Thoughts on Socrates' Apology

 

Apology is typically a person’s first introduction to Plato as it is not too abstruse and contains many familiar elements of other dialogues and imparting a great deal of beauty and wisdom, all in a relatively small package. It has possibly the most biographical information on Socrates that we possess in the Platonic corpus. We learn little details such as the fact that he is 70 years old at the time of his prosecution and this is his first ever appearance in court. He warns the court that lies can be very convincing, so we should beware those who hide their lies in beautiful sounding flowery words. Socrates claims he isn’t a skillful speaker, he only speaks the truth directly and simply as possible. For these reasons he argues that the substance and content of what we are saying is much more important than the manner. I believe this is largely true. We spend too much of our time as a species flustering ourselves by making sure things are rigidly by the book – although that does have its place too.

The reason Socrates is in court at all is because he is being charged for crimes against the state; his accusers are Meletus, representing the poets, Anytus, representing the politicians, and Lycon, representing the orators. It’s not clear what the specific charges are, although they involve corrupting the youth in some way. What is clear is that they are obviously trumped-up stock charges that are typically trotted out against philosophers when they have committed no crime. It’s a convenient way to silence someone who has become a nuisance. This is obviously the case because neither the children Socrates supposedly corrupted, nor their parents, accuse him of wrongdoing. The people who brought the charges are ones who have had their egos demolished and are looking to get revenge and to shut him up. Easier to do that than to look within and admit the harsh truth that they are ignorant. We humans love taking the easier and wider path that leads to destruction. Be that as it may, Socrates isn’t nearly as worried about the men who are bringing the current charges in court. He has a much more terrible enemy – those, who out of love of envy and slander, have been gossiping about him for decades and left indelibly false impressions of him in the minds of the people. They are more formidable since they are a faceless crowd and have had a long time to instill their influence in others, a real PR nightmare for Socrates.

Socrates tells us the reason why he does what he does and how that is what has landed him into such hot water with the Athenian aristocracy. Apparently, his buddy Chaerephon asked the oracle at Delphi one day who was wiser than Socrates and the priestess said, “No one.” This was quite the puzzle for Socrates since it was unconscionable that Chaerephon would lie about this. Even more ridiculous is the idea that the gods would lie about it since they are incapable of that. But the most incredible idea of all was the idea that Socrates was the wisest of all men on Earth – he certainly didn’t feel like it. Due to his firm faith and religious devotion, he was determined to find out in what way he was the wisest man of all. He decided to interview the men with the greatest reputations for wisdom and see how he scaled up. To his initial chagrin he learned that none of them were wise. At this point he realized that he had no divine wisdom, only human wisdom which consists solely in not claiming to know what you don’t know. It’s harder than it sounds. Claiming to know what we don’t know has a powerful, almost magnetic attraction for humans. After one of his first interviews he declared, “it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know” (21d).

When he tried interviewing poets, he also found something interesting – most regular people interpreted their poems better than they could! How is this possible? Socrates believes that their beautiful poetry is written under divine inspiration, but it is like a prophetic utterance – they end up writing down something beautiful but have no idea where it came from or what it means. The gift of interpretation is often separate from the gift of inspiration. He also found that many of the poets he met not only couldn’t understand their own poetry but were arrogant know-it-alls in many other fields of knowledge with which that had the barest, most tendentious acquaintance or none at all. This sounds like some of the modern-day scientists and popular science writers like Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking who believe science has proved to be the death knell for philosophy. When he turns his gaze towards craftsmen, he finds the situation to be improved, but still lacking. They do have actual technical knowledge in their domains, but still claim to know that which they know not. Socrates thinks it would be better to have only the purity of accepting your ignorance, rather than be a mixed bag of real knowledge plus having the stupidity to claim knowledge where you have none. The conclusion of Socrates investigations into the Delphic oracle is this:

“Real wisdom is the property of God, and this oracle is his way of telling us that human wisdom has little or no value. It seems to me that he [God] is not referring literally to Socrates, but has merely taken my name as an example, as if he would say to us, ‘The wisest of you men is he who has realized, like Socrates, that in respect of wisdom he is really worthless.’” (23a-b)

Due to this revelation, Socrates sees it as his service to God to find men who think they are wise and show them the reality that they are not. This has been such an exhausting task (since most of us are arrogant fools) that it has reduced him to poverty.

