[COM] Apology
Introduction
The trial and death of Socrates occupies a central place in the literary mythos of Plato. We can well imagine the effect these events had on him, when at the age of twenty-eight he saw his teacher and friend killed at the hands of his countrymen. Likewise, the death of Socrates as described in the works of Plato continue to excite the imagination of Western man to this day, and it stands as one of the great literary symbols of our common Western heritage.
It should therefore not surprise us that no less than three of Plato’s dialogues deal directly with the final moments of Socrates’ life, with several others mentioning or foreshadowing the trial. The first of these three is the Apology, which deals with the trial itself and Socrates’ speech in his own defense. It is unusual among the other works of Plato in that it is not actually a dialogue, but rather a monologue. Aside from a few comments by Socrates’ prosecutors, the dialogue is almost entirely the speech of one man.
It is also unusual in that it is one of the few dialogues where Plato himself is mentioned as being present. As we have discussed in previous Commentaries, the absence of Plato in his dialogues suggests that they are literary creations rather than accounts of actual events. While we can accept the trial and execution of Socrates as historical, I do not think we can blindly accept that the dialogue itself is an account of the actual speech made by Socrates at the trial. Most likely, I think, it is a literary creation of Plato in keeping with the rest of the Platonic corpus.
For this reason, I do not think we can take the Apology at face value. Instead, it must be interpreted much like we have done with previous dialogues. The Platonic wisdom is often hidden within the work rather than left in plain sight, and this is no less true of the Apology. It is in reading the context and the reasoning that the true gem within the work appears.
In this particular case, my reading will be more imaginative than it has been in previous Commentaries. The reason for this is simple enough. The context of the Apology is far more grounded in mundane life than many of Plato’s other works, yet I still maintain that it was written to elaborate on a universal truth. Where many other Platonic dialogues deal with the soaring mystical heights of the Universal Truth itself, the trial dialogues are more somber. They deal with two universal human truths, namely death and the malice of our fellow man. In the case of the Apology, it is primarily the latter of these which dominates the dialogue.
Speaking Truth
The Apology begins with Socrates addressing the Athenians. His accusers, three men named Meletus, Anytus and Lycon, have already made their speech against him. While Plato will eventually recount what their accusations are, he begins first by making a number of comments on the accusers’ speech which sets the tone for the whole text.
“I don’t know what effect my accusers have had on you, Athenians. As far as I’m concerned, they made me all but forget the position I am in, they spoke so plausibly. And yet to all intents and purposes there wasn’t a word of truth in what they said. […] They said you should be careful to avoid being led astray by my skill in speaking. […] That was what I found the most shameless thing about their behaviour – unless of course by ‘skilled in speaking’ they mean someone who speaks the truth. If that’s what they mean, then I would agree that I’m in a different class from them as an orator.” (Apology 17a-b)
Right away, Plato establishes a clear contrast between the accusers, who spoke not a single word of truth, and Socrates, who does speak the truth. The Apology is not first and foremost about Socrates’ trial or the accusations against him, but about truth. Specifically, it is about truth in speech, in public speaking – that is, truth as it exists within the social framework of human life.
The existential truth of mankind is that no man is an island. This is a terror rather than a comfort, for we are condemned to the spite and malice of our fellows. No source of conflict and misery in human life is more fruitful than the companionship of our peers, for human social life is a vicious game of status and recognition. The universal theme of social life is that of the lone man against the teeming herd who are ever ready to turn on him and devour him.
This is why I believe that the Apology is written as a monologue. When facing the need to be one’s own man before the great mass of mankind, every man must by necessity stand alone.
This spitefulness is one side of human nature. Another is language, the chief weapon of the social war we all wage.
“Anyway, these people, as I say, have told you little or nothing that was true, whereas from me you will hear the whole truth – certainly not a piece of polished rhetoric like theirs, Athenians, with its words and phrases so cleverly arranged.” (Apology 17b-c)
Lies and half-truths, flattery and slander, every kind of manipulation imaginable – this is what much of human language amounts to. Throughout the Platonic corpus, Plato aims his critical eye against the rhetoricians precisely for teaching only how to use language to manipulate. Against this Plato puts the philosopher and his style of reasoning, which seeks the truth for the sake of truth.
In making this point, Plato does not ignore the context of the Apology. The courtroom is a place of the most egregious forms of deceit. When he places Socrates, the archetypal philosopher, in this environment it is to unleash a violent clash between two entirely different ways of being human.
This distinction is made all the more clear by the following comment, where he shows just how out of place the philosopher is in the courtroom.
“If you hear me making my defence in the same language I generally use in the city, among people doing business – where many of you have heard me – and elsewhere, do not be surprised on that account or start interrupting. […] The kind of speaking practised here is, quite simply, foreign to me.” (Apology 17d)
As we shall see moving forward, Plato makes it all but explicit that these are central themes in the Apology.
The Two Accusers
Having made it clear that the text is about the truth of the lone man against the falsehood of the herd, Plato next has Socrates say that he does not have one set of accusers, but two.
“I hope you will accept my claim that I have two sets of accusers – the ones who have just now brought this case against me, and the ones from way back, the ones I have been telling you about.” (Apology 18d)
This first set are the accusers who have brought the current charge against Socrates – Anytus, Meletus and Lycon. But there is also a second set of accusers, far older and more dangerous. These are the accusers who have stoked the prejudices and misunderstandings against Socrates for a long time, the slanderers and gossipers among the general public. He says that he cannot even mention them by name.
“What is particularly unfair is that I cannot even know, or tell you, their names […]” (Apology 18d)
The herd is not a collection of individuals with names and personalities, but a teeming subhuman mass into which individuals are subsumed. It cannot reason, and yet it holds unshakeable convictions. It cannot be held accountable nor stand trial, yet it can accuse and persecute. It can easily be roused to malice and spite, envy and resentment, but it cannot be easily petitioned to.
Anyone who has dealt with the disapproval of the herd knows how hopeless it is to fight against it. The worst rumors and lies multiply uncontrollably until not a shred of truth remains, and no matter what one says there is no fair hearing to be had. Friends and family turn against you, and the raw weight of human numbers drowns out a voice of one. Plato recognizes this in the following passage.
“But all those who tried to influence you out of spite and malice, together with those who were trying to influence others because they were genuinely convinced themselves – all these accusers are very hard to deal with. It’s not possible to call any of them as a witness here, or cross-examine them.” (Apology 18d)
So what is it that rouses the anger and disapproval of the herd? Plato gives an explicit answer to this question when he has Socrates imagining what the people would say to him.
“That’s all very well, Socrates; but what do you do? […] I take it all this gossip and rumour about you is not the result of your behaving just like anyone else. You must be doing something out of the ordinary.” (Apology 20c)
The herd is primed to attack all who stand outside of it – that is, anyone who is too much a person of his own. Once you have marked yourself as different from the herd, you will be its sworn enemy and it will bring its hatred to bear against you. But this is a necessary process for anyone who wishes to find truth and his own self, as we shall see. So what is there to do for the man who, condemned by truth to be his own man, now finds himself facing down the angry masses?
As we shall see, Plato provides a radical answer to this in Socrates himself.
The Prejudice Against Socrates
So what, exactly, is it that Socrates has done to make the people of Athens prejudiced against him? Plato gives an account of what the people themselves think of Socrates.
“Let us go back to the beginning, then, and see what the accusation is which has created this prejudice against me […] What exactly did its originators say? We ought really to read out a sworn statement from them, just like the prosecution’s. ‘Socrates is guilty of being a busybody. He enquires into things under the earth and in the heavens, and turns the weaker argument into the stronger, and he teaches these same things to other people.’ That’s roughly how it goes.” (Apology 19b-c)
The prejudice against Socrates arises because he asks questions about the state of things, and because he reasons in ways that are unusual to his contemporaries. It comes across to them as boastfulness, as if he is rubbing his strange and unusual knowledge in their faces. Besides, he seems to be teaching this strange knowledge to others and probably making money off of it, too!
In short, they believe he is being a grifter.
