good people have a good effect upon their associates.

3. No one prefers to be harmed rather than benefited.

4. Meletus maintains that Socrates corrupts youth deliberately.

But this seems absurd: Socrates would not deliberately corrupt his own associates, knowing that it would harm himself. On the other hand, if the corruption is not deliberate, then Socrates needs instruction, not punishment.

(c) There is no evidence of corruption. Socrates calls on witnesses to attest that he has not corrupted any of their relatives.

Socrates’ Defense against charges of heresy or atheism

(a) contradictory accusations

Socrates asks Meletus (one of the accusers) whether he thinks that S. is a believer in other gods, as the indictment says, or whether he is a complete atheist. Under questioning, Meletus says that he is a complete atheist. Yet Meletus has charged that Socrates believes in other gods that the city does not.

(b) Socrates’ actions exemplified piety

Notice that Socrates doesn’t just come out and say that he believes in the Athenian gods and denounce other gods, even though he could have.

Instead, Socrates suggests that his behavior is pious, in that he is carrying out the mission of the god at Delphi.

“Strange, indeed, would be my conduct, O men of Athens, if I who, when I was ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at Potidaea and Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me, like any other man, facing death, if now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfill the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods…”

Why Socrates will not back down

“if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death, [I would be] fancying that I was wise when I was not wise.

For the fear of death is the pretense of…knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good… And in this respect only I believe myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be wiser than they are:—that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.”

Implicit argument:

1. I am faced with a choice between death (if I defy the jury and continue my mission) or disobeying the God (if I renounce my mission).

2. I do not know that death is an evil (a bad thing).

3. I do know that disobeying the God would be an evil.

4. It is better to choose something that might not be an evil over something that is known to be an evil.

5. Therefore, it is better to choose death.

Socrates is convicted of the charges by only the slimmest of margins and gives a second speech. In Athenian jurisprudential practice, the accusers asked for a certain penalty if the accused is convicted, and the accused argues for a different, usually more lenient penalty. For instance, if the accusers ask for the death penalty, it was customary for the accused to ask for banishment. The lesser punishment tended to be chosen in just about every case. Socrates' second speech is an argument for a different penalty rather than death, but Socrates argues that he is doing a great service to the state of Athens, so that the appropriate penalty would be to pay him a stipend for the rest of his life to support him in his criticism of individual citizens of Athens.

The Divine Sign

“Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state. I will tell you why. You have heard me speak at sundry times and in diverse places of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do.”

“A surprising thing has happened to me, judges -- you I would rightly call my judges. At all previous times my familiar prophetic power, my spiritual manifestation, frequently opposed me, even in small matters, when I was about to do something wrong, but now that, as you can see for yourselves, I was faced with what one might think, and what is generally thought to

be, the worst of evils, my divine sign has not opposed me. Yet in other talks it often held me back in the middle of my speaking, but now it has opposed no word or deed of mine...it is impossible that my familiar sign did not op-

pose me if I was not about to do what was right.

(40ac)

Socrates gives an argument of the form modus tollens:

1. If I were doing wrong, then the divine sign would stop me.

2. The divine sign is not stopping me.

_____________

3. I am not doing wrong.

If p then q

Not q

____________

Not p

Counter-Penalties?

“What counter-assessment should I propose to you, gentlemen of the jury? Clearly it should be a penalty I deserve…”

Socrates suggests: a pension with free Meals at the Prytaneum

“much more suitable for him than for any one of you who has won a victory at Olympia with a pair or a team of horses. The Olympian victor makes you think yourself happy; I make you be happy. Besides, he does not need food, but I do.”

Socrates considers other punishments. Since he does not know that death is a harm, he argues it would be irrational for him to accept a punishment that is a harm (e.g. a fine, imprisonment or banishment). What about a promise to keep quiet?

“If I say that it is impossible for me to keep quiet because that means disobeying the god, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for man, you will believe me even less.”

Finally: Plato, Crito and Critoboulus get some cash together and offer to pay a fine. That is his final offer.

Socrates is sentenced to death.

Does Socrates have to die? NO. He could have avoided death.

He forces the issue because (according to him):

A life without philosophical examination is not worth living.

Socrates’ Dilemma Regarding Death

“[Death] is one of two things: either the dead are nothing and have no perception of anything, or it is 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. For I think that if one had to pick out that night during which a man slept soundly and did not dream, put beside it the other nights and days of his life, not only a private person but the great king would find [better days and nights] easy to count...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. If, on the other hand, death is a change from here to another place, and what we are told is true and all who have died are there, what greater blessing could there be, gentlemen of the jury? If anyone arriving in Hades will have escaped from those who call themselves judges here, and will find those true judges who are said to sit in judgement there...would that be a poor kind of change? It would be a wonderful way for me to spend my time whenever I met Palamedes and Ajax, the son of Telamon, and any other of the men of old who died through an unjust conviction, to compare my experience with theirs. Most important, I could spend my time testing and examining people there, as I do here, as to who among them is wise, and who thinks he is, but is not. It would be an extraordinary happiness to talk with them...In any case, they would certainly not put one to death for doing so.”

Socrates’ argument in standard form:

1. Either death is like a dreamless sleep, or it is a relocation to another place (Hades).

2. If death is like a dreamless sleep, then death is a blessing.

3. If death is a relocation to another place, then death is a blessing.

__________________________

4. Therefore, death is a blessing.

This form of argument is known as

Constructive Dilemma (proof by cases)

Either p or q

If p, then r

If q, then r