Plato, The Apology
Socrates’ trial
Socrates and Plato
469-399 BCE
427-327 BCE
Socrates trial
501 dikasts
The Apology: Background
 Athenian Democracy
 Peloponnesian Wars (431-404 BCE)
 Rule of Thirty Tyrants (8 months in 404-403 BCE) and
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Socrates’ friendship with Critias, one of the leaders of the
Thirty
Friendship with Alcibiades (Defeat at Syracuse, Sicily)
The Sophists – Aristophanes’ The Clouds
Socrates’ anti democratic views
Delphic oracle and the creation of powerful enemies within
Athens
Religious oddity: His own personal daemon
The Apology: Philosophers vs. Sophists
 Sophists
 Elegant rhetoric
 Persuasive
 Clever
 Disdain for Truth
Philosophy
Aimed at Truth
Question and Answer
Plain
Earnest
Informal Charges
 “There’s a man called Socrates, a ‘wise’ man, a thinker about
things in the heavens, an investigator of all things below the
earth, and someone who makes the weaker argument the
stronger. (18 b-c).
 Longevity
 No defense
 No named accusers – except perhaps for Aristophanes
Defense of Informal Charges
 Personal Daemon (conscience or intuition who must be
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obeyed above all else)
Different interest than the Pre-Socratics
No interest in the make-up of the external world: the inward
turn
Not a sophist: is not paid for his ‘teaching’
Chaerephon and the Delphic Oracle
The conceit of wisdom (Hubris)
Recognizing the limits of one’s knowledge
Formal Charges
 Meletus (poets), Anytus (artisans and politicians), and Lycon
(orators). Anytus was a democratic leader who helped
restore democracy to Athens after the Thirty were expelled.
Probably the real leader of the three.
 “Socrates is guilty of corrupting the young, and of not
acknowledging the gods the city acknowledges, but new
daimonic activities instead” (24 b).
Corruption of the young: discussion
with Meletus
 Who improves the young and who harms them?
 All Athenians improve them except Socrates who harms them
 Analogy to horse training: The few improve, the many harm
 We would choose to live among good people better than bad
(because good people benefit others while bad people harm
them).
 So, if I am harming them, I must be doing so unintentionally.
 But if so, then the remedy is “private instruction and
admonishment” not a public trial (26a).
Impiety charge
 Atheist: “You don’t acknowledge any gods at all” (26c).
 Not Anaxagoras
 Can you believe in godly activities without believing also in
gods (analogy: can you believe in human activities without
believing in humans)
 He clearly believes in godly activities: daimons
Fear and doing the right thing
 Fighting in Peloponnesian War
 Giving up Philosophy?
 Athens: pursuing honour and wisdom rather than wealth
 Admonishes youth to pursue virtue over wealth
 Putting Socrates to death (and banning him or getting him to
stop philosophizing) more harm to Athens than to Socrates.
 Socrates as gadfly.
 Private vs public life (32)
 Events where Socrates stood up despite possible retribution
(32)
Guilty verdict
 Not surprised (mere 30 votes difference)
 Politics: “if Anytus hadn’t come forward with Lycon to accuse me,
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Meletus would have been fined a thousand drachmas, since he
wouldn’t have received a fifth of the votes” (36a).
I should get what I deserve.
I have devoted myself to the city and its people so I deserve
“something good” (36d). Free meals in the Prytaneum, i.e., the
house of the king or prytanis.
Death may be a good or a bad thing.
Imprisonment? Fine? Exile? Keeping quiet and minding your own
business?
30 minas fine to be put up by his friends (a significant amount of
money = ten year’s salary for someone engaged in public works.
Death penalty and Final Words
 Words to those who voted for his death
 Denigrated Athens’ reputation for a little time (before
Socrates , as an old man, would have died anyway)
 No regrets (and no bad behaviour on his part)
 There are worse things than death, like loosing your honour.
 Curse: Vengeance on them via younger men like Socrates.
Death penalty and Final Words
 Words to those who voted for him
 Conscience is clear – daimonic voice
 Death is either a sleeping state or a good thing – where
Socrates can talk with great men who have died
 “Nothing bad can happen to a good man, whether in life or
death” (41d).
 Take care of my sons the way I have taken care of you – by
questioning them and getting them to pursue what’s
important.