We see here the implied pettiness in the accusations against Socrates. The public is resentful because he is seemingly trying to rise above his station and make them look bad, and they are envious of the money he is supposedly making.
But Socrates refutes this, claiming that the people of Athens have misunderstood him.
“Not that I have anything against knowledge of this kind, if anyone is an expert on such subjects. […] No, it’s just that I myself have no share in such knowledge.” (Apology 19c)
Socrates claims that he has no special knowledge of any kind, and he is not examining the nature of things in order to one-up those around him. Neither is he trying to earn any money.
“No, there’s no truth in these stories. And if anyone has told you I undertake to educate people, or that I make money out of it, there’s equally little truth in that either.” (Apology 19e)
But Plato makes an interesting aside here, for there was a class of grifters in Athens at the time who did in fact claim to have all manner of specialized knowledge, and who did accept payment to teach it. They were popular and highly esteemed. These were the sophists.
“Any of these men [foreign sophists], gentlemen, can go to any city and persuade the young men – who are at liberty to spend their time, free of charge, with whichever of their fellow-citizens they choose – to abandon the company of those fellow citizens and spend time with him instead – and pay money to do so, and be grateful into the bargain.” (Apology 19e-20a)
The sophists of Ancient Athens would have been recognizable to the men of our own time, for we have no shortage of them. They are the various lifestyle coaches and grifters who claim to be able to teach young men anything from how to be a man, to how to get girls, to why they should eat only bone marrow or sun their testicles. Just like the sophists of old, they are very good at convincing people that they know a great deal, but the knowledge itself is often sketchy at best.
What Plato is doing here is accusing the Athenians of hypocrisy. They clearly had no problem with people boasting of their knowledge as long as they were foreign sophists, nor did the Athenians have any problem with those who were accepting payment to teach this knowledge to the young men of the city. What Plato is implying is that it was not out of some principled stance against grifters that the Athenian public turned against him, but out of spite.
But from where did this spite arise?
“I have gained this reputation, Athenians, as a direct result of a kind of wisdom.” (Apology 20e)
While Socrates denies that he knows what the Athenians accuse him of knowing, he does accept that he possesses a certain kind of wisdom. As we shall see, it is this wisdom that earned him the ire of the people.
Socrates’ Quest
To explain what this wisdom of his is, Socrates tells of a strange revelation that came to him from Delphi.
“I shall call the god at Delphi to give evidence to you about my wisdom. […] You remember Chaerephon, I expect. […] he went to Delphi one day, and went so far as to put this question to the oracle – I repeat, gentlemen, please don’t interrupt. He asked if there was anyone wiser than me. And the priestess of Apollo replied that there was no one wiser.” (Apology 20e-21a)
Those schooled in the Classics will know that Delphi was the fulcrum of the Ancient Greek world, where Greeks and foreigners alike would go to consult the Pythia, the priestess to Apollo through whom the god of prophecy spoke. It was commonplace to go there before important decisions were made, like before the founding of a new colony, in order to glean the future.
It is not impossible that this story of Socrates’ may have actually happened, but in keeping with our decision to read the works of Plato as literary rather than historical we must provide an interpretation of this strange event.
If we take Socrates to be the lone man who chooses his truth even in opposition to the herd, we must take this event to symbolize that the need within us to assert our own being comes from on high. Just like we have been given our own nature, we have likewise been given some peculiar mode of expressing that nature which allows us to become what we are. And just like the oracles were to the Greeks, this inner motion is often subtle and strange to us, and difficult to comprehend.
It is only by throwing ourselves out into the world and testing ourselves against it that we discover what our purpose is. In the case of Socrates, this came about through his confusion at the prophecy, for though God said that he was the wisest of all men, he himself could not believe it since he knew just how ignorant he was.
So Socrates decides to test the prophecy by interrogating the highly esteemed men of his time, hoping that by doing so he can prove the prophecy wrong by being able to find one man that is wiser than himself.
He interrogates three groups. The first are the politicians and orators, those who wield power and influence. The second are the writers and poets, those who shape the culture. The third are the craftsmen, the professionals and experts in their respective fields.
He begins with the politicians.
“So I examined this man – there’s no need for me to mention his name, let’s just say he was a politician – and the result of my examination, Athenians, and of my conversation with him, was this. I decided that although the man seemed to many people, and above all to himself, to be wise, in reality he was not.” (Apology 21c)
Having interrogated a man of great importance – an unnamed politician – Socrates concludes that the man is not wise, even though many people and even the politician himself seem to think so. We see this in our own day, how people hang on the words of talking heads who seem utterly clueless. So what conclusion does Socrates draw from this?
“Here is one man less wise than I. In all probability neither of us knows anything worth knowing. But he thinks he knows when he doesn’t, whereas I, given that I don’t in fact know, am at least aware that I don’t know. Apparently, therefore, I am wiser than him in just this one small detail, that when I don’t know something, I don’t think I know it either.” (Apology 21d)
Both Socrates and the politician are largely clueless, but Socrates is slightly less clueless in that he knows that he is clueless. That much, at least, he knows, and so he is wiser than the politician purely on account of this. This is the attitude of Socrates that has become so famous, that of knowing that we know nothing.
I think there is some significance in Plato choosing to take a politician – likely unnamed because he is a literary creation – as the first character to be interrogated by Socrates. For if it is so that neither Socrates nor the politician knows anything worth knowing, why does the politician think he does? The answer is very simple – because he wants power, and Socrates does not.
The politician wants to be important. He wants to be in charge. To succeed in this, he must convince others of his authority and of his importance, even if he has no claim to either. In this way, he sacrifices the truth for mere social status. His authority is merely an illusion, a superficiality, a lie. He trades the truth for nothing of importance, and ends up possessing nothing. Socrates, at least, has the truth.
I mentioned earlier how the Apology is a clash between two types of human being. This is what I meant by this. One chooses the morass of the herd and of the social game above all else, while the other chooses truth and the lone dignity that comes with it.
Plato makes it explicit that it is precisely in questioning this empty lie of the social strivers that Socrates earns their ire.
“After that I began approaching people in a systematic way. I could see, with alarm and regret, that I was making enemies, yet I thought it was essential to take the god seriously.” (Apology 21e)
As he goes about fulfilling the inner motion of his nature – which he personifies as the god Apollo – Socrates makes enemies among the powerful. By refusing to partake in their social games, and instead choosing to embody the truth which he has been given, Socrates shows how useless the powerful are.
“And I swear to you, Athenians – after all, I am bound to tell you the truth – what I found was this. Those with the highest reputations seemed to me to be pretty nearly the most useless […]” (Apology 22a)
After having interrogated the politicians – the representatives of the powerful – he next interrogates the writers, the representatives of the intellectuals and the artists.
“After the politicians I went to the writers – the writers of plays and songs, and the rest of them. […] Practically anyone could have given a better account than they did of the works they had themselves written. […] I realised that their achievements are not the result of wisdom, but of natural talent and inspiration. Like fortune-tellers and clairvoyants, who also say many striking things, but have no idea at all of the meaning of what they say. Writers, I felt, were clearly in the same position.” (Apology 22b-22c)
What fault does Socrates find with the writers? It is not that they produce bad work. In fact, Socrates does not deny that their work is excellent, in contrast to the politicians’. But the artists themselves cannot be fully credited with the creation of their work. They act on inspiration – another type of inner motion gifted to us – and though their skill allows that inspiration to flourish, their work is nothing without inspiration.
Just like the politicians maintain a lie about their own authority in order to get power, the intellectuals maintain their own lie. It is the lie of pretension, of wanting to seem more sophisticated and deep than they really are. They are treated as if they have some deeper insight into life than the rest of us, when they are often merely giving themselves airs.
To lionize artists and intellectuals is misplaced, for they are not worthy of their greatest work. It is not from them that it comes – they’re mainly an instrument of something greater than themselves. As such, they need not understand what their own work is really about. Their only role in this is to create it. The work itself has a life and meaning of its own.
