Trial Of Socrates In Plato's Apology
An Account of the Trial of Socrates as out-lined in Plato’s Apology
Dublin Institute of Technology
Students’ name: Lilian Muraro (D14125029)
Access Foundation Programme
An essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the module of Introduction to Humanities
Lecturer: Will Peters
15 December 2014
Account of the Trial of Socrates as outlined in Plato’s Apology
This essay is analysis of the accusations against Socrates during his trial, based mainly on Plato’s interpretation of it in his work The Apology (Jowett, 1871). As a contrast, the work of Dr. Kypros Tofallis (1978) will also be analysed. Dr Tofallis, claims that the reason behind Socrates’ trial was purely political, whereas Plato in the Apology looks …show more content…
into the philosophical side of it.
Socrates was a Greek philosopher born in 470 BCE. He believed that within philo-sophical thought was the value of human knowledge. He would rather die than live not being allowed to express his ideas of wisdom and improvement of the soul.
In 431BCE, democratic Athens was the political and cultural centre of the period, the Spartans saw its development and increase of political influence as suspicious and threatening so decided to start a military conflict against Athens. This conflict was known as the Peloponnesian war.The war ended in 404BCE after the surren-der of Athens and the Spartan conquest. Democracy was overthrown and a new au-thoritarian government system known as the government of the thirty tyrant was im-posed. However, the system only lasted for a year, when Democracy was reinstalled in Athens.
At this time, there was the tradition of the Poetic Education, in which no arguments were used to explain everyday phenomena but gods would be called on for inspira-tion. Socrates would be calling for physical explanations, with his contradictory teaching manners and implementation of the virtue of knowledge, giving models of an exemplary life, in which one should be examining themselves and not accepting all “truths” without previous considerations and arguments. He wanted to replace military combat with verbal combat; whereas the poets praised the tradition of the warrior culture and the virtue of men at war. (Peters W. 2014)
In 399BCE, Socrates was sentenced to death after being tried before a judge and a popular jury under the accusations of corrupting the young and impiety.
The charges against Socrates.
According to Plato in the Apology (Jowett, 1871), Socrates claimed to have had two classes of accusers.The first class of accusers, being the ones who accused him of practicing philosophy-teaching (“teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth”), these were the ones responsible for his unpopularity, who have been ac-cusing him for a long time. They claimed that he would be seeking physical expla-nation rather than divine ones for everyday phenomena and that he would make the worse argument into a better one, classifying him as a sophist.
The Sophists were a group of orators who would use techniques of persuasion to train Athenian youths for a career in politics by teaching them how to make convinc-ing arguments without any reasoning or deep thinking. Unlike Socrates’, their pu-pils had to pay a fee.
These charges were seen as unofficial as they could not be used for proving him guilty or innocent.
In the Apology (Jowett,1871) Plato introduces Socrates’ immediate accusers, Me-letus, Anytus and Lycon the ones who sent him to trial in behalf of the politicians, poets and artisans that had by him been cross-examined. They accused him of cor-rupting the young and impiety. These were the official charges. Meletus claims that the whole population of Athens and its rulers improve the youth except Socra-tes. He is accused of being the only one who corrupts them and yet, intentionally.
Corruption of the youth
The Athenian recognised certain gods, duties and lifestyle, these were their founda-tions, but Socrates’ pursuit of truth, was a threat for these foundations. His teach-ings were seeing as a threat to the state. He was accused of corrupting the young through the ideas and manners in which he taught them. This charge was a conse-quence of the other charges. He believed in the improvement of the soul. He would persuade his listeners to believe in the great improvement of the soul, wisdom and truth, instead of money, honour and reputation and that the virtue did not come from money, but money would come from virtue and every other good of man. These thoughts contradicted the virtue of men at war taught by the poets.
