Plato’s Apology In the retelling of his trial by his associate, Plato, entitled “The Apology”; Socrates claims in his defense that he only wishes to do good for the polis. I believe that Socrates was innocent of the accusations that were made against him, but he possessed contempt for the court and displayed that in his conceitedness and these actions led to his death. In his defense, Socrates claims over and again that he is innocent and is not at all wise, “…for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great.” Throughout the rest of his oration he seems to act the opposite as if he is better than every man, and later he even claims that, “At any rate, the world has decided that Socrates is in some way superior to other men.” This seems to be his greatest mistake, claiming to be greater than even the jury. Socrates was accused of bringing false gods into the polis and corrupting the youth. The only false god was himself. For he might have presented himself in such a way to his many followers. These followers were mostly, as he says, wealthy young men with not much to do. This I could imagine is where a good deal of his conceitedness comes from, being almost worshipped be others. These men followed all of his teachings and practices, including the condescending cross-examinations, which were probably the worst of his acts. Socrates high respect for himself also may have started with the oracle from Delphi, when Chaerephon, “…asked the oracle to tel...
The accuser believes that Socrates corrupted the minds of the children by introducing new concepts. Socrates is trying to teach and involve the minds of the youth by getting them to ask questions. It is very important that people are always asking questions about why things are happening. The next question that needs to be addressed is what does not believe in the gods mean? Socrates believes in God, but that is one God that rules the world, not multiple gods who together rule.
His assumptions are just sheer thoughts that contain no authentic result. So why was he guilty for just trying to understand? The approach Socrates character and tone set out during the trial, presumably irritated the jury which consisted of 500 people, vexing them to make him blameworthy. In that sense, his arguments were successful in trying to get out his message, but unsuccessful in getting the reaction he hoped for. In conclusion, Socrates defended himself reasonably and knowledgably of all charges that were against him. But his demeanor, actions, and tone against the 500 jurors motivated them to dish out a guilty verdict and denounce him to an unpleasant death. However, to base the verdict on the actions, demeanor and tone of Socrates is most definitely inequitable. Socrates carried out a strong defense argument which held no deceit, which makes the verdict of these 500 jurors unjust, because he died for the wrong
Socrates would often question men in the market places. This earned him many admirers among the young men of Athens. However, many of the men he would converse with in the marketplace would ended up hating him because of how foolish he made them look.
Socrates is not guilty. He is a great man and always will be. He has many great views and opinions on the world and is a great thinker who questions everything. Socrates is on trial for being an enemy of the state with the charges that he is a threat to the democracy, a threat to society, and a threat to Athenian culture. As a farmer I want Socrates to be found not guilty because he is not corrupt, he is trying to start a new government, and he wants people to question everything. He is a patriot, not guilty of any of the accusations that the Democrats brought up. In this paper I will explain why Socrates is innocent of these charges.
Throughout the readings of The Apology of Socrates and Crito I have found that Socrates was not a normal philosopher. It is the philosopher's intention to question everything, but Socrates' approach was different then most other philosophers. From one side of the road, Socrates can be seen as an insensitive, arrogant man. He did indeed undermine the laws so they fit his ideals, leave his family, and disregard the people's values. On the other side he can be seen as an ingenious man who questioned what many thought was the unquestionable. As he can be criticized for disregarding the many's ideals he can also be applauded for rising above the daily ways of popular thought. He questioned the laws that he thought were wrong and, to his death, never backed down in what he believed in. People may see that as stupidity or as heroism, the beauty of it is that either way people saw it, Socrates wouldn't care.
It is very hard to believe that the people who charged Socrates of these "Crimes" more than likely did not even understand what Socrates was talking about. So to think that they were considered to be in a place well above Socrates socially and able to sentence him to death should discredit their claims. During the trial Socrates often notes how you cannot define Piety. The charge of "Impiety" coming from Ancient Greece does make sense in the fact that the Greek people believed to be protected by the gods and they did not want to do anything to disrupt that. However the point that times are different today is valid in the sense that back then, the purpose of democracy was to serve to the good of all common people, however I still feel he was doing nothing "harmful" enough to be sentenced to death. I do believe he was used as an example to demonstrate the message of not challenging the status quo or this will
2). Because Socrates publicly questioned the norm and backed up his comments, youth started to challenge the system, that being said Socrates argued that he “either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally, so that on either view of the case,” his accusers were in fact making themselves into liars and had no real claim against him (Plato p. 7). It had been common knowledge for quite some time the aspect of free will and therefore Socrates could ever predict what people took away from his lectures as he could not determine when they first came in or how much they actually were paying attention. To polish off his accusers, he says “my offence is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of unintentional offences,” which meant that since there was no slandering of specific people, or groups that there was no lawful case against him (Plato p.