We can see this same lionization of the artist over his work in the modern discussion of “media literacy”. It is seen as a great intellectual virtue today to take at face value what an artist “meant” with his work, regardless of what the work itself is actually conveying. It is precisely this tendency to take the hackneyed opinions of artists and intellectuals as authoritative rather than the inspired works they produce that Socrates finds fault with.
Next, Plato moves on to the people of practical or professional knowledge, which he terms craftsmen.
“Finally I went to the craftsmen. […] They did know things which I didn’t know; in this respect they were wiser than I was. However, our good friends the skilled workmen seemed also to me, Athenians, to have the same failing as the writers. Each one, because of his skill in practising his trade, thought himself extremely wise in others matters of importance as well. And this presumptuousness of theirs seemed to me to obscure the wisdom they did have.” (Apology 22d)
Just like with the writers, Socrates finds fault in the craftsmen, not because their skill at their profession is necessarily lacking, but because they take this practical knowledge to mean that they are wise beyond it. Where the politician affects authority and the artist affects sophistication, the professional affects competency.
We see many examples of this in our own time. We are told to trust “experts”, and people begin their stale ramblings by stating the titles they hold as if to give themselves an air of importance. Likewise, we see how the lower classes – be they common laborers and drudges, or even petty criminals – are treated as if they are somehow more in touch with real life than those of more fortunate circumstances. Indeed, poverty itself is idealized because it’s seen as “keeping it real”.
In none of these cases do we need to disregard the practical knowledge these people hold in their respective fields or the life experiences that they have. Rather, what we deny is the affected importance that they think this should give them.
Having interrogated these three pillars of human society, Socrates comes to the following conclusion.
“So I asked myself, on behalf of the oracle, whether I should accept being the way I was – without any of their wisdom or any of their foolishness – or whether I ought to possess both the qualities they possessed. The answer I gave myself and the oracle is that it was best for me to remain as I was.” (Apology 22e)
As we have seen, Socrates follows his own inner motion without regard for the social games of his peers. They, in their turn, clothe themselves in affectations of authority, sophistication and competency, puffing their chests and demanding to have their pretensions respected.
Having seen this behavior in his peers, Socrates concludes that he is better off as he is, as his own man fulfilling the truth that has been given to him, rather than to partake in the empty charades of his peers.
This is the higher path, by which a man serves the greater cosmic order by being who he truly is rather than trying to be the most important monkey of the troupe. Plato concludes Socrates’ quest with this remark.
“The reality, gentlemen, is that in all probability god is wise, and what he means by his reply to Chaerephon is that human wisdom is of little or no value.” (Apology 23a)
Now let us see what Socrates’ crime truly was.
Socrates’ Crime
Why, then, is this interrogation of his peers such an unforgivable offense in their eyes? As I have mentioned, Socrates and his accusers represent two modes of human nature. One cares for its own truth, the other cares for the pretenses of the herd.
These two modes cannot easily understand each other. The man of the herd thinks that anyone who disrupts his social games with truth is himself playing a game. He will begin to resent the truthful man for trying to one-up him and claiming the coveted position of head monkey. The man of truth, however, will think that he is doing the greatest good by speaking the truth, when he is in fact igniting vicious hatred against himself.
Plato says the following.
“The truth, I think, they would refuse to admit, which is that they have been shown up as pretenders to knowledge who really know nothing. Since they are ambitious, energetic and numerous, and since they speak forcibly and persuasively about me, they have been filling your ears for some time now, and most vigorously, with their attacks on me.” (Apology 23e)
The man of the herd will never give up his pretenses, for that is what he lives for. When those pretenses are threatened by the truth, he attacks the bringer of that truth. Plato makes it explicit that this is what he is saying.
“I speak with absolutely no concealment or reservation. I’m pretty sure it is this way of speaking which makes me unpopular. My unpopularity is the proof that I am speaking the truth, that this is the prejudice against me, and these are the reasons for it.” (Apology 24a-b)
Likewise, the great anger that the herd feels when the young men begin to do as Socrates does is precisely because of this truthful way of speaking.
“Another problem is that young people follow me of their own free will. […] The result is that the victims of their cross-examination are angry with me, rather than themselves.” (Apology 23c-d)
They are angry, not with themselves or even with the truth as such, but with the man who speaks the truth. They are angry with him because they think he is infringing on their status. He makes the powerful look stupid. It is from this undermining of the status games of the herd that the man of truth earns their hatred and is seen by them as a hated enemy.
Having now revealed why it is that the herd has turned against him, Socrates finishes his defense against the people and turns again to the accusers at hand.
The Interrogation Of Meletus
We noted earlier how Socrates said he had two sets of accusers, the first being the general public and the second being the men who have presently brought him to court. But the distinction between these two sets of accusers is a rhetorical technique of Plato, for when he speaks of Meletus and the rest he is still speaking of the herd. Plato makes this explicit.
“[…] Meletus taking offence as representative of the poets, Anytus representing the craftsmen and politicians, and Lycon the orators.” (Apology 23e-24a)
His three chief accusers are named as representing the very groups he has interrogated and found wanting, and whose anger he has aroused. In keeping with our style of reading Plato, we will treat these three as literary creations of Plato, and thus as personifications of the herd.
Despite this clear connection between the two, Plato still insists on treating them as separate.
“Let’s treat them as a separate prosecution […]” (Apology 24b)
The reason for this is, as we have already seen, that the great mass cannot be brought to court and interrogated. Only an individual can be interrogated. For Plato to use his preferred dialectical approach, he must turn the faceless herd into an individual, represented in the dialogue by Meletus. In this way, he can examine the herd from two different perspectives.
So what is Meletus’ charge against Socrates? Plato explains.
“It says Socrates is guilty of being a bad influence on the young, and not recognising the gods whom the state recognises, but practising a new religion of the supernatural.” (Apology 24c)
The first accusation is that Socrates is having a bad influence on the young. We already know what this means from the previous discussion – he is teaching the young to make a fool of the social pretenses of his peers. The second accusation is that Socrates believes novel ideas not shared by the herd. We will look at each of these accusations in turn.
So what is Socrates’ defense to the first accusation?
“He says I am guilty of having a bad influence on the young. But I claim, Athenians, that Meletus is guilty of playing games with what is deadly serious. He is too quick to bring people to trial, pretending to be serious and care about things to which he has never given a moment’s thought.” (Apology 24c)
Here we can clearly see that Socrates is going on the offensive. Where Meletus is concerned about the disruption of the social game, Socrates instead accuses Meletus precisely of playing stupid social games, and claiming that he does not really care about the myriad justifications that the herd uses.
This passage marks a turn in the Apology. Rather than meekly defending himself, Socrates goes on the offensive. With the introduction of an interlocutor, Socrates can now put the herd itself on trial. The Apology reveals itself to be not Socrates’ defense speech, but Plato’s prosecution of the Athenian people.
Socrates next interrogates Meletus, who claims that Socrates alone among the assembled men and the whole population of Athens has a bad influence on the young. Every other man or woman in the whole of the city, he claims, has a good influence on them. Socrates repeats Meletus’ claim.
“In which case, it looks as if the entire population of Athens – myself excepted – makes the young into upright citizens. I alone am a bad influence. […]” (Apology 25a)
We see here yet again the clash between the herd and the lone man. The herd claims that only its uncounted masses possess virtue and wisdom, while the individual is dissolute without it. The herd, in its own eyes, can do no wrong, while the man who stands on his own is wholly damned. But this is merely blind preening on the part of the herd, as Socrates points out.
“Do you think the situation is the same with horses as well? Do the people who are good for them make up the entire population, and is there just one person who has harmful effect on them? […] No, Meletus. You show quite clearly that you have never cared in the slightest for the young.” (Apology 25b-c)
Excellence is not held in common by the whole mass of mankind. On the contrary, excellence arises when a lone man chooses to raise himself above the level of the masses. The herd may have some claim to being the default, but they cannot claim to be the ideal or the culmination of human potential.
The claims of Meletus are clearly calculated to stroke the ego of those assembled, and have no genuine concern at all with what is actually true or with what is good for the young. We see here the man of the herd carelessly throwing away the truth to win at his petty social game. It is a raw status calculation clothed in the language of virtue.