The charge of corrupting the young was based on what he believed and did all his life: asking questions to anyone who would listen, probing their answers for weak-ness, examining their logic and attempting to arrive at the truth and that is what his pupils would learn. They were taught how to think for themselves, not to be influ-enced by any power and not to believe in the "truths" that were imposed to them without questioning and analysing all the most relevant material. By that they were apt to engage in philosophical debate, and yet to identify the pretenders of wisdom by themselves. Like Socrates, that is what they did. They went to every man who pretended to possess knowledge and cross-examined them, concluding that they knew nothing. "Consequently their victims became annoyed not with themselves, but with Socrates". (Tredenick and Tarrant, 1993)
Impiety
Definition of impiety (LLC, 2014)
1- Lack of piety; lack of reverence for god or sacred things; irreverence.
2- Lack of dutifulness or respect.
3- An impious act, practice, etc.
This accusation is based on the fact that he would look for physical explanation for heavenly and earthly phenomena rather than divine ones.
Meletus claimed that Socrates did not recognise the gods of the state and yet creat-ed his own gods, therefore, accused him of being impious and an atheist.
These were the charges against Socrates according to “The Apology”, a record of Socrates’ defence, written by Plato in 360BCE. However, in his book “Socrates man and philosopher”, an introduction to Socrates’ life and work, Dr. Kypros Tofallis (1978), claims that in fact the accusations against Socrates were purely political.
Athens had just been defeated by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, and according to Dr Tofallis (1978) in his book; part of the blame went on Socrates, as he was a faithful ally of the Oligarchs. Plato, who was Socrates’ closest friend, came from an aristocratic family with political connections, Critias, a cruel tyrant, was also a friend of Socrates and probably the fact that gave his enemies sufficient motives to believe he was an antidemocrat, was that he was the teacher of Alcibiades, who betrayed the Athenians at the Sicilian
Expedition.
To understand Dr. Tofallis (1978) claims, it is important to mention the role of Alcibia-des during the Peloponnesian war. He was born to an affluent Athenian family, en-tering public life when he was very young and making friends with both parties in Athens. He did not mind how to get power as long as he got it. When the Pelopon-nesian war broke, Alcibiades encouraged the Spartans to send help to Syracuse and destroy the Athenian army. The whole Athenian expedition was killed or made slaves. “At the same time in Athens, it was being said that Alcibiades, the pupil of Socrates had brought misery upon the city.” (Tofallis, K. Dr, 1978).
Socrates’ defence
Socrates starts his speech as a response to what his accusers had already said in their prepared speech. They had warned the people to not to let themselves be de-ceived by the force of his persuasive speech. However, Socrates emphasises that the difference between his speech and his accusers’ is that he would speak the truth, whereas they had hardly spoken a word of truth. (Jowett, 1871)
He then talks about the accusation of “teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth”. (Jowett, 1871). He claims that he has nothing to do with people who do that, and that he does not possess any knowledge or interest in these matters. The sophists would be the ones that would teach their pupils to make the weaker argu-ments stronger, but again he dismisses having any connection with these men, who would in fact charge a fee for their services, unlike himself.
Socrates claims that what caused him to be prosecuted were the investigations he had performed in order to understand the meaning behind the oracles’ affirmation that there was no men wiser than he was.
It all started when Chaerephon, his friend, asked the Delphic oracle whether there was a man wiser than Socrates was. The god’s answer was “No”, “there is no man wiser than Socrates”. Socrates was intrigued by the answer of the oracle. He thought there was another meaning behind this revelation as he did not consider himself to be wise, and yet, the oracle was a god, and therefore would always be right.
After long consideration, he decided to go and check the truth. He went to all the men who played significant roles in Greek society, and cross-examined them. What he discovered was that these men were actually the most unwise. The politicians were not clearly defending their views, he thought the poets had some sort of divine inspiration rather than knowledge, and finally he was impressed by the craftsmen who had some sort of knowledge that he did not possess. Therefore they could be wiser than him, but the fact that they believed themselves to be knowledgeable overshadowed their wisdom. Having been aware of that, he realised that only god was wise and that what the oracle meant was that he was the wisest man, because he was humble enough to believe that he “only knew that he knew nothing” whereas the others would know nothing and yet, claim themselves to be wise.
