Notes on the Apology

I. Introduction to the notes on the apology

A. These notes summarize the interpretation of parts of the Apology that I worked through with you in class. You should know that this interpretation is controversial. Many readers of the Apology would agree with it in whole or part. But many others would disagree.

1. The central issue in this dispute involves the nature and place of Socratic irony.

a) What is irony?

(1) When we speak or write ironically what we mean to convey to audience is different from what we literally say. We pretend to take a particular view, all the while expecting that our audience—or, at least, some members of our audience, will see that our actual view is different from what we say.

b) The central dispute about this text is whether Socrates speaks ironically to the judges. This is a possibility is raised by Socrates himself in the Apology. And he raises it, we can presume, because Socrates was well known for being ironic. The issue of Socratic irony arise over two central questions:

(1) Did Socrates truly think himself innocent or guilty of the charges? Did he defend himself in a way that would establish his innocence for both the citizens of Athens and those who might hear about his defense speech in later years? Or, while defending himself, did he implicitly us that he recognizes his guilty and thus the tension between philosophy and the political community.

(2) Did Socrates truly believe in the gods? Did he believe that he was on a mission from god when he philosophized?  Or was his talk of divinities and his daimonion a metaphorical and hidden way of talking about his conviction that the philosophic life is best for some or all of us.

c) To establish that Socrates speaks ironically only makes sense if we address not just what tells us, but why he speaks ironically.  If Socrates speaks ironically in the Apology there must be some important reason, one connected to what he tells those who can penetrate his irony.

d) I shall try to address both what he says and why he says it in an ironic manner in these notes.

B. My argument has been most heavily influenced by two books, Thomas G. West, Plato’s Apology of Socrates (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979) and Leo  Straus, “On Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Crito” in Strauss, Studies in Platonic Philosophy (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1984).

C. Two useful recent books that present a very different interpretation of the Apology one that does not see Socrates speech as fundamentally ironic in nature are C. D. C. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology  (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989) and Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Socrates on Trial r( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

II. Some historical background

A. Upon the defeat of Athens by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 399, the democracy collapsed. Under pressure from the Spartan fleet, the Athenian Assembly chose thirty men to form a temporary oligarchic government, The Thirty.  The Thirty soon became known as the thirty tyrants. With the aid of a Spartan garrison stationed in Athens, the Thirty began a reign of terror aimed at holding on to power and confiscating money from wealthy Athenians. They killed roughly 1000 to 1500 citizens and exiled an equal number.

B. Among the exiles were a number of men who had served as generals under the democracy including Anytus and Thrasybulus. In 403 these men lead an army of democrats that defeated the forces of the Thirty. The Spartan garrison did not resist these forces.  The democracy was soon reestablished. A general amnesty was decreed for all political crimes, except for those committed by members of the Thirty or their close allies.

C. In 399, Socrates was brought to trial on charges of impiety and corrupting the young. Meletus and Anytus initiated the prosecution. Historians believe that Socrates was charged in large part because of his association with Critias, one of the leaders of the thirty, and Charmides, who had assisted Critias. Early in his defense speech (the literal meaning of the Greek apologia), Socrates tells us that the charges against him rest on long held prejudices against him.

III. Socrates’ difficulties in defending himself

A. Socrates begins by telling the judges that he will not speak as his accusers did, in the accustomed manner of the courts.

1. He says that he should be treated as a foreigner because this is his first time on trial.

B. In what respect is Socrates not familiar with the ways of the courts?

1. One possibility is that he is not familiar with the style of speaking in the court

a) He says that he will speak at random—presumably not in the ordered manner of his accusers—and that he will not use the dialect he uses every day rather than beautiful phrases and words.

(1) Perhaps, also, he says that he will not use the common legal phraseology.

b) Yet

(1) He speech is clearly orderly and even beautiful.

(2) He uses many of the common elements found in defense speeches and also uses common legal phraseology.

c) Perhaps Socrates only means to say that he will engage in his common practice of questioning the beliefs of his interlocutors during his defense speech.

2. Another possibility is that it is not so much the form or style as the content of his speech that distinguishes Socrates from his judges. Perhaps in saying that he should be treated as a foreigner, Socrates is pointing to how different his life and ideals are from that typically found in Athens.

a) Socrates says that his accusers spoke falsely and yet persuasively. We commonly would think that it is true speech that is persuasive. Yet perhaps the false speech of the accusers is persuasive because it appeals to the beliefs of the Athenians while Socrates’ speech does not and cannot appeal to them in this way.