Socrates then proceeds to mount a different defense.
“Tell us honestly, Meletus, is it better to live with good fellow-citizens or with bad? […] Isn’t it true that bad citizens do some harm to those who are their neighbours at any particular time, while good citizens do some good? […] That being so, does anyone choose to be harmed by those close to him rather than helped by them? […] And have I reached such a height of stupidity as not even to realise that if I make one of my neighbours a worse man, I am likely to come to some harm at his hands?” (Apology 25c-e)
Socrates denies that he would ever intentionally make his fellow citizens worse, since that would only harm himself. There is a subtle point to be made about this passage. We have seen in the earlier portions of the dialogue how the herd is characterized by its spite, but why is spite a problem to begin with?
Even though we may seek to be our own men, we are still intrinsically tied to the world around us. This is true both in the relative sense that we are connected through social ties to other people, and in the absolute sense we saw in the Euthyphro where we share in the same ground of reality. Therefore, as we are, so do we cause the world to be in a very real sense.
If we are spiteful, petty and malicious, then we will cause the world to be more like ourselves. Through our actions we put chains of resentment and spite into motion that continue to feed the same attitudes in others. When we choose to be ugly and miserable, we make the world itself ugly and miserable. By our own venom we become poisoned.
This is a recurrent idea in the Platonic corpus, and one we find both among the Hindus in the notion of karma, as well as in the West in Schopenhauer’s idea of eternal justice. Since we are the world, the sufferings of the world are ours and the misery we cause we must also receive.
Socrates continues by implying that it is Meletus who is deliberately choosing to do harm to his fellow citizens.
“And if I have a bad influence unintentionally, it is not our custom to bring people here to court for errors of this sort, but to take them on one side and instruct them privately, pointing out their mistakes. […] But you avoided spending any time with me and instructing me. You refused to do it. Instead you bring me here to court, where it is our custom to bring those who need punishment, not those who need to learn.” (Apology 26a)
Having denied that he is intentionally having a bad influence on the young, he proceeds to state that his accusers never once tried to show him what he was doing wrong. Instead, they brought him to court with the aim of having him punished. But as we saw in the previous passage, it is bad citizens who aim to do harm to their neighbors, not good ones.
What Socrates is implying here is that it is the prosecution – which is really just the people of Athens – who are deliberately doing harm, and therefore setting into motion this chain of malice which will inevitably see their own city come to harm.
We see here yet again the two modes of being human represented by Socrates and Meletus. The former refuses to do harm intentionally, so as to not participate in the process by which the world becomes vicious and ugly. The other, hiding behind lies of looking after the interests of his city, seeks to do harm out of envy and spite, poisoning the world with his own wretchedness.
The text continues with Socrates questioning Meletus in what way he thinks that Socrates has a bad influence on the young. Meletus responds by saying that it is because he teaches them to disregard the gods of the city in favor of strange gods unfamiliar to the people. But Meletus contradicts himself when he goes so far as to claim that Socrates denies the very existence of the gods.
“However, as god is your witness, is that your view of me? Do I not accept the existence of any god at all?” (Apology 26e)
Socrates goes on to explain that if he practices some new and strange religion of the supernatural, then he must also believe in the gods. For there to be supernatural activities there must be supernatural beings, and these beings must in turn be gods of some kind.
“In that case, if I accept supernatural beings – as you admit – and if supernatural beings are gods of some sort, then you can see what I mean when I say you’re setting trick questions and playing with words, claiming that I don’t believe in gods, and then again that I do believe in gods, since I do believe in supernatural beings.” (Apology 27d)
One of the great social games that people play is that of religion, or, more broadly, of piety to what is considered holy in their time and place. Most often this is proper religion, but we also see it in our time in the form of various political pseudo-religions that consider blacks, or homosexuals, or women, or some other “oppressed” group to be holy.
When reduced to a social game, religion ceases to be about sublimity and becomes instead about the empty rituals and taboos of the herd, mere weapons to use by self-styled inquisitors as a personal vanity project. In the hands of the herd, God is nothing more than an excuse to persecute others as a form of moral grandstanding.
The purpose of this short section is not to defend the beliefs of Socrates, but as I have said it is to prosecute the people of Athens themselves. By showing that his accusers have no real charge against him, Socrates reveals that they must be motivated by something other than what they claim. They are motivated by envy and spite, not concern for the young or piety for the gods. Plato makes this explicit.
“No, Meletus, the only possible explanation for your bringing this accusation against me is that you wanted to test us – and that you didn’t have any genuine offence to charge me with.” (Apology 27e)
As we concluded earlier in the text, Meletus acts here merely as a representation of the Athenian people. By having Socrates interrogate Meletus in this way, Plato is thereby passing his own judgment on the masses. That judgment is as we have seen – that they care nothing for truth, but only social games and petty vindictiveness, and are willing to drown the world in their own wretchedness to see that these games continue.
Plato once again makes this explicit.
“It is [the widespread hostility towards me] which will convict me – if it does convict me. Not Meletus, not Anytus, but the prejudice and malice of the many. What has convicted many good men before me will, I think, convict again. There’s no danger of its stopping at me.” (Apology 28a-b)
This comment concludes Socrates’ interrogation of Meletus – and Plato’s prosecution of the Athenian people. As I have said, we see two different modes of how to be human in this dialogue – the herd and the lone man, the philosopher. We have seen how the herd is malicious and dishonest, while the lone man rises above such things to hold unto the truth of his own being. Moving forward, Plato will show us more ways in which the philosopher, represented by Socrates, differs from the common man of the masses.
No Fear Of Death
Having concluded that it is the malice of the many that will convict him, Socrates turns his thoughts towards death. He poses a question that the many might ask of him, and gives his response.
“Well, Socrates, aren’t you ashamed of living a life which has resulted in your now being on trial for your life? […] You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is worth anything at all should take into account the chances of life and death.” (Apology 28b)
We see in this comment the contrast between two radically different worldviews. The worldview of the herd is one which loathes truth, acts with malice in petty social games and is terrified of both of social disapproval and of death. It is the worldview of one who holds on to all the things that do not matter – to meaningless status and empty comforts, to even their animal lives above their own dignity.
But the second worldview on display, that of the Platonic philosopher, is one which holds on to what truly matters. It is a worldview willing to throw off anything – even life itself – if it comes in the way of the true, the good and the beautiful.
To prove that his is a higher path as opposed to this rat-like fear of disapproval and death, Socrates compares his view to that of the heroes and demigods of myth.
“When Achilles heard [that Patroclus was dead] he gave no thought to death or danger. What he feared much more was living as a coward, and not avenging his friends. […] Where a man takes up his position, in the belief that it is the best position […] there he should stay, in my view, regardless of danger. He should not take death into account, or anything else apart from dishonour.” (Apology 28d-e)
The astute reader will remember that this very chapter of Homeric legend – the return of Achilles to the battlefield to avenge Patroclus, even when he knew it meant his death – was taken as an example in the Symposium of the great virtue that love gives. Here, again, we see the same legend mentioned.
Plato is very deliberately choosing to compare the philosopher with Achilles, seeing in both the image of man as a lover of such intensity that not even death can faze him. But where Achilles was a lover of his friend, the philosopher is, as the name implies, a lover of wisdom. As we saw in the Symposium, he is a lover, too, of all things that come with the fearless search for wisdom – the sublime beauty that redeems everything, the ultimate truth that governs all, and the complete goodness beyond which there is nothing more to seek.
This connection between death and wisdom is made explicit by Plato.
“After all, gentlemen, that’s just what the fear of death is – thinking we are wise when we are not – since it’s a claim to know what we don’t know. For all anyone knows, death may in fact be the best thing in the world that can happen to a man.” (Apology 29b)
What lies beyond death is hidden from us, and so it is worthless to fill it with our mortal fears. Notice how Socrates returns to his peculiar form of wisdom. It was his search for wisdom, in the understanding that he was not wise, that lead Socrates to being hated by the herd for questioning their pretensions and claims to authority. Likewise, it is this which makes him fearless.