He then addresses to his prosecutors; Meletus, Anytus and Lycon, the ones who accused him of corrupting the young and impiety. He claims that his aim was to improve his listeners by teaching them the virtue of wisdom. He taught his pupils to question themselves and others about virtue in order to improve their own souls and learn how to value knowledge and truth as opposed to money, reputation, and honour. By doing that, they would also recognise the false wises in society. His claim was as for “the examined life is not worth living”. (Socrates, 469BCE-399BCE).
Meletus claims that Socrates did not believed in the gods of the state, accusing him of being an atheist. Socrates argues that this was a contradiction as they had claimed he believed and made others believe in supernatural matters. How could he believe in supernatural without believing in God?
In his book “Socrates man and philosopher”, Dr. Tofallis (1978) claims that in The Apology, Plato makes Socrates repeat that the reason for his prosecution is popular prejudice against him as a philosopher or sophist. Dr Tofallis (1978) argues that if the real offence of Socrates was his anti-democracy, he would not have insisted that impiety was the real reason of the prosecution. He claims that Plato must have had reasons of his own for giving Socrates’ prosecution other reason than a politi-cal one.
Conclusion
In the two distinct accounts on Socrates’ trial, it is clear that the reasons for the ac-cusations were political rather than for any other reasons.
In Plato’s account, there is no mention of what political parties his pupils would support; it only suggests that young men from richer classes would come to Socra-tes to learn how to examine the pretenders of wisdom. However, in Dr. Tofallis’ (1978) account he suggests that all of Socrates’ pupils were supporters of Oligarchic parties and that he would advise them to engage in political affairs.
By affirming that one should seek to be knowledgeable and cultivate intellect as opposed to material prosperity, Socrates suggests that he was against the idea of the people ruling the state as he classified them as having no training or experience to rule the state.
He believed the well-informed and well-acquainted citizens should exercise power over the state.
Even though there was no mention of political reasons in the Apology, the question of corrupting the young can be understood as a political one as these young men who had been taught by Socrates, were the ones that later would engage in public life and politics.
It becomes clear that his ideas were a danger to the state as he was preparing his listeners not to accept everything was imposed to them without previous careful considerations through a philosophical way of thinking. If his accusers considered these manners to be a danger for the state, then indeed, he was corrupting the young.
Dublin Institute of Technology
Students’ name: Lilian Muraro (D14125029)
Access Foundation Programme
An essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the module of Introduction to Humanities
Lecturer: Will Peters
15 December 2014
Account of the Trial of Socrates as outlined in Plato’s Apology
This essay is analysis of the accusations against Socrates during his trial, based mainly on Plato’s interpretation of it in his work The Apology (Jowett, 1871). As a contrast, the work of Dr. Kypros Tofallis (1978) will also be analysed. Dr Tofallis, claims that the reason behind Socrates’ trial was purely political, whereas Plato in the Apology looks …show more content…
into the philosophical side of it.
Socrates was a Greek philosopher born in 470 BCE. He believed that within philo-sophical thought was the value of human knowledge. He would rather die than live not being allowed to express his ideas of wisdom and improvement of the soul.
In 431BCE, democratic Athens was the political and cultural centre of the period, the Spartans saw its development and increase of political influence as suspicious and threatening so decided to start a military conflict against Athens. This conflict was known as the Peloponnesian war.The war ended in 404BCE after the surren-der of Athens and the Spartan conquest. Democracy was overthrown and a new au-thoritarian government system known as the government of the thirty tyrant was im-posed. However, the system only lasted for a year, when Democracy was reinstalled in Athens.
At this time, there was the tradition of the Poetic Education, in which no arguments were used to explain everyday phenomena but gods would be called on for inspira-tion. Socrates would be calling for physical explanations, with his contradictory teaching manners and implementation of the virtue of knowledge, giving models of an exemplary life, in which one should be examining themselves and not accepting all “truths” without previous considerations and arguments. He wanted to replace military combat with verbal combat; whereas the poets praised the tradition of the warrior culture and the virtue of men at war. (Peters W. 2014)
In 399BCE, Socrates was sentenced to death after being tried before a judge and a popular jury under the accusations of corrupting the young and impiety.
The charges against Socrates.