3. A third possibility is that Socrates means to point to his aim in speaking, which is to tell the truth, not to win victory at any cost. As we come to see, Socrates’ speech is not designed to win victory. Indeed, he shows us that the truth about his life is profoundly alienating to the Athenians.

IV. General remarks on Socrates’ defense against his both his first and his present accusers

A. S’s arguments seem plausible

B. Yet, on closer look, they fail to clear him of the charges against him or to do so in a way that is likely to be convincing to the judges.

C. These arguments seem plausible so long as one understands them against a background of Athenian beliefs and practices.

D. But once we recognize just how far Socrates goes to challenge these beliefs and practices it becomes evident that his arguments are not sufficient to answer the charges against him

V. Defense against first accusers

A. Socrates must answer first accusers

1. Socrates accuses the judges of being biased against him because they have been influenced since childhood by the first accusers and, in particular, by Aristophanes’ portray of Socrates in his play The Clouds.

B. The first charge of the first accusers is that Socrates “busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth”

1. He is accused of being a natural philosopher

a) The natural philosophes typically disbelieved in the Greek gods. They held that the phenomena explained in terms of the actions of the gods were wholly natural rather than supernatural phenomena.

b) So, if the first accusers held Socrates to be a natural philosopher, then the present day charge of impiety is more plausible.

2. Socrates’ responses to these charges and the problems with them

a) Socrates says that he no part in this knowledge.

(1) From an Athenian perspective, for Socrates to deny that he has knowledge of natural philosophy is for him to say that he knows nothing about, and thus presumably disbelieves in, natural philosophy. This would clear him of the charge of believing in natural philosophy rather than the gods.

(2) But it is doubtful that this is what Socrates means when he says he has no knowledge of natural philosophy.

(a) Socrates clearly knows some of the claims of natural philosophy

(i) Later in the text he accuses Meletus of confusing his views with those of Anaxagoras. So Socrates clearly has some knowledge of the views of Anaxagoras.

(b) Socrates also says that he has no contempt of such knowledge.

(c) As we find out a little later in the text, when Socrates denies he has knowledge or wisdom, he does not mean that he knows absolutely nothing

(i) He means that he has no certain or unquestionable knowledge

(ii) So, in saying he has no knowledge of natural philosophy, all Socrates may be saying is that he does not know whether the claims of any of the natural philosophers are true or false.

(iii) But, this is also to say that he does not know whether the beliefs about the gods are true or false.

(iv) So, at best, Socrates is an agnostic

b) Socrates also says that no has heard him discussing such subjects “to any extent.”

(1) This does not show that Socrates lacks any knowledge of or is uninterested in such knowledge

(2) But only that he does not discuss it in public

(a) He might have reasons for not discussing such knowledge in public. (See below on Socratic piety.)

C. The second charge is that Socrates is a teacher

1. Socrates points out that he differs from the Sophists in that:

a) He does not have the techne that gives a person human and political kind virtue or excellence.

(1) Socrates says that he would take pride in having this knowledge if he did so. Note that Socrates does take a certain amount of pride in having such knowledge as he, but not the Athenians, understand it.

b) He does not charge any money.

2. This defense makes sense if we assume that to be a teacher is to teach a techne, an art or craft that enables people to live well.

a) The Athenians, like many of us, assume that a teacher must have some certain or at least defensible ideas that he or she transmits to students.

(1) This is a plausible account for a techne.

3. But, as we see below, the wisdom of Socrates consists precisely in his recognizing that he has no certain and unquestionable ideas about how we ought to live our lives.

a) Socrates does not teach such human wisdom by imparting a doctrine but, rather, by questioning those who claim to have such knowledge.

b) Human wisdom, as Socrates understands it then, is not a techne.

4. Socrates calls into question the value of the kind of knowledge Athenian’s seek when he gives the example of Callias, who has spent more money than anyone on teachers and yet who, as Socrates indirectly points out, is thought to have fathered children with both is wife and his wife’s mother.

D. So:

1. From an Athenian point of view, Socrates has no clear reason to disbelieve in the gods. But from his own point of view, Socrates has no clear reason to believe in them.