              Next, Socrates defends himself against his accusers. He is accused of corrupting the youth and he defends this in a very roundabout way. He says that no one prefers to be harmed rather than helped by his friends, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to corrupt his friends intentionally. If he did, they would then be worse people and would end up dragging him down with them. Therefore, there are only two possibilities – he either did it unintentionally or he didn’t corrupt them. If he didn’t corrupt them, the charge should be thrown out. If he did it unintentionally then he should be privately educated about his error and the charges should be dropped (26a). This does make sense to me, but it is hard to square with what Socrates says just a few lines later. He calls Meletus a thoroughly selfish bully who acts out of sheer wanton aggressiveness and self-assertion (26e). Wouldn’t the same reasoning Socrates applies to himself also apply to Meletus? The only answer I can come up with is yes. It appears that Socrates can’t escape the human inclination to treat our enemies differently than we do ourselves. It is also unclear when punishment would ever be required, given this argument. Perhaps causing someone pain is the only way to get them to see clearly. It would be better if words alone, said once would do the trick. We often don’t learn that way. It often takes severe negative and positive reinforcement to perfectly realign our neuroplastic pathways.

              The second charge against Socrates is a bit murky. At one point, Meletus says he believes in the wrong gods, and at another says he is an atheist. This makes no sense and Socrates ends up forcing Meletus to pick one. He goes with atheism. It is obvious that Meletus is grasping at straws. There are many occasions that people have seen Socrates praying to the sun (like Alcibiades in Symposium) – it is well known that the general belief of all mankind since time immemorial is that the sun and moon are gods. This is probably an even more absurd charge than the first one – since one of the most glaring attributes of Socrates personality is his fierce determination to be faithful to traditional religious practices and doctrines. The entire reason for his crusade to demolish the false wisdom of men is not set into motion after he carefully reasoned it out one day in a debate – but rather as a conviction in the revelation of God to man. This does not make him irrational, but it does show that he isn’t just a cold rationalist. I will belabor the point here and show the sheer depth and dimension of Socrates profound attachment to religion. I am indebted to two articles by the philosopher John Bussanich – Socrates Religious Experiences and Socrates the Mystic.

              Socrates treats dreams, revelations, and prayers as significant in his pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. In fact, one can say that for him reason is rooted in revelation and not vice-versa.  Divine revelation is not an arbitrary piece of information but rather the irruption of the divine in the psyche. In Phaedo 61b, Socrates writes poetry because he believes he is being directed to do just that by God in a dream he had. In fact, the most important thing we learn in Apology is Socrates’ attachment to his daimonion which we see in 21a, 31 c-d, and 40 a-b. What is a daimonion? It is a semantically ambiguous word as it is really an adjective but takes on the features of a noun. The daimonion is a voice that has spoken to him ever since his childhood; it never positively persuades him to do things, it only comes to him when he is about to say or do something foolish (31d). Socrates variously describes it as “something spiritual and divine” (31d) and “a sign of the god” (40b, c, 41d). It appears to him quite frequently (Euthydemus 272a, Phaedrus 242b) and others are very aware of this – it isn’t something Socrates keeps private (Ap. 31c, Euthyphro 3b). This “daimonion” wasn’t something normal that many people experienced in Ancient Greece, it is clear it is something unique and quite peculiar to Socrates himself – it may in fact be part of why they wanted to charge him with introducing new gods. Plato always maintains a distinction between daimon and daimonion in the dialogues. Every single person has a daimon indwelling it (Timaeus 90a) that guides it to the afterlife (107d) and this is identical with reason, the highest part of the tripartite soul. The daimonion, by contrast, is the sign of the god that appears uniquely to Socrates.

              In general, it seems that Theos (god) > daimon > daimonion although the exact relationship isn’t clear. Daimon and daimonion together make up daimonia and these are supernatural powers and may be evil, good, or neutral – unlike demons which are always negative. The word daimon is more like a mode of activity rather than a type of divine being – even a god can act as a daimon if it possesses or inspires a person. Another difference between a daimon and a god is that there are no cults or images for a daimon – they are not worshipped; their activity is veiled. Socrates never really gives details about his daimonion because the only thing he knows about it is that it comes from a divine source and cannot lie. Whenever it tells him to stop doing something, he doesn’t wait until he can concoct an argument for what it wants, he just stops – he has faith it won’t lie to him. Faith is not an irrational hope, but “the ability to recognize a truth or reality lying behind and also transcending any given perception.” At the end of Crito and at Gorgias 523a-527e, Socrates details a belief in the afterlife that comes from Orphic -Pythagoreanism and not from traditional Greek religion. In Phaedo (64e, 65c, 66a,e, 67d, 79d, 88b-c) we see that he believed many Pythagorean doctrines and lived a Pythagorean way of life. This means he practiced a severe ascetic regimen aided by meditative exercises and this was just as, if not more important to get to the truth as unaided reason pursued in dialectic.