According to Plato in the Apology (Jowett, 1871), Socrates claimed to have had two classes of accusers.The first class of accusers, being the ones who accused him of practicing philosophy-teaching (“teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth”), these were the ones responsible for his unpopularity, who have been ac-cusing him for a long time. They claimed that he would be seeking physical expla-nation rather than divine ones for everyday phenomena and that he would make the worse argument into a better one, classifying him as a sophist.
The Sophists were a group of orators who would use techniques of persuasion to train Athenian youths for a career in politics by teaching them how to make convinc-ing arguments without any reasoning or deep thinking. Unlike Socrates’, their pu-pils had to pay a fee.
These charges were seen as unofficial as they could not be used for proving him guilty or innocent.
In the Apology (Jowett,1871) Plato introduces Socrates’ immediate accusers, Me-letus, Anytus and Lycon the ones who sent him to trial in behalf of the politicians, poets and artisans that had by him been cross-examined. They accused him of cor-rupting the young and impiety. These were the official charges. Meletus claims that the whole population of Athens and its rulers improve the youth except Socra-tes. He is accused of being the only one who corrupts them and yet, intentionally.
Corruption of the youth
The Athenian recognised certain gods, duties and lifestyle, these were their founda-tions, but Socrates’ pursuit of truth, was a threat for these foundations. His teach-ings were seeing as a threat to the state. He was accused of corrupting the young through the ideas and manners in which he taught them. This charge was a conse-quence of the other charges. He believed in the improvement of the soul. He would persuade his listeners to believe in the great improvement of the soul, wisdom and truth, instead of money, honour and reputation and that the virtue did not come from money, but money would come from virtue and every other good of man. These thoughts contradicted the virtue of men at war taught by the poets.
The charge of corrupting the young was based on what he believed and did all his life: asking questions to anyone who would listen, probing their answers for weak-ness, examining their logic and attempting to arrive at the truth and that is what his pupils would learn. They were taught how to think for themselves, not to be influ-enced by any power and not to believe in the "truths" that were imposed to them without questioning and analysing all the most relevant material. By that they were apt to engage in philosophical debate, and yet to identify the pretenders of wisdom by themselves. Like Socrates, that is what they did. They went to every man who pretended to possess knowledge and cross-examined them, concluding that they knew nothing. "Consequently their victims became annoyed not with themselves, but with Socrates". (Tredenick and Tarrant, 1993)
Impiety
Definition of impiety (LLC, 2014)
1- Lack of piety; lack of reverence for god or sacred things; irreverence.
2- Lack of dutifulness or respect.
3- An impious act, practice, etc.
This accusation is based on the fact that he would look for physical explanation for heavenly and earthly phenomena rather than divine ones.
Meletus claimed that Socrates did not recognise the gods of the state and yet creat-ed his own gods, therefore, accused him of being impious and an atheist.
These were the charges against Socrates according to “The Apology”, a record of Socrates’ defence, written by Plato in 360BCE. However, in his book “Socrates man and philosopher”, an introduction to Socrates’ life and work, Dr. Kypros Tofallis (1978), claims that in fact the accusations against Socrates were purely political.
Athens had just been defeated by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, and according to Dr Tofallis (1978) in his book; part of the blame went on Socrates, as he was a faithful ally of the Oligarchs. Plato, who was Socrates’ closest friend, came from an aristocratic family with political connections, Critias, a cruel tyrant, was also a friend of Socrates and probably the fact that gave his enemies sufficient motives to believe he was an antidemocrat, was that he was the teacher of Alcibiades, who betrayed the Athenians at the Sicilian
Expedition.
To understand Dr. Tofallis (1978) claims, it is important to mention the role of Alcibia-des during the Peloponnesian war. He was born to an affluent Athenian family, en-tering public life when he was very young and making friends with both parties in Athens. He did not mind how to get power as long as he got it. When the Pelopon-nesian war broke, Alcibiades encouraged the Spartans to send help to Syracuse and destroy the Athenian army. The whole Athenian expedition was killed or made slaves. “At the same time in Athens, it was being said that Alcibiades, the pupil of Socrates had brought misery upon the city.” (Tofallis, K. Dr, 1978).