2. From an Athenian point of view, Socrates is not a teacher. But from his own point of view, Socrates is the teacher of the most important wisdom.

VI. Socratic Wisdom

A. How Socrates received a reputation for wisdom.

1. Chairephon went to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi and asked whether any man was wiser than Socrates

a) The oracle replied “no.”

2. What the god meant for he was conscious that he was not wise at all perplexed Socrates.

3. Socrates took the god’s claim to be a riddle and decided to investigate in order to understand the meaning of what the god said.

a) He went to those who were thought to be wise and questioned them to see if they really were wise..

(1) Politicians, who are thought to have insight into the best life, as Athenians understand  it.

(a) But they were not wise. They could not defend their ideals.

(2) Poets, who are the teachers of the Greeks, especially about the gods.

(a) Socrates compares them to prophets.

(b) But they could not interpret their poetry and plays any better than anyone else.

(3) Craftsmen, who have a techne.

(a) They did have knowledge of their techne.

(b) But they thought that they had knowledge beyond their techne. This, Socrates concluded, was not true.

4. The people Socrates questioned resented him for he showed that they did not have the knowledge they claimed to have.

a) Young people began to imitate Socrates for they like to show up their elders.

(1) Young people lack the power and honor given their elders. They would like to more quickly ascend to the status of their elders.

B. The nature of Socratic wisdom

1. Socrates is sometimes taken to be saying that he has no knowledge at all.

a) This claim is implausible because Socrates makes a wide variety of claims to have knowledge.

(1) He claims to know, for example, that Athenians should care about the state of their souls, truth, and justice more than honor and wealth

(2) And he presumably would accept that he knows a wide variety of matters including such things as his name; who is children are, etc.

b) So what does Socrates mean when he say his wisdom consists in his knowledge of his own ignorance.

(1) The knowledge that is most important to Socrates, and that the lacks, is human wisdom, knowledge of a good life and of human excellence or virtue.

(a) These are the matters that Socrates questions the politicians, poets, and philosophers.

(2) Socrates claims to have some knowledge of these matters, given that he tells us to pursue a certain kind of life rather than another. Yet Socrates’ knowledge is distinctive in that:

(a) It is tentative. That Socrates continues to spend all his time investigating these matters suggests that his beliefs are tentative, subject to revision, and open to continuing investigation.

VII. Defense against the present accusers.

A. The charge of corrupting the young.

1. Against this charge, Socrates argues that it makes no sense to say that Socrates corrupts the young but everyone else in Athens improves them.

a) Socrates points out that with regard to other forms of knowledge, only a few people have expertise while most people have no such expertise.

b) So it would make sense to think that only a few people improve the young and the most people corrupt them.

2. The example Socrates uses, of breeding and training rearing horses, is problematic.

a) The breeding and training of horses is presumably a techne. The ends of horse breeding and training are clear, at least for particular kinds of horses.

b) But human wisdom is not, for Socrates, a techne. Human wisdom raises questions about our proper ends, not about the means to our ends. And, as we saw above, it begins with knowledge of our own ignorance.

c) The example, then, only makes sense if our ends are not questioned. Most Athenian citizens do not question them. Yet Socrates questions them. So Socrates’s argument only is a good defense against the charge of corruption if we evaluate it from the point of view of the Athenian way of life, not from the Socratic point of view.

3. Yet, at the same time, Socrates’ claim actually calls into question the beliefs of the Athenians.

a) For the Athenians, as defenders of democracy, surely believe that most citizens can improve the young because they share the beliefs of Athenians.

(1) They believe that citizens should be devoted to the polis.

(2) They believe in the gods of the city.

b) Socrates’s implicit belief that only a few can improve the young testifies to how far he is from the common way of thought in Athens.

(1) It may also suggest that it is impossible for most people, even in a good polis, to live a life devoted to Socratic ideals. We shall see that this notion is implicit in Socrates’s thought below.

