Apology

apology is somewhat unique among the selections that were going over it's not a dialogue but a formal speech to a jury of some 500 Athenians called to judge at Socrates's trial now the reason that Socrates is here at court on this day is because a young man by the name of mellitus has charged Socrates with the crimes of corrupting the youth and not acknowledging the gods of the state a vague and I'm sure many people today would say ridiculous charge but one that nonetheless results in Socrates execution this speech is both Socrates defense against MELAS charges and an explanation of a large part of Socrates his personal philosophy he starts the speech by saying that Meletus is not the first to accuse him but that many throughout the years have spoken out against him Socrates says that while Meletus is the reason that he's here on trial today it is actually this voice of the multitude of old accusers that is going to end up convicting him Socrates addresses these old accusers first you see over the years Socrates has gotten a bad reputation with certain people and he says that this isn't fair people say that he makes outlandish claims and that he corrupts the youth with all of this nonsense and heresy but the only thing that Socrates ever claimed to know was that he knew nothing people claimed that he instructs the youth on how to make weak arguments stronger but Socrates says that he lacks any kind of ability to instruct others but he certainly never been paid to teach anyone Socrates wishes that he had those skills I mean he says that to instruct others to be a teacher is is a great thing but nevertheless it's not something that he's capable of Socrates suggests an alternative explanation for why people seem to hate him so much and here you can definitely see in Plato's writing the the anger and the the righteous ending at Socrates's murders as I'm sure Plato would have put it Socrates thinks that people are frustrated angered by the unique kind of wisdom that he possessed he first tries to explain just what this wisdom is and to that end he calls a witness to attest to the fact that the Oracle of Delphi once said that there was none wiser than socrates now when socrates heard this the first time he well he thought it was a load of bull because he knew that he didn't know anything about anything and he thought that he could prove it so he went around asking people questions trying to find somebody smarter than himself he specifically mentions that he sought after the poets the artisans the politicians the orders he tested their wisdom looking for something worthwhile and he came up with nothing all Socrates could find were people who believed they were wise they knew things about virtue honor justice and the like but didn't what they thought was worthless and the conclusion that Socrates came to was this that humans are foolish little insects who don't know anything in respect to wisdom and the only thing that we can do to make it better is to like Socrates admit that we know absolutely nothing for certain this is Socrates justification this is why he does what he does but that's not the point the whole reason that Socrates is telling the the jury this is because he's trying to explain how this bad reputation that he has came about and so Socrates starts connecting the dots see while Socrates goes around testing the wisdom of all the he meets people are watching and listening young rich men of the city who seemed to really get a hoot out of Socrates making fools of their elders and they start imitating him and while it's one thing to be made a fool out of by Socrates when some young punk kid starts doing the same thing well that's just too much for most people so people get mad and they start placing the blame on Socrates himself when really Socrates isn't doing anything he didn't ask people to listen to him he didn't ask to be copied now a part of me can't help but think that while Socrates may not have asked for it he was certainly thrilled at the prospect of so many people imitating him but that's not the point this is Socrates defense against his old accusers and at this point in the speech Socrates moves the focus of his argumentation to Meletus directly socrates engages him in a short dialogue and makes two main points socrates first states that no man wishes to be done wrong the heat no one would wish evil upon himself and he then goes on to say that he knows that if he does evil that evil will in turn come back to him and so that and so to say that he intentionally corrupts the youth is ridiculous if he does indeed corrupt the youth and he most certainly does it unintentionally and if it's unintentional then there's no reason to bring him to court for it he just needs to be admonished privately but Meletus is insistent that socrates is deliberately corrupting the youth of Athens and so Socrates goes on to make his second point which is essentially that Meletus accusations are contradictory on the one hand mellitus says that socrates corrupts the youth by teaching them about virtue wisdom what is holy and unholy things as Socrates puts it pertaining to divinities on the other hand mellitus says that Socrates acknowledges no gods Socrates alleges that this is impossible for certainly he must acknowledge gods in some way if he teaches of things pertaining to them it's like this no one would teach you how to ride a dragon for instance if they didn't believe that dragons were out there somewhere for you to ride teaching someone about something requires a belief in that things ultimate existence so mellitus contradicts himself evidence according to Socrates of the fact that mellitus never cared about the youth of the city like he claims to merely that Meletus had a grudge and wants Socrates dead with his defense concluded Socrates bids the jury understand just how important his mission to Athens is he compares himself to a gadfly waking a horse from its lazy slumber and as much as that probably annoys the horse it's good for it he will not stop even on pain of death Socrates then summarizes his defense once more for the jury and exhorts them to question the relatives of those who so often follow Socrates around in his daily affairs for certainly if someone could claim the Uther being corrupted it's the very family of the youth that Socrates supposedly corrupts but the fact is that these people are not speaking against Socrates but in his defense and according to Socrates this is just more proof that Meletus is lying the last thing that Socrates says in this section is that he does not plan to beg or appeal emotionally to the jury as so many people in his position or want to do he says that they've been called here to render justice and he refuses to appeal to their baser emotions Socrates only asks that they do what they feel is right the next section is called the counter penalty it starts after Socrates has already been convicted and as was customary in Athens at the time both the prosecution and the defense suggested punishment and the jury chose which one was to be enforced enforced to the letter they could not make any alteration to the punishment as they were proposed by either the prosecution or the defense usually what a convict would do in this situation was to propose a penalty less than what the prosecutors put forth but still as strict as the convict could hope to bear the idea was to get the jury to pick the lesser of two evils by any means necessary but Socrates takes a different approach he says that the proper way for athens to treat him in light of his god-given mission is to give him a free meal in the prison iam the hall where Athens honored Olympic and other heroes at this point Socrates still maintains that he's done nothing wrong and he can't bring himself to propose that he be inflicted with some evil especially considering that the alternative is death which Socrates doesn't see as an evil at all but rather provided that the person facing death is a just and good person he sees it as a blessing to Socrates imprisonment or exile seem like worse alternatives although he does admit that he sees no problem with paying a fine in the end socrates settles on that a fine Socrates is rather poor and says that he could maybe afford one Meena but his friends his his wealthy friends bid him to propose 30 times that amount and they guaranteed the for reference you could have bought the freedom of a prisoner of war at that time for approximately one meter so thirty times that amount is a substantial fine to pay but nonetheless Socrates friends are willing to do whatever it takes to save their friend and mentor this ends the counter penalty the next section the epilogue takes place after the jury has come back with the verdict that Socrates is to be put to death and here Socrates finally starts to explain why he doesn't see death as an evil to be inflicted upon him death is one of two things Socrates says it could simply be non-existence that is to say something like a dreamless sleep that makes the whole of time into a single night and he says that that would be a great blessing and if death is not that then it's certainly a transition a part of a longer journey one that will give Socrates a chance to examine the wisdom of all the gods demigods and heroes and and other philosophers who ever lived and certainly this time around no one will kill him for it as far as socrates is concerned this is a win-win situation

Channel: twobears

Views: 77,440

Rating: 4.9427481 out of 5

Keywords: Apology

Id: Xf3uVSuqHsg

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 01 2011