Plato's account of Socrates' Apology
In Plato's account of Socrates' apology, Socrates is brought to trial on the charges that he corrupted the youth of Athens through his teachings, and that he did not believe in the gods that the state believed in. Throughout the account, the argument against him comes across as unreliable and biased. Therefore, Socrates is innocent of the charges laid against him by Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon due to the facts that the jury consisted of men that already held a biased opinion of him, he does not make a living by corrupting the youth, and the accusation that he created his own deities was never validated.
Socrates enters into his trial acknowledging the fact that he is going up against a jury of men, many of whom already have a biased, negative view towards him. He explains that many of them, though not knowing him personally, feel as though they do based solely on word of mouth, weakening the validity of the trial against him. As Socrates states in the account of his defence; these accusers are numerous, and have been at it a long time, also they spoke to you at an age when you would readily believe them, some of you children and adolescents, and they won their case by default, as there was no defence (Plato qtd. in Melchert 18c).
He accepts the fact that he must defend himself and as he states “attempt to uproot from your minds in so short a time the slander that has resided there so long” (Plato qtd. in Melchert 19a). These are not people who can actually act as witnesses to his wrongdoings, yet they (the audience) have born witness to him not committing the alleged crimes of “walking on air and talking a lot of other nonsense” (Plato qtd. in Melchert 19c). He then addresses first...
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..., since I believe in divine beings (Plato qtd in Melchert 27d).
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These “new” charges from Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon have clearly stemmed from the older accusations that his first accusers couldn’t fully prove before, and the hearsay that they have all grown up hearing, and therefore should not actually be seen as new charges.
Socrates' accusers clearly have a bias against him from the very beginning, proven by the lack of evidence combined with the fact that he is brought before the jury under false pretences regarding the accusations of corrupting the youth and creating his own deities. This shows that Socrates was indeed charged and wrongly put to death for the simple reason that he had fallen out of favour with the men of Athens and not because he had actually broken any laws.
Throughout all the years, he never could find anyone as wise as himself, and all he did was make enemies searching. These enemies are now his accusers, and they accuse him of spreading evil doctrines, corrupting the youth, and not believing in the Gods. Throughout the speech, Socrates continues to shoot down every accuser and it is evident that he has done no wrong. Eventually, one of his accusers states that he must be doing something strange and that he wouldnt be that famous if he were like other men. Socrates did not live a very public life unlike most people at that time.
Socrates begins to argue with Meletus about his previous statement and, what seems to become, more and more agitated with the fact that Meletus goes back and forth with his argument for the simple fact that he wants Socrates to face the death penalty, which is evident on several occasions throughout Plato’s apology. Also, throughout Plato’s version of The Apology, he also makes sure that it is known that his first charges arose from general prejudices that surrounded him over the years.
Plato's The Apology is an account of the speech. Socrates makes at the trial in which he is charged with not recognizing the gods recognized by the state, inventing new gods, and corrupting the youth of Athens. For the most part, Socrates speaks in a very plain, conversational manner. He explains that he has no experience with the law courts and that he will instead speak in the manner to which he is accustomed with honesty and directness. Socrates then proceeds to interrogate Meletus, the man primarily responsible for bringing Socrates before the jury. He strongly attacks Meletus for wasting the court¡¦s time on such absurd charges. He then argues that if he corrupted the young he did so unknowingly since Socrates believes that one never deliberately acts wrongly. If Socrates neither did not corrupt the young nor did so unknowingly, then in both cases he should not be brought to trial. The other charge is the charge of impiety. This is when Socrates finds an inconsistency in Meletus¡¦ belief that Socrates is impious. If he didn¡¦t believe in any gods then it would be inconsistent to say that he believed in spiritual things, as gods are a form of a spiritual thing. He continues to argue against the charges, often asking and answering his own questions as if he were speaking in a conversation with one of his friends. He says that once a man has found his passion in life it would be wrong of him to take into account the risk of life or death that such a passion might involve.
For every teacher one may have, there is always a wiser teacher. Socrates is the wisest teacher in the city-state of Athens. A man who has been teaching his wise ways of questioning to students for over 25 years in the Agora is Socrates. Having been known as an adept to questioning, many adolescents and adults sought direction by Socrates. However, people have created accusations against Socrates such as not believing in the gods. Why put Socrates on trial now? At Socrates's trial, both the defense and prosecution have provided strong evidence, but the prosecution was not as strong as the defense. From the defense side, you'd hear from Plato, who is Socrates's most notable student, Crito, who is a lifelong friend of Socrates, and finally Aristophanes,
Socrates was executed after a trial in which he was accused of corrupting the youths of Athens, and committing acts of impiety. These accusations were brought to the court by a small group of men. Meletus was the speaker representing the group of accusers, while Socrates defended himself. The jury of 501 Athenians voted to execute Socrates on these accusations, but this extreme outcome was not planned out (Stone 78). The initial object of the trial was to get Socrates out of Athens, and he would just move a...
In Plato’s Apology, when Socrates is pleading his defence, he makes a good argument against the charges of corrupting the youth of Athens. This is evident when he states that, firstly, Meletus, the man who is trying to get Socrates executed, has never cared about the youth of Athens and has no real knowledge on the subject. Secondly, Socrates states that if he was in some way corrupting the youth, then he was doing it unintentionally or unwillingly, in which case he was brought to court for no reason. Finally, Socrates brings to light the fact that Meletus doesn’t have a single witness to attest to Socrates’ corruption. This is how Socrates proves his argument that he isn’t responsible for corrupting the youth of Athens.
In reply to the first charge against him, Socrates effectively recounted the reason that he had been privately questioning Athenians and claiming that some of their personal beliefs had been ill-founded. The affidavit read, “Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.” (Plato, 2) The abstractness of that accusation made it an odd one to refute, so Socrates attempted to do so by explaining how he became unpopular with his accusers.