B. The charge of impiety.

1. Socrates points out that the two charges against him concerned with impiety are possibly ambiguous.

a) He is charged with two things:

(1) not believing in the gods of the city

(2) believing in other new divinities

b) These two charges are not, in themselves, contradictory

(1) One could certainly believe in other gods or divine beings besides the gods of the polis

c) But one could possibly take the first charge as accusing Socrates of atheism, that is, of not believing in any gods

(1) And this charge would contradict the second, if we assume that by “divinities” one means divine beings of some kind

2. Under questioning from Socrates, Meletus says that he believes that Socrates does not believe in any gods

a) Meletus accuses Socrates, as did the first accusers, that Socrates is a student of natural philosophy who does not believe in any gods

b) Yet, as Socrates points out, if the first charge is interpreted as a charge of atheism, it contradicts the second charge

(1) For, Socrates suggests, one can’t believe in divine activities without believing in divine beings

(a) Note that this is not quite true as one can believe in churches without believing in the Christian God.

(2) And one can’t be an atheist and yet believe in divine beings

3. That Socrates points out a contradiction in Meletus’ ideas about him does not, however, fully answer the charges against him that would be most important to the Athenians

a) At no point does Socrates say he believes in the gods of the polis.

(1) He does claim to be following the commands of Apollo, who was one of the Greek gods.

(a) Yet, as we shall see below, the nature of his adherence to Apollo is questionable.

(2) He does not carry out the religious rites of Athenians.

(a) Yet it was well known that those who did not believe in the gods carried out these rites for the sake of expressing their devotion to the polis.

b) From the point of view of the Athenians, the most serious charge is that of not believing in the gods of the polis.

(1) If Socrates believes in new divinities but not the gods of the polis, his loyalty to Athens, as opposed to these other divinities, is called into question

VIII. Socrates and the polis

A. Socrates and Achilles

1. Socrates rhetorically asks himself whether he is ashamed to be on trial for his life.

a) The Athenians, like Greeks generally—and perhaps like most people in most places—did not have much respect for those who are brought to trial on serious offenses, or whose lives are threatened or lost, except in defense of a noble cause.

b) Socrates does not, from an Athenian point of view, seem to be acting for a noble cause.

2. Socrates however, sees himself as comparable to Achilles

a) Like Achilles, he is willing to enter a battle even though he knows he is going to die.

(1) Socrates insists that he will not give up philosophy.

(2) He tells the Athenians that they should be concerned about truth, wisdom, and the state of their soul rather than their bodies, honor, and wealth.

(a) Socrates questions people in Athens in order to get them to care about truth, wisdom, and the state of their soul.

(3) Socrates claims to have been ordered by the god to philosophize. We shall examine this claim below.

(a) Note, however, that to the extent we take th parallel with Achilles seriously, we might have doubts about this claim. Achilles was not ordered back into battle after the death of Patroclus. He chose to avenge the death of his friend.

b) Who, then is Patroclus—the man whose death Achilles seeks to avenge, even while knowing that he will die in doing so? The answer seems to be philosophy itself.

3. Socrates tries to raise the status of philosophy by showing that it is something worth dieing for.

4. At the same time, Socrates ennobles himself, by showing that he is willing to die for a good cause.

B. The Athenian reaction.

1. The  Athenians react with great disturbances after Socrates. This suggests that the Athenians:

a) Recognize the extent to which Socrates is calling the ideas of Athenian citizens into question.

b) Recognize the extent to which the Socratic life is in tension with the life of the polis.

C. The tension between the Socratic life and the polis.

1. While we are inclined to respect and admire a person who stands up for his own ideals against those of his political community, the Athenians were not so likely to do so.

a) By showing, if only indirectly, that Socrates does call into the political life of the Athenians, Plato points to a possibly ineradicable tension between any political community and philosophy.

b) By understanding our own admiration for Socrates, we can see some of the distinctive differences between the ancient and the modern world.

2. Why philosophy threaten the polis

a) The ancient polis could not survive if citizens were not devoted to serving the polis, particularly on the battlefield.

(1) The polis was threatened both by

(a) threats from other polises

(b) and the possibility of slave revolts.

(2) The prime reason citizens served Athens was to secure honor and pride both for themselves as individuals and for their polis as a whole. In addition the success of Athens brought the citizens wealth, at least relative to other polises and this, too, was a source of pride.

(3) Thus in calling them to put aside their bodies, wealth, and honor, Socrates was calling into question the very motives that made Athens a successful polis in the eyes of most Athenians.

(a) As a proud democracy, Athens was open to wide range of ideas.

(b) It particularly prided itself on the willingness of citizens to deliberate widely before acting.