              Socrates being a devoted religious man is not something anyone can credibly claim to flout. We constantly see him performing traditional rituals, praying, going to traditional festivals, and basically doing all that his society required of him in the religious sphere. It is true that he did hold some unconventional and heterodox beliefs and practices, but in general he was a faithful adherent to the religion of his time. Some try to square this with his rationality (as if they were opposed) by saying that he only went through the motions because it was expected of him. This is not true. His external devotions were a flowing out of his inner devotion to the divine – a natural and organic concomitant of piety. Whenever he had intense ecstatic experiences, he finished by praying to the gods because he felt genuine thanks at having spiritual gifts bestowed upon him, it wasn’t just unreflective and uncritical adherence to archaic tradition.  Even Socrates insistence that human wisdom amounts to ignorance is NOT a pessimistic view of the limits of human wisdom but rather a crude and early form of apophatic theology. This ignorance, once embraced, is the emptiness that allows us to receive and transmit the power that enables others to seek and attain wisdom. This spiritual midwifery was the goal of Socrates life. Now back to the dialogue.

              People often ask Socrates why he doesn’t just cave in and admit he committed crimes, even if it isn’t true, just so he’ll get a lighter punishment. If he defies the court, he will die. Socrates was a veteran of the battles of Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium in the Peloponnesian War. He uses this experience to tell us why death does not scare him.

“You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action – that is whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one…. Where a man has once taken up his stand…there I believe his bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death or anything else before dishonor” (28b-d).

Death before dishonor. The only thing you should consider when doing something is whether it is the right thing, not whether it hurts or not. That is weakness. More than weakness it is also a type of faithlessness, and even a kind of pride rearing its ugly head. Socrates explains: “to be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not” (29a). Death may be a great blessing, who knows? It seems Socrates either intuited the gospel proleptically or it was revealed to him. For the Christian we know that death is at the same time a great evil, but it is also birth into new life and an escape from this hellish half created vale of tears.

              Socrates then starts exhorting the people to get their priorities straight. Our chief goal in life should be for the perfection of our souls. “Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?” (29e). Even our jobs, the thing we spend most of our day occupied with is trivial compared to the real purpose of our lives. “Make your first and chief concern not for your bodies nor for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls” (30b). He claims it is wicked to disobey our superiors, God or man, but greater obedience is due to God. That’s why he will never stop performing his duty even if he has to die 100 times, he will do it, for love of God and man. Besides, this service and love has given him a clarity and depth of vision – he can see far further than us even when we stand on the shoulders of giants. He saw that a better man cannot be harmed by a worse one (30d). If your cause is just and you are innocent, no one can do anything to you that will cause lasting harm. You will feel pain and may die, but this is temporary since we will live forever, and all pain will be gone one day. This teaching is the corollary to his idea that it is far worse to commit injustice than to suffer it. He also says that we will die no matter what we do, that is not within our power. What is within our power is whether or not we do evil and so he is taking control of the one thing he can – he refuses to do evil. Lying to escape death would be committing evil. He may be condemned by evil men, but they are being condemned by the truth herself. Instead of killing people to silence them, they should work on getting rid of the ignorance he points out.

              What if he didn’t lie and only engaged in silly PR stunts and ploys meant to play on the judges’ heartstrings. He refuses to do this too – it is a form of deceit and is also shameful behavior. As he so eloquently puts it: “The difficulty is not so much to escape death; the real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong, which is far more fleet of foot” (39b). As expected, he ends up getting convicted and when they ask him what he thinks the sentence should be, he comically says they should pay for all his living expenses since he did nothing wrong and so he could carry out his divine mission. More seriously he proposes a small fine that his friends could help him pay, but that is rejected in favor of execution by hemlock. He is asked why he can’t just mind his business. He again replies that he is serving God and fears disobeying Him far more than being killed by people and he has a strong urge to discuss philosophy all the time since the unexamined life isn’t worth living (38a). He is asked why he didn’t just enter politics. He did and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. He found that one has to be so corrupt and immoral to survive in the political arena that he would’ve been dead in weeks if he did that. He urges us: “The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics alone” (32a). I couldn’t agree more. I suppose it is necessary, but not for me. At the end of the dialogue, we see just how saintly Socrates is and how firm his faith in God is. He holds no grudges against the men who are killing him, and he believes that the next life will be a great blessing – he looks forward to seeing his friends and family and the heroes of the past. He leaves us with this bit of advice: “Fix your minds on this one belief, which is certain – that nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death, and his fortunes are not a matter of indifference to the gods” (41d). May we be so blessed that we can spend our lives in devoted service to God as was his servant Socrates.