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...
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.
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 concludes the Apology by arguing that a just man should have no fear of death. 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.
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 proceeds to explain why he is being accused, his longtime childhood friend Chairephon also a friend to many of the accusers, who is now dead. Went to Delphi the god of wisdom, it was Chairephon who asked Delphi is there any man wiser than Socrates. The god Delphi answered nobody was wiser. Socrates thought surely this must be so...
At the age of seventy, the philosopher Socrates was confronted with accusations, then charged and put on trial before an Athenian jury containing 500 people, and was later sentenced to an unpleasant death after a convicted verdict. During the trial, Socrates had two different sets of accusers: the early accusers, and the immediate accusers. Through various years, the earlier accusers, which were the people of Athens, charged Socrates with deception and bias views. The immediate accusers, which were Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon, charged him with the reason of corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods that the city believed in. Yet Socrates was only worrisome with his earlier accusers than his immediate ones, because they have been slandering towards him throughout the prior years, putting preconception toward many of the jurymen since he was in his youth: “I have been accused before you by many people for a long time now, for many years in fact, by
Socrates, according to Plato challenged the norms of society by questioning life and having others question it as well. He was labeled of “corrupting the youth” and for not believing in the Athenians gods. “Socrates is guilty of corrupting the young, and of not acknowledging the gods the city acknowledges, but new daimonic activities instead.” (The Apology, pp 654) Although, he was cast by being “corrupt”, Socrates had many followers that saw him as a wise man. Socrates trial was made up of thirty jurors, who were later known as “The Thirty.” The “Thirty” really wanted was to silence Socrates, rather than taking his life. However, Socrates did not want to disobey the laws, he did not want to be violated of his right to freedom of speech, nor did he did he want to be undermine his moral position. (The Apology, pp. 647) He stood against injustice acts several times while he was in counsel. “I was the sort...
Socrates is not a corrupt person. He did not want to gain power from his teachings. He also never took any money for teachings All he wants is to have people to think about life and to question truths we know
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
...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.
Because Socrates believed that the most important job in his life was to pursue wisdom by questioning “ the politicians...to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts,” making sure he questioned all of the influential people of Greek Society (Plato p. 4). What Socrates found was that “men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that some inferior men were really wiser and better,” from these inferior men he helped raise formidable minds and also upset those within power thusly creating enemies (Plato p. 4). In his own words “This investigation has led to my having many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind,” which led to accusations being placed against him (Plato p.
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
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
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
We don’t really get to see Socrates in action in the “Apology of Socrates”, but we do in “The Republic of Plato”. After reading these two books a few times I have come to the conclusion that Socrates is innocent. 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