(c) Yet even for a polis like Athens, it is one thing to allow for debate about how to attain the widely shared goals of Athenians. It is another thing to call those goals directly into question, as Socrates does.

b) Moreover, a polis could be undermined by division in the citizen body, that is, by conflict between partisans of democracy and oligarchy

(1) Such conflict could lead to civil war and then leave the polis more susceptible to foreign invasion or slave revolt.

(2) Socrates does not appear to favor either form of government as he points to injustices carried out by both.

(3) Yet many Athenians were suspicious of those who were not entirely in favor of  democracy for they worried, quite plausibly, that those who had doubts about democracy would try to overthrow it.

c) Note that philosophers such as Socrates are dependant upon the success of Athens.

(1) Though it did prosecute and convict Socrates, and other philosophers, Athens and the other democracies were far more tolerant of philosophy than oligarchies and tyrannies.

3. Why philosophy potentially threatens any political community.

a) Contemporary liberal, representative democracies like the United States or the countries of Western Europe are tolerant of a wider range of political ideals than Athens.

(1) By liberalism I mean not contemporary left wing political ideals but the liberal political philosophy that begins with Locke and that is accepted by almost everyone left, right, and center in the representative democracies.

(2) We pride ourselves on giving people the right to freedom of thought and of the press.

(3) Why can we afford such tolerance?

(a) Philosophers are less likely to call our most basic own ideals into question than those of the ancient world.

(i) Philosophers benefit from the right to freedom more than anyone else.

(b) We demand much less from our citizens than the ancient polis did.

(i) We are not called upon to devote our lives to the polis.

(ii) We do not expect to be constantly at war, or at least, in the kinds of wars that threaten the survival of our political community.

(iii) Thus we seek citizens who are willing to respect the rights of others, not citizens who are ready to sacrifice for the common good.

(4) Why do we demand less from our citizens?

(a) War is less likely in the modern than the ancient world.

(i) In the ancient world, a political community could not raise its standard of living without taking goods such as land or slaves from other political communities.

(a)  Because they did not have either technologies that were advanced or the natural science on which our technology is now based, the Greeks could not expand their productive capacity.

(ii) But the ancient polis had to be concerned with its standard of living in order to

(a) have the resources to defend itself against other political communities, especially those that were aggressive

(b) minimize conflicts between citizens by taking from other polises in order to distribute more goods to the poor.

(iii) Moreover, some political communities, such as Athens, recognized that, given the uncertainty of their times, it made sense to conquer before being conquered.

(iv) Economic growth makes it possible for political communities in the modern world to

(a) increase their standard of living without conquest.

(b) diminish the conflict between rich and poor by increasing everyone’s standard of living and redistributing some income from rich to poor without lower the income of the rich. (Funds for redistribution come from the year to year increase in the standard of living of the rich.)

(b) Citizens in the modern world can serve their political community by serving themselves.

(i) By devoting ourselves to improving our own material standard of living, we contribute to the rise in prosperity for everyone.

(ii) At the same time, we diminish political conflict be ignoring politics.

(5) Note that our way of life, no more than the Athenian way, could survive if everyone cared more about truth and wisdom than wealth and honor.

(a) Even we do have to fight to defend our ideals.

(b) Though followers of the ideals Socrates presents in the middle of the Apology are likely to support our liberties, they are less likely to contribute to economic growth and to be concerned with the military might of our country..

b) Though we are very tolerant, our own political communities can be threatened by philosophy.

(1) Any political community is constituted, in part, by certain common, or at least overlapping ideas and ideals.

(a) Those who would like to see that political community survive, because it serves their interests or ideals, will thus want to see people continue to adhere to these ideas and ideals and will be suspicious of new and different points of view.

(b) This is true even if the maintenance of common or overlapping ideals is not necessary for the continued physical survival of the political community as it was for Athens.

(2) When liberal ideals were called into question during the great depression by fascist and communist movements, revolts against some liberal democracies took place, especially in Germany and Italy.

D. Socrates the gadfly

1. After the rejection of his way of life by the Athenians listening to his speech, Socrates presents another metaphor for his life.

2. He is, Socrates says, a gadfly, who gets keeps the Athenians moving and thinking.

3. Note two features of a gadfly:

a) Gadflies act not out of a concern for horses but out of their own interests.

b) Even though they serve this purposes, flies are typically swatted and killed, perhaps as Socrates will be..