Ignorance – which is the lack of wisdom combined with the arrogant claim to it – is the defining characteristic of the herd. Just like truth, beauty and goodness are one, so are ignorance, fear and malice.
Since we do not know what lies beyond death, it is meaningless to sacrifice what we do know to have true enduring value for the mere continuance of life. Plato makes this explicit.
“But that it is evil and shameful to do wrong, and disobey one’s superiors, divine or human – that I do know. Compared therefore with the evils which I know to be evils, I shall never fear, or try to avoid, what for all I know may turn out to be good.” (Apology 29b)
So what does have enduring value? As we have seen in the Euthyphro, there is a ground of being within us which is identical to the Absolute, itself the highest ground of being the fullness of which gives rise to all. It is this ground of being, which we identify as the true, good and beautiful, and which is within the world and within ourselves, that is truly enduring.
This is what I am speaking of when I speak of an inner motion. It is this enduring kernel of being that gives rise to our particular nature, a gift from on high that demands to be expressed. What we have called the lone man and the philosopher is one who seeks this kernel of being within himself, and who strives to express it fully in his own limited life.
To such a man, the recognition of this enduring center within compels him to act in accordance with it even in the face of death. For Socrates, it is represented by Apollo, the god who orders him to do what he does. Plato yet again makes this explicit.
“I have the highest regard and affection for you, Athenians, but I will obey god [Apollo] rather than you. While I have breath and strength, I will not give up the search for wisdom. […] Either acquit me or don’t, knowing that even if I am to be put to death a thousand times over I will not behave differently.” (Apology 29d, 30c)
Plato ends this meditation on death by concluding one of the most radical propositions in the whole of Platonic philosophy, namely that a good man can come to no harm.
“If you put me to death, take my word for it, you will harm yourselves more than you will harm me. As for me, no harm can come to me from Meletus – or Anytus. He cannot injure me, since I don’t think god allows a better man ever to be injured by a worse.” (Apology 30c-d)
The reader can no doubt give a plethora of counter-examples where good men met their doom at the hands of bad men, but it is precisely here that we see the astonishing insights of Platonic philosophy. For if it is as we have said previously, that there is an immutable truth at the core of our very being, and that we can make that truth a reality within ourselves, and that this is the highest conceivable good that can be achieved, then he who achieves that can never again be harmed. No one can overtake you if you’ve crossed the finish line; losing a million dollars means nothing if you have all the money in the world.
What Plato is offering is a vision of life where there is an indescribable value to everything that can never be stained by any evil. It is so distant to us that we must almost accept it on faith, but would that be wrong? Plato posits that if we were to live as if there is something that matters far more than pleasure and pain, life and death, then we would live with a nobility of character that can be found nowhere else. We are reminded of the words of Nietzsche when he said that he who has a why can bear any how.
We will have reason to return to this idea at the end of the text, but for now, having left us with this insight, Plato once again turns his eye towards the crowd.
The Social Gadfly
Having made the contrast between the man of truth and the herd, Plato now turns his attention to the question of what the role of the man of truth is in the broader social context. As we said in the beginning, no man is an island, and even the lone man is a part of the great web of social connections that tie all men together. What sets him apart is not only that he seeks to be his own man – that is, to follow that inner motion to realize his own highest being – but that he seeks to show others this way as well, whether they like it or not. He does this by insisting above all else on the truth.
Plato explains.
“If you put me to death, you won’t easily find another like me. […] I think god has caused me to settle on the city as this horsefly, the sort that never stops, all day long, coming to rest on every part of you, stinging each one of you into action, persuading and criticising each one of you.” (Apology 30e-31a)
Since the herd is so caught up in its everyday lies, one of the great tasks of the philosopher is to tell the truth. He is condemned to tell the truth by his very nature, and in doing so he breaks through the haze of mundane life to show others not just the wretchedness that they find themselves in but also the higher states that they could aspire to. This is the social gadfly, one of the more famous of the Platonic metaphors.
We are reminded of a similar metaphor by Adi Shankara. When asked what ignorance is, he replied that it is like a great forest that obscures the cloudless sky above. When asked what the role of the guru is, he replied that the guru is a madman that chops down the forest with one hand and points to the sky with the other.
Plato continues to further elaborate on what this truth-telling implies.
“I shall say, in my usual way, […] Are you not ashamed to care about money and how to make as much of it as possible, and about reputation and public recognition, while for wisdom and truth, and making your soul as good as it can possibly be, you do not care, and give no thought to these things at all? […] And if I find he has not achieved a state of excellence, but still claims he has, then I shall accuse him of undervaluing what is most important and paying too much attention to what is less important.” (Apology 29d-30a)
We see here a concise statement of precisely that which we have discussed earlier in the text. The truth that Socrates represents is the truth that cuts through social pretensions and petty status seeking. It is the truth that demands an elevation of the human being to greater states than can ever be attained by mere jockeying for resources and influence. Above all, it is choosing what is more important over what is less important, what is better over what is worse, what is higher over is lower.
This is the role of the philosopher, ever pointing to what is truly valuable in life.
Plato finishes the discussion about the social gadfly by yet again repeating the insights we have already identified from the preceding sections of the text.
“You may very likely get annoyed with me, as people do when they are dozing and somebody wakes them up. And you might then swat me, as Anytus wants you to, and kill me quite easily. Then you could spend the rest of your lives asleep, unless god cared enough for you to send you someone else.” (Apology 31a)
Just like in his quest for wisdom and in his prosecution of the Athenians, Socrates recognizes clearly that by disturbing the petty games of the herd, he will very likely draw their ire. The higher state of manifested inner truth that is the goal of the philosopher will always rub the common man the wrong way, for it flies in the face of all his pretensions and makes him resentful. But even though he may not appreciate it, the presence of the strange lone man of truth is ultimately a blessing to the great mass of mankind.
This is what is meant by the final sentence. Were it not for the eccentrics and the dreamers, the visionaries and the madmen, the mystics and the mavericks, the philosopher and the solitary man, the great mass of mankind would be forever caught in the realm of petty grasping. That some awaken out of the daze of social reality is a gift from on high, much like the inner motion within.
The Danger Of Public Life
Having concluded that the herd would ultimately do itself harm by destroying the lone man, Plato turns his eye to one of the most egregious realms of herd behavior – politics.
“It may perhaps seem odd that in my private life I go round interfering and giving people advice like this, without having the courage to come forward in public life before you, the people, and give advice on matters of public interest. […] You can be sure, Athenians, that if I had tried in the past to go into politics, I would have been dead long ago, and been no use at all either to you or myself.” (Apology 31c-e)
The reader will remember that the Greeks of antiquity were an eminently political people, and political life was a cornerstone of their identity. This is especially true of the Athenians. The insistence of Socrates to spurn political life in favor of his own private quest was therefore a stark contrast to the ethos of his time.
Why did Socrates spurn public life? Because doing so would have cost him his life and deprived the world of what he could offer. The world of politics is the absolute culmination of all human pettiness, spite and mendaciousness. It is the worst traits of the herd magnified to grotesque proportions by the proximity to power. To sink into that world is to sacrifice all that makes the lone man capable of reaching the higher state.
The chief insight here is that this is an irrepressible characteristic of political life that can never be reformed away. Utopia is an impossibility, and public life will always be a cesspit. Plato makes this explicit.
“There’s no one in the world who can get away with deliberately opposing you – or any other popular assembly – or trying to put a stop to all the unjust and unlawful things which are done in politics.” (Apology 31e-32a)
Because this is so, it is necessary for one who wishes to seek something higher in life to walk his own path, both for his own safety and to avoid the corruption of politics. Only in this way can he serve the cause of the true, the good and the beautiful.
“It is essential that the true fighter for justice, if he is to survive for even a short time, should remain a private individual and not go into public life.” (Apology 32a)
To many readers this may perhaps seem to be defeatism born from overindulgence of theory and philosophy, but Socrates denies that this is so. Instead, he gives concrete examples both of times when he was commanded to do evil in the name of politics, and when his refusal to do so nearly cost him his life.