...revailing notion that the gods control the behavior of mortals like puppeteers as was often espoused in Greek lore. But rather, that gods are benevolent towards their human subjects. Thus, Socrates seems to have conjured up a new kind of divinity, thereby making him guilty of Meletus' third charge. Although neither depiction of Socrates is entirely accurate, they each illustrate some guilt on Socrates' part. The Aristophanic Socrates is completely guilty while the Platonic Socrates is only guilty on one account. In both works, he probably did not deserve to be condemned to death but more so in Plato's work it seems that Socrates has wrongfully been put to death. For an argument can be made that not only was Socrates not guilty of the charges, (at least most of them), but that his pursuit of morality and his view of the gods was invaluable to the society at large.
Socrates was a pompous man who believed that he was wiser than most, if not all, Athenian men of his time. He is also credited as one of the fathers of western philosophy, his own philosophy revolving around the welfare of one’s soul and reflecting on what the good life was. He was told by an oracle that he was the wisest of men and spent a great deal of time trying to prove it false, he decided that he was considered wise for accepting that he knew nothing, and never claimed to know anything that he questioned. In Plato’s text “Apology” Socrates is depicted as a man who was arrogant, hypercritical of others, and fixed on his ways no matter the consequences. He had the qualities of a man who saw no error in what he was doing because he thought he was above average men, and thought he was a benefit to society against what others claimed. In contrast Socrates’ portrayal in Aristophanes’ play “Clouds” is more positive, his character was written wanting men to be educated, hopeful that anyone could learn if they wished to, and helpful in teaching. He has the makings of a very good teacher to the right students, men whose minds were still able to be taught, admitted their lack of knowledge, and had a desire to learn; the sophists benefitted from undermining the superior argument with an inferior one.
Socrates says he has two kinds of accusers, those who just started accusing him and the old ones. Socrates finds himself in a hard place, because when he is telling the jury the story of why he is being accused he finds it very difficult to make a defense for himself. Socrates asks to hear the charges against him, Meletus says Socrates is guilty of boasting about being more knowledge than the rest studying things that no man dares to study; like the earth and what’s under the earth. Socrates says I never said such things if someone has witnessed to hearing me say so then let him come and speak. Socrates states that none of these charges are true.
Socrates defends himself against the charges brought against him by his prosecutor Meletus in two ways. One way consists of a description of Socrates’ motivation and method, which he hopes will explain to the jury why some people, including his prosecutors, dislike him. The second defense consists of Socrates responding directly to the two charges brought against him: “corrupting the young” and impiety, or more specifically, “not believing in the gods in whom the city believes” (p. 28). I’ll address these two lines of defense in turn.
The oracle at Delphi said to Socrates’ friend, Chaerephon, that there is no man wiser than Socrates. In disbelief and not agreeing to be the wisest man, Socrates went on to investigate by examining all men that he thought to be wise. His goal was to find a man that is wiser than him in order to tell the oracle he was incorrect. He went to a public man first, as he thought he would live up to the expectation of public man to be wise. However, he found out that although he appeared to be wise to himself and other, he was in fact not wise (Plato, 24). When Socrates tried to show the man that he was not wise like he considered himself to be, the man came to dislike him (Plato, 25). He then rationalizes to himself: “‘It is likely that neither of
Usually people think Socrates is innocent based on the fact that they believe his accusations are not necessarily bad. Although I also believe that they aren’t bad, I have based my conclusion of Socrates’ innocence only on his actions in “The Republic of Plato”.
Socrates has and have gained a lot of enemies and accusers. I think Socrates started to get his bad reputation when the oracle of Delphi has said that he is the wisest man of all Athens. Though Socrates does not believe that he is wise at all, the oracle does not lie. So, in order to test the oracle and prove it, he wanders around to find someone who is wiser than him. He sought, asked and interrogated many people like poets, politicians and artisans as they seem to have higher wisdom than him. But, by examining them, he discovered and felt like he is indeed wiser than all of them. He
Socrates had many beliefs but one of the utmost values he believed in was honor. In Plato’s, Apology; Socrates last speech before he is condemned to death shows, his dignity he had for himself. He believes that “he would much rather die as the result of this defense than live as the result of the other sort” (Plato 248). Socrates is on trial and this is his last speech, he says that he’d rather die than, defend himself in any other way. He believe’s that he is right and thus will not give into tyranny. The judges and the critics are all tyrants. Furthermore, he knows that the judges “would have liked to hear me weep and wail, doing and saying all sorts of things which i regard as unworthy of myself, but which you are used to hearing from other