E. The benefit of the Socratic life for the polis

1. The image of the gadfly suggests that Socratic philosophy does serve as well as threaten the polis.

a) To the extent that clear-headed deliberation is valuable in a political community, Socratic examination can help the polis.

b) Socrates does encourage those who are capable of it to pursue philosophy. To the extent that this is an attractive way of life (see below), Socrates benefits members of his political community.

c) In the Republic  Plato suggests that philosophers and tyrants are similar to one another. For both call the conventional ideals of the political community into question. If the philosophic life is a good life, a person tempted by tyranny might be diverted by Socrates or someone like him onto the path of philosophy. While dangerous to the polis, philosophy is a lesser threat than tyranny.

d) Socratic philosophy, because it recognizes that philosophy both benefits and is in tension with the political community, is likely to be presented in ways that preserves the conventional beliefs that serves the polis. (See below.)

IX. Why does Socrates practice philosophy?

A. When Socrates begins to compare himself to Achilles,

1.  he talks about the obligation of a person to remain and face danger when he has either

a) taken a position he believes to be best

b) or has been placed by his commander at some position.

2. What explains Socrates’ devotion to philosophy? Does he philosophize due to

a) the command of the god at Delphi

b) or the good of the philosophic life

B. Reflections on Socratic piety: Some reasons to doubt that Socrates philosophizes in order to follow the god at Delphi

1. It is likely that Socrates engaged in philosophy before the Delphic oracle proclaimed in the wisest man. How would the oracle know of Socrates or his wisdom if he had not engaged in philosophy up until that time? How would Socrates know that he knew little before the oracle spoke if he had not engaged in philosophy before the oracle.

2. The oracle does not explicitly instruct Socrates to engage in philosophy. Socrates’ interpretation of the oracle leads him to this conclusion. This interpretation is, at the least, a bit of a stretch.

a) Socrates initially engages in questioning so as to understand the meaning of the oracle (literally, to put the oracle to a test).

b) Once Socrates understands the meaning of the oracle, however, he continues to philosophize.

(1) Socrates says that, in doing so, he is acting to defend the oracle. But the oracle does not ask for, nor presumably needs Socrates to come to the aid of the god, Apollo.

3. What is the status of Socrates’s daimonion?

a) It seems to be a sign that warns Socrates of any dangers to him.

b) The question is whether this sign comes from some divine source or whether it is a product of something within Socrates.

c) Socrates never clearly says it is divine although it seems that others, such as some of his accusers take it to be divine.

d) Perhaps the source of Socrates’ divine sign is his own desire for knowledge.. 

(1) Socrates might talk of it as if it were divine because, as we see from other dialogues of Plato, he understands the human desire that leads to the pursuit of knowledge as something that leads us to seek to transcend the limits on our nature.

(2) He says, for example, in Symposium by Plato that a daimon is halfway between the human and the divine. It is what leads us to seek to hold on to the good forever. One of the closest ways we can come to this kind of divinity is in pursuit of knowledge of that which is unchanging and immortal.

(3) Perhaps then Socrates’ daimonion warns him of things dangers that stand in the way of his quest.

C. Why is philosophy a good life? Why are people attracted to a philosophic life?

1. The Socratic life is, arguably, the most rational response to the uncertainty that follows upon the beginning of philosophic discourse.

a) Given that we have no certainty about how we ought to live our lives, it initially seems sensible to expend much of our energy trying to test the various views of a good life that have been put forward.

(1) In doing so, we want to avoid any great mistakes about how to live our life. These mistakes might lead to our unhappiness or to our getting on the wrong side of the gods.

b) Yet, if the face of continued uncertainty, one might wonder why we should continue to philosophize. If we have little or not prospect of gaining certainty about the good for man, doesn’t it make sense to simply choose the path that makes the most sense to us while always being ready to call that path into question if someone gives us a reason to do so. How can it make sense to always put philosophy above everything else?

2. What seems to justify the devotion to philosophy, for Socrates, is that it is a good, that is, fulfilling life.

a) Socrates says that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue everyday and that an unexamined life is not worth living. He also tells us that it is not unpleasant to see men questioned about their beliefs.

b) Why is philosophy the best life. Though he is not very explicit about this, we can tease out certain ideas from the text.