“I shall give you compelling evidence for this. Not words, but what you value, actions. Listen to things which have actually happened to me, and you will realise that I would never obey anyone if it was wrong to do so, simply through fear of dying. No, I would refuse to obey, even if it meant my death.” (Apology 32a)
Socrates gives two examples. The first is from the time of the democracy, and the other is from the time of the Thirty Tyrants. Plato’s choice of these examples is obvious – it is to show that the tyranny of the mob and the tyranny of one would-be tyrant are one and the same, and that both are in opposition to the independence of the philosopher.
Socrates’ first example is taken from the Battle of Arginusae, where the Athenians defeated the Spartans in a naval battle near the city of Canae. Despite this victory, several Athenian triremes had been incapacitated in the battle. The generals in charge of the operation had tried to save them, but a storm had prevented them from doing so and many of the sailors perished at sea.
This caused great uproar amongst the people of Athens, and the Council, of which Socrates was a member, decided by a resolution to put the generals on trial for their failure. Several politicians were opposed to this resolution, but they were silenced by threats that they would be sentenced to the same penalty as the generals.
The generals were eventually sentenced to death by the enraged mob, but the Athenians came to regret this decision not long after and eventually ruled it to have been unconstitutional, even going so far as bringing the instigators of the resolution to trial.
These events all occurred during the only time that Socrates held political office in the Council. He was the only member of the standing committee who had the courage to vote against the resolution, much to the ire of his peers.
“The politicians were all set to bring an immediate action against me and have me arrested on the spot, and you were encouraging them to do so, and shouting your approval, but still I thought I ought to take my chance on the side of law and justice, rather than side with you, through fear of imprisonment or death, when you were proposing to act unjustly.” (Apology 32b-c)
Socrates’ second example occurred during the reign of the Thirty Tyrants, the interim government established by the Spartans after the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War. It was a brutal regime that executed large numbers of Athenian citizens and confiscated their property, and many Athenians went into exile as a result.
When the Thirty decided to go after Leon of Salamis, a man known for his good character, they called Socrates and four other men to go and fetch him. Of these five, only Socrates refused the order.
“I was not intimidated by the Thirty’s power – great though it was – into acting unjustly. When we left the Council chamber, the other four went off to Salamis and fetched Leon. I left and went home.” (Apology 32d)
Given the murderous reputation of the Thirty, it is clear that Socrates’ refusal would most likely have meant his death had not the reign of the Thirty ended shortly after this incident.
The leader of the Thirty and its most ardent member was Critias. He was a former student of Socrates’, and this association coupled with Socrates’ refusal to go into exile during this time caused the public to suspect Socrates of participating in the tyranny. Some believe this may have been the real reason why the Athenians sentenced him to death in this trial, although I find this implausible given that five years had passed between the end of the Thirty and Socrates’ trial.
I do, however, think it is likely that this may have been a prejudice held by some Athenians against Socrates. It seems likely to me that Plato included this episode in his dialogue in part to defend Socrates’ character against claims that he aided the tyrants. The only other writer of Socratic dialogues, Xenophon, also includes a story of how Socrates defied Critias.
However it may be, Plato’s message is clear. The philosopher, refusing to serve the cause of tyranny, is a threat to any political order and can never act for long without drawing the ire of the masses or of the would-be tyrants. Plato makes this point explicit.
“Do you think I would have survived all these years if I had taken part in public life, and played the part a good man should play, supporting what was just and attaching the highest importance to it, as is right? Don’t you believe it, Athenians. Nor would anyone else in the world have survived.” (Apology 32e)
Since the essence of politics is the same hypocrisy, malice and envy that animates the herd, it is impossible for a man dedicated to any vision of the true, good and beautiful to engage in politics and survive. He is anathema to it and it to him.
Any man of sufficient philosophical leaning will realize the truth of this if he only looks far enough within. This is what Socrates did, as we shall see.
Socrates’ Daemon
What is it that caused Socrates to hold onto his sense of justice even in the face of danger? We have already seen that Socrates’ choice to go against the grain of his time and examine the wisdom of his peers was caused by the prophecy he received from Delphi. The reader will remember that we interpreted this as an inner motion, a sign from within that drove him to realize some core part of his being. It should come as no surprise that it is a similar sign that caused him to spurn public life in favor of a more just way of life.
“The reason for this is what you have often heard me talking about, in all sorts of places – the kind of divine or supernatural sign that comes to me. Perhaps this was what Meletus was making fun of when he wrote out the charge against me. It started when I was a child, a kind of voice which comes to me, and when it comes, always stops me doing what I am just about to do. It never tells me what I should do. It is this which opposes my taking part in politics – and rightly opposes it, in my opinion.” (Apology 31c-d)
This is perhaps one of the most recognizable features of Socrates in the Western psyche, namely his daemon, the voice that tells him what not to do. Note the simplicity with which he speaks of this.
Though the Ancient Greeks were in no way ignorant of the great titanic motions of the soul which move us mortals, they most often envisioned it in the garb of myth. What Socrates does here is speak very plainly about one of these motions of the soul, and the most important one for us to follow if we wish to avoid doing evil.
He is talking about his conscience.
It is this that tells him not to engage in public life, for he understands on an intuitive level that politics is inherently corrupting. And instead of being lured into corruption by promises of wealth or power, various sinecures and accolades given by the powerful, he does what very few people have the fortitude to do: he listens to his conscience.
It is quite extraordinary that Plato has Socrates contrast his own attitude to his conscience with that of Meletus. Were the former considers it divine, the other considers it impious. We see here yet again the contrast between the lone man and the herd. What is good for the one is evil in the eyes of the other.
Plato’s Socrates is a conscientious objector against the malicious sentiments of the herd. This is what the lone man is, someone who refuses to take part in the madness of the common man out of a sincere feeling that it would be against his being to do so. Like any conscientious objector, this marks him as a traitor in the eyes of his peers.
But there are more ways in which the philosopher and the common man differ.
Pleading The Case
Having finished his exposition of his own time in politics, and why he would never act in accordance with tyranny, Socrates moves on to defend himself against the claim that he has corrupted those who listened to him. He does this by enumerating the many friends of his, and their relatives, who have showed up at the trial to support him.
This comes very late in the trial and it may seem odd that Socrates waits for so long before mentioning all those who have come to defend him. But Plato is deliberately choosing to frame his dialogue in this way. Socrates is not conducting his defense in the way that the common man expects, because he is not like the common man. Plato makes this explicit with this comment by Socrates.
“There may possibly be those among you who find [my defense] irritating, when you remember your own experience.” (Apology 34c)
And what is the common experience at court? Just like the Americans of today are masters of making a spectacle of their court proceedings, so were the Athenians in their day. It was common to plead one’s case by begging and crying and bringing family and children along to elicit sympathy. But this is conspicuously absent from Socrates’ trial, even though it has become perhaps the most high-profile trial of Antiquity. Plato recognizes this, and practically rubs it in the face of his countrymen.
“You may, in a less important trial than this one, have begged and pleaded with the jury, with many tears, bringing your own children up here, and many others among your family and friends, in an attempt to arouse as much sympathy as possible, whereas I refuse to do any of these things – even though I am, as it probably seems to you, in greatest danger of all. Thoughts like this could make some of you feel a little antagonistic towards me.” (Apology 34c)
The thought that Socrates does not make a spectacle of himself, crying and begging at his trial, even though he is facing the possibility of execution, might indeed make the common man feel some resentment towards Socrates. There are two reasons for this. The first is, of course, because it reflects very poorly on his own character, as the common man would have acted this way himself out of cowardice or a willingness to placate his peers.
But the other reason is far more telling. The common man desires the spectacle. He wants to see people degrade themselves, to throw away their dignity and crawl in the mud to save their lives. He gets off on it, on the pointless humiliation. It is cruelty and debasement as a form of public amusement, as a public ritual. This behavior should not seem strange to the modern reader, for our own entertainment is saturated with precisely this kind of content.
So it is easy for us to see why it would be infuriating to the herd that a man chooses his own dignity over indulging their petty cruelty. And it is precisely this question of dignity which concerns Socrates.