Socrates’ defence
Socrates starts his speech as a response to what his accusers had already said in their prepared speech. They had warned the people to not to let themselves be de-ceived by the force of his persuasive speech. However, Socrates emphasises that the difference between his speech and his accusers’ is that he would speak the truth, whereas they had hardly spoken a word of truth. (Jowett, 1871)
He then talks about the accusation of “teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth”. (Jowett, 1871). He claims that he has nothing to do with people who do that, and that he does not possess any knowledge or interest in these matters. The sophists would be the ones that would teach their pupils to make the weaker argu-ments stronger, but again he dismisses having any connection with these men, who would in fact charge a fee for their services, unlike himself.
Socrates claims that what caused him to be prosecuted were the investigations he had performed in order to understand the meaning behind the oracles’ affirmation that there was no men wiser than he was.
It all started when Chaerephon, his friend, asked the Delphic oracle whether there was a man wiser than Socrates was. The god’s answer was “No”, “there is no man wiser than Socrates”. Socrates was intrigued by the answer of the oracle. He thought there was another meaning behind this revelation as he did not consider himself to be wise, and yet, the oracle was a god, and therefore would always be right.
After long consideration, he decided to go and check the truth. He went to all the men who played significant roles in Greek society, and cross-examined them. What he discovered was that these men were actually the most unwise. The politicians were not clearly defending their views, he thought the poets had some sort of divine inspiration rather than knowledge, and finally he was impressed by the craftsmen who had some sort of knowledge that he did not possess. Therefore they could be wiser than him, but the fact that they believed themselves to be knowledgeable overshadowed their wisdom. Having been aware of that, he realised that only god was wise and that what the oracle meant was that he was the wisest man, because he was humble enough to believe that he “only knew that he knew nothing” whereas the others would know nothing and yet, claim themselves to be wise.
He then addresses to his prosecutors; Meletus, Anytus and Lycon, the ones who accused him of corrupting the young and impiety. He claims that his aim was to improve his listeners by teaching them the virtue of wisdom. He taught his pupils to question themselves and others about virtue in order to improve their own souls and learn how to value knowledge and truth as opposed to money, reputation, and honour. By doing that, they would also recognise the false wises in society. His claim was as for “the examined life is not worth living”. (Socrates, 469BCE-399BCE).
Meletus claims that Socrates did not believed in the gods of the state, accusing him of being an atheist. Socrates argues that this was a contradiction as they had claimed he believed and made others believe in supernatural matters. How could he believe in supernatural without believing in God?
In his book “Socrates man and philosopher”, Dr. Tofallis (1978) claims that in The Apology, Plato makes Socrates repeat that the reason for his prosecution is popular prejudice against him as a philosopher or sophist. Dr Tofallis (1978) argues that if the real offence of Socrates was his anti-democracy, he would not have insisted that impiety was the real reason of the prosecution. He claims that Plato must have had reasons of his own for giving Socrates’ prosecution other reason than a politi-cal one.
Conclusion
In the two distinct accounts on Socrates’ trial, it is clear that the reasons for the ac-cusations were political rather than for any other reasons.
In Plato’s account, there is no mention of what political parties his pupils would support; it only suggests that young men from richer classes would come to Socra-tes to learn how to examine the pretenders of wisdom. However, in Dr. Tofallis’ (1978) account he suggests that all of Socrates’ pupils were supporters of Oligarchic parties and that he would advise them to engage in political affairs.
By affirming that one should seek to be knowledgeable and cultivate intellect as opposed to material prosperity, Socrates suggests that he was against the idea of the people ruling the state as he classified them as having no training or experience to rule the state.
He believed the well-informed and well-acquainted citizens should exercise power over the state.
Even though there was no mention of political reasons in the Apology, the question of corrupting the young can be understood as a political one as these young men who had been taught by Socrates, were the ones that later would engage in public life and politics.
It becomes clear that his ideas were a danger to the state as he was preparing his listeners not to accept everything was imposed to them without previous careful considerations through a philosophical way of thinking. If his accusers considered these manners to be a danger for the state, then indeed, he was corrupting the young.