Socrates Apology

In Socrates’ apology, he defends himself against all three accusations that have been put in front of him in the court of law; as he stands there accused, attempting to convince the jury of his innocence, Socrates uses his more than capable abilities to explain, step by step, that his is not guilty of any of these charges. In my opinion, Socrates accurately explains to the jury that he is not only innocent of these charges but a victim of his accuser for even bringing him into court. One of Socrates’ arguments is against his accusation about how he corrupts the young. The public feels as though Socrates, through his wisdom of things that are far past any normal mans wisdom at the time, has corrupted the young.
Socrates first starts his defense against his accusation of corrupting te young by saying to the jury, “If one asks them [the people that accuse him of corrupting the young] what he [Socrates] does and what he teaches to corrupt them, they are silent, as they do not know, but so as not to appear at a loss, they mention those accusations that are available against all philosophers, about ‘things in the sky and things below the earth’ about ‘not believing in the gods’ and ‘making the worse the stronger argument.” This statement basically says that the citizens just hold a grudge against Socrates and so instead of finding real evidence against him they just use the easy way out and accuse him of typical charges a philosopher is accused of when in fact they don’t even know what he does wrong.
Socrates then defends himself by not looking at corrupting the young but improving them. He asks the Meletus, his accuser, “Come then, tell these men [the jury] who improves them [the young].” After asking Meletus this he becomes silent. After a few seconds Meletus responds by saying, “the laws” but this is not the answer Socrates was looking for. He was looking for a name of a person. After Socrates gets Meletus to admit that he feels as though everyone in Athens improves the young except Socrates he uses metaphors that are similar to his situation to prove that Meletus is wrong.
Socrates’ first metaphor in his defense is about horses and trainers. Socrates asks Meletus if his explanation that Socrates is the only one that corrupts the young is the same with horses. Socrates states, “One individual is able to improve them, or very few, namely the horse breeders, whereas the majority, if they have horses and use them, corrupt them.” In this metaphor Socrates is trying to show that he is not a corrupter but, in the sense of the metaphor, a “breeder.”
Socrates concludes his argument by speaking about how, if he was corrupting the young, than by the fact that the corrupted harm everyone around them, then by fault Socrates would be harmed by the young that he is corrupting. And by knowing that he would be harmed by these so called corrupted, he asks Meletus if any man would purposefully put himself in a position where he would harm himself and Meletus’ answer was obviously no. In feeling as though he has proven to the jury that this charge is false, that he does not corrupt the young, Socrates tells the jury why he thinks Meletus really has brought him into court. He feels as though Meletus just doesn’t like him and that bringing him into court on these charges is just a way to get ride of him.
In Socrates’ arguments he looks at all the different angels of the accusations in front of him and he not only tries to prove him innocence but also he uses Meletus, his accuser, by getting him to admit that accusations are false. Socrates starts his argument by saying that no one really knows how he corrupts the young and I’ts that people just don’t like him. In this argument, Socrates does not think about the fact that, of course the people that don’t like him and what he does with the young don’t know how exactly he corrupts them because they do not, and never have, followed him around, listened to the words that he preaches to the young and they have never really talked one on one with him about this matter. The people’s responses could just have to do with a lack of knowledge about the situation. Although one could say this, it would not be very believable because the fact that no one really knows how exactly he corrupts the young means that there is not enough proof to bring him into court and charge him with corrupting the young. Socrates is charged with corrupting the young be he teaches them about subjects that haven’t even been proven yet. His brilliance was so far above those of his time that, in my opinion it scared them and they didn’t know what to do about it.
As Socrates further proves his innocence, he continually gets Meletus to Prove his innocence as well. By looking at who improves the young, and getting Meletus to admit that everyone improves the young except Socrates, the defense against Socrates builds. Admitting that there is only one person corrupting the young is an exaggeration beyond belief. Meletus’ grudge against Socrates really becomes evident at this point in the apology. Even though at this point Socrates has basically gotten Meletus to incriminate himself, he goes on to compare his situation to a similar situation, comparing it to horses and animals and how there is no possible way that only one person could possibly be the only person to corrupt horses and that breeders are the only ones who Improve the horses. This statement is obviously true and although one could say that animals are different from human beings and that the comparison is not similar, the average person must know that not everyone is perfect and at one point in everyone’s life corruption will occur whether you are the corrupter or the corrupted.
At Socrates’ final defense against the accusation that he corrupts the young, Socrates says that by corrupting the young and because of the fact that the corrupted harm people around them that Socrates would be harmed, but no man would purposefully harm himself so the accusation must be wrong. Although this statement is true, the men that he supposedly corrupts could look at him as a sort of leader and not harm him. As their teacher they could have respect for him kind of like a mob boss. Although this also is true, the young that Socrates supposedly corrupts are from rich intelligent families, and these families are not corrupt so their children could not possibly be corrupt. After all the year Socrates have lived and all the people has possibly taught, if he was corrupting his students, I feel as though there would be a great number of corrupted people in Athens and he would not be alone in court as he was all those years ago.