“Why won’t I do any of these things? Not out of obstinacy, Athenians, or disrespect for you. And whether or not I’m untroubled by the thought of death is beside the point. No, it is a question of what is fitting – for me, for you, and for the whole city.” (Apology 34e)
It is unfitting to indulge the cruelty of the herd, for such a spectacle is degrading for all involved. Both the pitiable man and the scowling masses are equally wretched. The whole display is a sorry sight, and any culture dependent on such a dynamic is unworthy of its own existence.
Plato continues.
“If those of you who seem to be outstanding in wisdom, courage or any other quality behave like this, it would be deplorable. Yet this is just how I have seen men behaving when they are brought to trial. […] A visitor to our country might imagine that in Athens people of outstanding character […] are no better than women.” (Apology 35a)
We saw earlier how Socrates claimed that it is better to die than to suffer dishonor. We saw practical examples of this in Socrates’ own life when he had dealt both with the blood thirst of the democracy and the tyranny of the Thirty. Here we are given yet another example.
If the price we have to pay to maintain our lives is that we live must live pathetically, subject to all manner of worthless humiliation rituals, then it is preferable to speak the truth, anger the herd and die like a man. We see here yet another contrast between the lone man and the herd. The lone man is truly a man, while the herd is merely a woman.
But entirely aside from how our reputation may suffer from such actions, there is yet another reason why these shameful displays are not fitting.
“And quite apart from the city’s reputation, gentlemen, I think there’s no justice, either, in begging favours from the jury or being acquitted by begging. […] The juryman does not sit there for the purposes of handing out justice as a favour.” (Apology 35c)
The very idea that our right to be unmolested by the malice of others is a privilege given to us by an authority figure is just yet another social pretense. The judge has no more power to pronounce that a man has dignity than he has to pronounce the sky green. It is precisely this that is the problem with social pretense: it takes what does not belong to the herd and gifts it to them, thereby corrupting and destroying it.
A man has dignity if he chooses to have it. He makes this choice by establishing himself firmly in the source of goodness that resides within and beyond his own nature. It is a thing which he cultivates in himself, and it cannot be given to him from outside. Consequently, the man of the herd, who lives solely in the web of social life, can never have dignity.
Plato closes this section with the following comment.
“So don’t ask me, Athenians, to conduct myself towards you in a way which I regard as contrary to right, justice and religion – least of all, surely, when I’m being accused of impiety by Meletus here.” (Apology 35c-d)
Plato ties this idea of dignity back to the notion of the divine. Human authority, as we have said, is a mere social pretense. It’s just monkeys ooking along with other monkeys. But the ground of being in man – which we discussed in my Commentary on the Euthyphro – is identical to the ground of being in everything. What makes us capable of virtue is the same goodness from which everything else comes. In this way, by establishing ourselves in our highest good we establish ourselves likewise in something far greater than ourselves.
With these final words, Socrates’ defense is finished. What follows is the verdict. The Athenians find Socrates guilty by a narrow margin, and Socrates proposes the sentence he thinks he deserves.
The Verdict
Given the discussion so far, we understand that the whole spectacle of public so-called “justice” exists mostly to placate the cruelty and malice of the herd. Real justice is merely a coincidental result of this process. Given that Socrates’ real crime was angering the herd by his audacity to stand apart as a man on his own terms, the fact of his verdict was entirely expected. Plato recognizes as much.
“If I am not upset, Athenians, at what has just happened – at your finding me guilty – there are a number of reasons. In particular, the result was not unexpected.” (Apology 36a)
Such is often the fate of the lone man. The malice and envy of the herd will eventually cause it to turn on him. Anyone who has the habit of speaking the truth knows this, as does anyone who insists on being his own man. But being true to oneself and one’s own independence as a man is, as we have seen, a divine calling. It can never be a crime, no matter how much it inflames the resentments of the herd.
Plato suggests as much in the following passage.
“So the man proposes the death penalty for me. Very well, what counter-proposal am I to make to you, Athenians? What I deserve, obviously. And what is that? What do I deserve to suffer or pay, for… for what? For not keeping quiet all through my life? For neglecting the things most people devote their lives to – business, family life, being a general or leader of the assembly or holding some other office, the alliances and factions which occur in political life?” (Apology 36b)
Plato makes it clear how absurd the herd’s resentments are. Is a man obligated to be silent his whole life? Is his only choice to join in with the ways of his peers, even though other horizons beckon to him?
Yet more absurd is it when we consider what it was that Socrates did. Instead of concerning himself with the false promises of politics and social life, he concerned himself with making the inner potential for goodness within himself a reality.
“That was the direction I took. I tried to persuade each one of you not to give any thought at all to his own affairs until he had first given some thought to himself and tried to make himself as good and wise as possible […]” (Apology 36c)
It is perhaps here that the contrast between the lone man and the herd becomes the greatest. For while the herd might be able to accept that some outside authority might compel a man to act against them, they could never accept the truth – that what it offers is poison compared to what the font of goodness within can offer. Plato makes this explicit.
“If I say it is disobeying god, and that for this reason I can’t lead a quiet life, you won’t believe me. You’ll think I’m using that as an excuse. If on the other hand I say that really the greatest good in a man’s life is this, to be each day discussing virtue and the other subjects you hear me talking about as I examine myself and other people – and that the unexamined life is not worth living – if I say this, you’ll believe me even less.” (Apology 38a)
Choosing the examined life over the unexamined life means taking stock of oneself and of the age within which one is born. It means searching tirelessly for the truth, and then holding on to it when it is found. Such a man rejects what is evil within himself, and can therefore also reject the evil that others try to subject him to. He stands defiantly against those who would have him accept guilt over what does not warrant guilt.
“It’s like this. I myself am convinced that I don’t knowingly do wrong to anyone in the world, […] But if I am convinced that I don’t do wrong to anyone else, I am certainly not going to do wrong to myself, or speak against myself – saying I deserve something bad, and proposing some such penalty for myself. Why should I?” (Apology 37a-b)
Since the ethos of the herd is to crush the spirit of the lone man into conformity so that he may be subsumed by it, it is to be expected that the natural cruelty of the herd is directed towards this purpose. The herd demands that you admit that it is right, dragging your own being in the mud to placate its blind idiot rage.
But Socrates refuses to do this. Rather than to propose a punishment for himself when he knows that he has done no wrong, he instead proposes a reward.
“What then do I deserve for behaving like this? Something good, Athenians, […] So if I must propose a penalty based on justice, on what I deserve, then that’s what I propose: free meals at the public expense.” (Apology 36d-e)
This is one of my favorite scenes in the Platonic corpus. The sheer defiance of Socrates is invigorating, and if you listen closely you can almost hear the howling rage of his contemporaries echoing through the ages. To stand at the precipice of death on made-up charges, staring down the very real possibility of execution, malicious eyes all around thirsting for your destruction... and then calmly responding that you have done nothing wrong and ought, in fact, to be rewarded? An admirable audacity, that.
This is how free men speak, and none should be surprised at the response from the slavish masses.
The Penalty
Having humiliated the herd in this fashion, Socrates agrees to a compromise. He will offer to pay a fine totaling three thousand silver drachmas, which his many friends and supporters offer full security for. It is curious to note that one of these friends is Plato himself, one of our author’s rare appearances in his own work.
But the jury does not accept this compromise. They vote instead for Socrates’ execution.
“You may think, Athenians, that I have lost my case through inability to make the kind of speech I could have used to persuade you, had I thought it right to do and say absolutely anything to secure my acquittal. Far from it. I have lost my case, not for want of a speech, but for want of effrontery and shamelessness. I refused to make you the kind of speech you most enjoy listening to. You’d like to have heard me lamenting and bewailing, and doing all sorts of other things which are beneath my dignity […]” (Apology 38d-e)
Plato minces no words here. What lead to the death of Socrates was not his inability to argue his case, for there was no real charge against him. Rather, it was his refusal to debase himself so as to satisfy the sadistic and cruel impulses of his peers. By refusing to degrade himself like they wanted him to, he makes their petty malice seem so much more pathetic when contrasted with his dignity. It was this contrast between the philosopher’s dignity and the pathetic malice of the herd that lead to Socrates’ death.
