Plato and Socrates’ defence
In 399 BCE, Socrates was prosecuted, convicted and put to death on the charge of ‘corrupting the young and not believing in the gods that the city believes in’. In the Athenian legal system, the accused had to make his own defence. We do not have that account but we do have Plato’s account of that defence.
1. The opening of Socrates’ defence: 17a-18a
What impact my prosecutors have had on you, Athenians, I don’t know. Well, as for me, they almost made me forget myself, so persuasively did they speak. And yet, they have said almost nothing that is true. Of the many lies they told, the one that surprised me most was when they said that you should be careful not to be tricked by me because I was clever at speaking. This seemed to me to be the most shameful thing of all that they were not ashamed that they were going to be immediately proved wrong by reality, whenever I show myself to be not clever at all at speaking – unless, of course, what they mean by ‘clever’ someone who tells the truth. If that’s what they mean, then I would agree that I was an orator, but not on their terms.
Now these people, as I say, have said nothing or almost nothing that is true. But what you, Athenians will hear from me is the whole truth, not, by Zeus, fancy phrases, like their words, all dressed up in rhetorical forms. You will hear words in no particular order, just as they come to me – because I have trust in the justice of what I say. None of you should expect anything different. Of course, it wouldn’t be right, gentlemen, for a man of my age to come before you, moulding phrases like some youngster. So, Athenians, I ask and beg of you just this one thing. If you hear me making my defence with those same words with which I usually talk, both in the Agora by the bankers’ tables – many of you have heard me there – and elsewhere, do not, for this reason, be surprised or start making a fuss. For this is the way it is. This is the first time that I have ever appeared in a law-court - at the age of seventy.
This way of speaking is completely foreign. So, if I really were a foreigner, you would, I suppose, forgive me if I spoke in the language and style in which I had been brought up. In just the same way I ask you now to be fair, as it seems to me, in ignoring the style of what I say – it might be better, it might be worse – and consider and pay regard to this only, whether I am telling the truth or not. That’s what a judge must do, just as a speaker must tell the truth.
2. Socrates’ defence against the ‘long-term hostility’: 19a-24b
Socrates explains that he has to face two very different sets of charges. Of course, he has to address the charges of his accusers but he says that the more damaging charges are the long-term accusations that he faces that he ‘spends too much of his time exploring matters under the earth and up in the sky, making the weaker argument the stronger and teaching others to do the same.’ These charges are simply an account of the content of The Clouds, a comedy written by Aristophanes. Socrates argues that none of this applies to him but he is willing to concede that he has annoyed people by continually challenging their ideas.
‘I think that someone who who presents this argument is right and I will try to show you what it is that has got me this reputation and this listen. So, listen. Maybe some of you will think that I’m joking but be assured. everything I say will be true. I have got this reputation through nothing other than a certain kind of wisdom. What sort of wisdom? Well, perhaps it is a human kind of wisdom… Now don’t, Athenians, start a disturbance, not even if you think that what I am saying is a bit grand but the tale I am going to tell isn’t my tale. Rather, I am going to bring in a serious witness. So, on the matter of my wisdom, whether it is indeed wisdom at all, I will call as a witness Apollo, the god at Delphi.
You all know Chaerephon, I expect. He was a friend of mine from a young age and a friend of many of you. He went into exile with you and returned with you. You know what kind of a man Chaerephon was, how he was prone to get carried away. Well, once he went to Delphi and he had the audacity to consult the oracle on this matter – as I said, just keep calm, gentlemen. He asked if there was anyone wiser than me. So, the Pythian priestess replied that there was no one wiser. His brother will confirm this for you, since Chaerephon is dead.
Now, when I heard this, I asked myself the question: ‘Whatever does the god mean and why is he speaking in riddles. I know that I am not wise in any matter, big or small. Whatever does he mean saying that I am the wisest. I suppose he can’t be lying. That would be an offence against divine law.
So, Socrates decides that all he can do is set about testing the god’s judgement by talking to all those people who seem to be wise. He starts with a politician who has the reputation of wisdom and shows that he thinks he is wise but isn’t really. And, of course, the politician isn’t best pleased to be humiliated in this way. Socrates decides that he is wiser than this man because at least he knows that he isn’t wise. Then he did the same with other figures in public life and upset them. Then he talked to the poets and they were no better. And then he went to the craftsmen who knew their crafts but nothing more.
‘These enquiries, Athenians, created great hatred, very serious and very deep, and that created many accusations, in particular the accusation that I was ‘wise’…. In fact, it’s likely that it is the god who is really wise and his words are telling us that human wisdom is worth little or nothing. He seems to talk about Socrates, making use of my name, taking me as an example, as if he were to say, ‘Of all you humans, that man is wisest who, like Socrates, has realised that, when it comes to wisdom, he is truly worthless. So, that’s why, even now, I keep on going around, searching and hunting for people, citizens or foreigners, in accordance with the god’s will, whom I might think to be wise. And when I find someone, I help the god by showing that they aren’t. Because of this work, I haven’t had time to do anything of substance for the city nor for my family. but I live in utter poverty because of my service to the god.’
3. Socrates’ defence against the specific charges of his accusers: 24b-28a
Socrates’ method is to engage Meletus, one of the named accusers, through dialectic, question and answer. By this method, Meletus is led to the position that Socrates is the only person in Athens that does harm to the young and that, in the matter of his non-belief in the gods, Meletus is levelling charges at Socrates that apply to other people. It’s a case of mistaken identity.
One simple question
In what way is Socrates’ defence odd/unexpected?