Socrates, in his conviction from the Athenian jury, was both innocent and guilty as charged. In Plato’s Five Dialogues, accounts of events ranging from just prior to Socrates’ entry into the courthouse up until his mouthful of hemlock, both points are represented. Socrates’ in dealing with moral law was not guilty of the crimes he was accused of by Meletus. Socrates was only guilty as charged because his peers had concluded him as such. The laws didn’t find Socrates guilty; Socrates was guilty because his jurors enforced the laws. The law couldn’t enforce itself. Socrates was accused of corrupting Athens’ youth, not believing in the gods of the city and creating his own gods. In the Euthyphro, Socrates defends himself against the blasphemous charges outside the courthouse to a priest Euthyphro. Socrates looks to the priest to tell him what exactly is pious so that he may educate himself as to why he would be perceived as impious. Found in the Apology, another of Plato’s Five Dialogues, Socrates aims to defend his principles to the five hundred and one person jury. Finally, the Crito, an account of Socrates’ final discussion with his good friend Crito, Socrates is offered an opportunity to escape the prison and his death sentence. As is known, Socrates rejected the suggestion. It is in the Euthyphro and the Apology that it can be deduced that Socrates is not guilty as charged, he had done nothing wrong and he properly defended himself. However, in the Crito, it is shown that Socrates is guilty only in the interpretation and enforcement of Athens’ laws through the court system and its jurors. Socrates’ accusations of being blasphemous are also seen as being treasonous.
Socrates starts by speaking of his first accusers. He speaks of the men that they talked to about his impiety and says that those that they persuaded in that Socrates is impious, that they themselves do not believe in gods (18c2). He tells the court of how long they have been accusing him of impiety. He states that they spoke to others when they were at an impressionable age (18c5). These two reasons alone should have been good enough to refute the first accusers of how they were wrong about him but Socrates went on. He leaves the first accusers alone because since they accused him a long time ago it was not relevant in the current case and began to refute the second accusers. Socrates vindicates his innocence by stating that the many have heard what he has taught in public and that many of those that he taught were present in the court that day.
Although I could argue the question posited above from either position, as many have done before and, as many will continue to do after me, I do not believe that Socrates waivers in his beliefs between the two accounts according to Plato. The contradiction, it seems, focuses on whether or not Socrates is a proponent of civil (dis)obedience, and the apparent conflict between the two works revolves around passages from the Apology, that seem to be in opposition to his stated convictions in the dialogue between he and Crito. These passages seem to suggest that Socrates is in favor of breaking Athenian law when they are deemed to be unjust or immoral. Just who and how one would determine injustice and immorality in any particular case is in question and seems to add to the perception of inconsistency. In the Apology, Socrates presents his defense against accusations that he has not only corrupted the youth of Athens with his incessant Philosophizing, but, that he is also guilty of impiety, being an atheist, or rather, not believing in the city gods and introducing new gods (Apology 24b-c). Summarily, Socrates does not answer the accusations directly in the dialogue of his defense, but rather, he uses a cross-examination strategy against his accusers Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon, to convince the jury that he is not guilty of corrupting the youth any more than any other Athenian citizen (Apology 19e-20c). And more importantly, he contends that the main reason he now faces a ju...
The Apology is Socrates' defense at his trial. As the dialogue begins, Socrates notes that his accusers have cautioned the jury against Socrates' eloquence, according to Socrates, the difference between him and his accusers is that Socrates speaks the truth. Socrates distinguished two groups of accusers: the earlier and the later accusers. The earlier group is the hardest to defend against, since they do not appear in court. He is all so accused of being a Sophist: that he is a teacher and takes money for his teaching. He attempts to explain why he has attracted such a reputation. The oracle was asked if anyone was wiser than Socrates was. The answer was no, there was no man wiser. Socrates cannot believe this oracle, so he sets out to disprove it by finding someone who is wiser. He goes to a politician, who is thought wise by him self and others. Socrates does not think this man to be wise and tells him so. As a consequence, the politician hated Socrates, as did others who heard the questioning. "I am better off, because while he knows nothing but thinks that he knows, I neither know nor think that I know" (Socrates). He questioned politicians, poets, and artisans. He finds that the poets do not write from wisdom, but by genius and inspiration. Meletus charges Socrates with being "a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the State, and has other new divinities of his own."
In Plato’s Apology it seems that overall Socrates did an effective job using the 3 acts of the mind. The three acts of the mind are: Understanding, Judgment, and Reasoning. These acts are stragically used to rebut the charges made against him during trial. The two charges that are formed against Socrates are corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods. The first act of the mind that we will be looking at is, understanding. The question that needs to be asked is what does corruption mean? The accuser believe that Socrates in corrupting 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 question. It is very important that people are always asking questions about why things are. The next question that needs to be address 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. They are mad that he has “created” his own god.
Within the duration of this document, I will be discussing the charges laid against Socrates and how he attempted to refute the charges. One of the reasons why Socrates was arrested was because he was being accused of corrupting the minds of the students he taught. I personally feel that it is almost impossible for one person to corrupt the thoughts and feelings of a whole group of people. Improvement comes from the minority and corruption comes from the majority. Socrates is one man (minority).
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.
The charges against Socrates were brought upon him by a man names Meletus. Meletus was a young man that Socrates did not know very well. These charges brought on by Meletus caused the indictment of Socrates. One of the charges in the affidavit written by Meletus against Socrates is that he is "corrupting the youth." Another charge that is brought upon Socrates is that of he is making up new Gods and disregarding the old Gods the Athenians believe in. These were the charges brought on Socrates.