(1) Socrates seems to think that human beings have a desire for knowledge and learning for its own sake.

(a) We find the pursuit of knowledge itself stimulating and challenging.

(b) We fine the clarity we gain from the pursuit of knowledge pleasurable, even if we are left with more questions rather than answers. For, at the very least, we can now see through he implausible answers which we have been taught (and taught not to question.)

(i)  Knowledge, even tentative knowledge, gives us a sense of security and place.

(ii) And, to the extent that the pursuit of knowledge is pleasurable, the recognition that this is so, and that we are always capable of pursuing knowledge gives us confidence about our lives.

(2) The purist of knowledge, much more than the pursuit of power and wealth, can be the source of human unity.

(a) Knowledge, unlike power and wealth, can be widely share by people.

(b) Even when citizens are devoted to the common good, they still compete with one another for honor and wealth.

X. Why does Socrates defend himself as he does in the Apology?

A. Two key questions.

1. Why does Socrates speak  ironically? Why, if he implicitly acknowledges that he is guilty of the charges against him does he not make this explicit? Why does Socrates hide the conflict between philosophy and the polis?

2. Why does Socrates defend himself in a way that will surely lead to his death?

a) Socrates seems to goad the Athenians into killing him.

(1) In the variety of ways we saw above, Socrates challenges Athenian ideals, even though he partly hides just how far his life departs from these ideals.

(2) He initially proposes as his penalty a lifetime of free meals in the Prytaneum.

B. Some possible answers to these questions.

1. Socrates seeks to serve philosophy

a) As we saw above, by going to his death, Socrates becomes a martyr to philosophy.

(1) The standing of philosophy is raised in the minds of Athenians and later readers of his defense speech. (See above.) 

(a) That someone is willing to die for philosophy testifies to the good of philosophy.

(2) Socrates prophesies that after his death the Athenians will be condemned—and some will condemn themselves—for killing “Socrates, a wise man.”

(a) That people say  this testifies to both the attractiveness of Socratic philosophy to certain people—especially in light of Socrates’ heroic dedication dot it— and the decline of civic virtue in Athens.

(b) Political communities in the future will thus be reluctant to do something similar.

(3) Socrates’ martyrdom serves the good of philosophy—that which Socrates seems to love best—in two ways. As a result,

(a) more people might be encouraged to allow philosophy to flourish

(b) more people might be encouraged to pursue a philosophic life.

(i) Socrates prophesies that his death will lead many people to engage in the kind of examination of others that Socrates had undertaken.

(ii) Socrates says that previously he held them back.

(a) Perhaps he did so by the way in which he philosophized. (See below.)

b) Philosophy is also supported by Socrates’ ironic claim to believe in the gods of the city as well as his unwillingness to explicitly admit just how far his own ideals differ, and are in tension with, those of the polis.

(1) By appearing to support the ideals of the polis, Socrates is likely to deflect attacks against philosophers from both Athens and political communities in the future.

2. Socrates seeks to serve the polis

a) If, as we have seen, philosophy is dangerous to the polis, it seems that a wise philosopher would try to minimize these dangers.

(1) Philosophers, after all, need to be protected against those who threat their political communities.

b) Thus philosophers should act in ways that not only challenges the polis but also supports it.

(1) Socrates’ pretense of support for conventional piety and conventional ideals (see above) lends support to the polis. For religion supports the devotion of citizens to the common good.

3. Socrates does not fear death.

a) Socrates tells us that death is either

(1) dreamless sleep

(2) or an opportunity to philosophize in the afterlife.

(a) Socrates assures us that people are not killed in the afterlife for philosophizing.

b) It is not clear which Socrates sees as the most plausible

(1) Although at the end of the book Socrates says that to philosophize in the afterlife would be an “inconceivable” pleasure.

c) In showing that he does not fear death, Socrates presents himself as the kind of hero Athenians are likely to find attractive.

4. Socrates is an old man

a) At the beginning of the text, Socrates says that he will not defend himself as would be appropriate for a young man to do.

b) At the beginning of his third speech, Socrates says that Athens need not put him to death because he is likely to die soon anyway.

c) So perhaps Socrates’ willingness to risk his death is greater because he knows that he will soon die anyway.

(1) Though Socrates does not fear death, he might still prefer life, especially if he thinks that there is no afterlife.