Plato continues to emphasize this contrast in the following passage.
“There’s no difficulty in that, gentlemen – in escaping death. What is much harder is avoiding wickedness, since wickedness runs faster than death.” (Apology 39a)
Given the choice between debasement and death, Socrates chose death. But there is a subtle point here that should not be ignored, namely that it is much easier to debase oneself than it is to die. We have heard it said before that a coward dies a thousand deaths, and Plato listed courage as one of his four principal virtues.
The reader may remember from the Symposium that courage was one of the great gifts that Eros supplies us with. It arises from the love of beauty, which is also the love of wisdom and truth. But it was not the beauty of things that was referred to, nor any provisional truth, but rather that great ocean of beauty we call the Absolute.
The courage of the philosopher to stand against death arises precisely from having witnessed this ocean of beauty, and therefore knowing without doubt that losing sight of that in the blind humiliation of petty social pretense would be a fate far worse than simply dying.
With this comment, Plato moves on to deliver a prophecy through the lips of Socrates.
“Having dealt with that, I now wish to make you a prophecy, those of you who voted for my condemnation. […] You have acted as you have today in the belief that you will avoid having to submit your lives to examination, but you will find the outcome is just the opposite. […] If you think that by putting men to death you can stop people criticising you for not living your lives in the right way, you are making a big mistake. […] The best and simplest way lies not in weeding out other people, but in making yourselves as good as possible.” (Apology 39c-d)
And as it would turn out, this prophecy has come true. Plato’s account of Socrates’ trial, which as we have seen is as much a prosecution of his contemporaries as a defense of Socrates, remains the foremost source for this trial. Even in this humble Commentary, two and a half thousand years later, the Athenians of old have been scrutinized and found wanting.
Though it may make sense from the perspective of social pretense to silence an uncomfortable perspective, this can never silence the truth. How many times have we not seen this in our own times? The most insane lies are fought for tooth and nail, while the truth effortlessly makes itself known again and again. Social pretense is only just that – it is ephemeral, meaningless. But the truth has substance. It will always make itself known.
Indeed, it’s not even possible to escape the truth for even a moment. Yes, you may be able to delude your peers for some time, perhaps even forever, but truth is reality. It is what is. Whenever you choose ugliness and lies, you choose also to suffer the consequences of choosing ugliness and lies. Plato writes:
“I am now departing, to pay the penalty of death inflicted by you. But they have already incurred the penalty, inflicted by truth, for wickedness and injustice. I accept my sentence, as they do theirs. I suppose that’s probably how it was bound to turn out – and I have no complaints.” (Apology 39b)
And so we see Socrates calmly accepting the inevitable. He has chosen truth, and can therefore rest easy in the knowledge that all things play themselves out as intended. Not even death itself can discourage the philosopher, for he has chosen what is good, and he sees that death is no evil to be feared.
The Goodness Of Death
Having given his prophecy to the Athenians, Socrates then turns his attention to the question of death.
“Death is one of two things: either it’s like the dead person being nothing at all, and having no consciousness of anything at all, or – so we are told – it’s actually some sort of change, a journey of the soul from this place to somewhere different.” (Apology 40c)
As we saw earlier, Plato argued that we ought not choose what we know is bad over death, since we cannot say for certain if death is bad. Here, he develops that thought by asking us to consider what death is. It is either a complete absence of any experience, or it is a journey of some kind.
“Suppose it’s a total absence of consciousness. […] If death is something like that, I call it a benefit. Seen in this way, the whole of time seems no longer than a single night.” (Apology 40d-e)
If death is a complete absence of experience, then Plato argues that it would be much like the state of deep sleep. This connection between death and sleep was well-established among the Greeks. Thanatos, the personification of death, was thought to be the brother of Morpheus, the god of sleep.
And if death were like deep sleep, would it truly be something to fear? We all enjoy a good night’s sleep, we covet it and hope for it, and it is a joy all of its own – and this is precisely how Plato reasons. Were death to be like this, it would be as if all of time had collapsed into a single moment of peace.
Interestingly, the Hindus make a similar argument. The state of enlightenment is often compared to the state of deep sleep, since in deep sleep we are completely without any desire or suffering.
He goes on to speak about death as a journey.
“What would you give, gentlemen of the jury, to interview the man who lead the great expedition to Troy? Or Odysseus, or Sisyphus? Or thousands of others one could mention – men and women?” (Apology 41c)
To die is to go down the same path that others have gone before us. We are not the first among men to meet our inevitable doom. All the great men that ever lived, our heroes and saints, the wise and the noble, those we have loved and lost – they have all met with death as surely as we will. If death is merely a transformation, we will transform as they have. If it is sleep, then we will sleep soundly with them. If it is a journey, or a place, or even a dream, then we will go there to meet all those who have come before. So what is there to fear?
If we go to some other realm to meet with the dead when we die, then we will meet with the greatest men that ever lived. For Socrates, this seems like a great thing. He would have the whole rogue’s gallery of Greek history to meet and question, and could discuss virtue for eternity with all who had ever lived up until then. If Athens had given him much to think of in his examination of life, how much more would there not be for him to learn after death?
In this way, Socrates concludes that death cannot be considered a great evil that we must seek to avoid at all costs. It is here that we once again return to that most radical idea of the Platonic corpus, which the reader may remember from earlier in the text.
“You must regard one thing at least as certain – that no harm can come to a good man either in his life or after his death.” (Apology 41d)
Once again, why is this such a radical statement? Because we suffer our whole lives under the evil of others. There is no one who has ever lived who does not have some case for resentment owing to how he was treated by his peers. Seen from the circumstances of Socrates himself – that he has just been sentenced to death on spurious charges because he had aroused the spite of his fellows – it absolutely seems to be so that bad things happen to good people.
And yet Plato rejects this in the most forceful terms. The very least thing that we must believe, Plato says, is that nothing bad ever happens to a good man. How is that even conceivable?
To answer that, we must return again to our little experiment from before. Suppose that we lived as if this statement was true, no matter whether we could prove that it is or not. Suppose that we held firmly to beauty no matter what, that we never sold out the truth for personal gain, that we never neglected what we knew to be right for what we are told is right, and that we never chose what is lesser over what is greater. Suppose that we didn’t – couldn’t! – care whether death or pain or misfortune or disapproval happened to us, as long as we lived according to the true, the good and the beautiful.
Wouldn’t we then find that the statement is true? That no matter what happens to us it is nothing more than a trifle, because we already have all that could ever be had in life. To know Truth is to know all there is to know; to possess Goodness is to possess all that’s worth having; and to love Beauty is to love all that could ever be loved.
If we lived like this, then we would find that all things happen as they should, and we would feel neither regret nor resentment for what transpires in life. Plato makes this explicit.
“It is clear to me that it was better for me to die now and be released from my task. That’s why my sign didn’t at any point dissuade me, and why I am not in the least angry with those who voted against me, or with my accusers.” (Apology 41d)
There was no pang of conscience in Socrates when he went to meet his doom, and rather than seeing it as a great tragedy Socrates instead seems relieved. He has reached the end-point of his life, a life he lived in accordance with what he truly was. It was not a life of mere fancy on his part, but a divine mission to perform his appointed function which he now understands has been completed. A man can go no further in life than that.
The Better Fate
We have now reached the end of the Apology. We began with the herd bearing down on an innocent man because he refused to play the social game, and we end with that man feeling neither hatred nor malice against his accusers. As we have seen multiple times throughout this text, the whole premise centers around the contrast between the lone man and his truth on the one hand, and the herd with its games and pretenses on the other. We have seen the difference in character and attitude between the two, how the one is cruel and the other dignified, how one clings to bare animal life while the other calmly meets his fate.
There is only one thing left to consider, given what we have just seen – which type of man will you be?
It is precisely on that note that Plato ends the Apology.
“I must stop. It is time for us to go. Me to my death, you to your lives. Which of us goes to the better fate, only god knows.” (Apology 41e)
References
Plato. (1997) Symposium And The Death Of Socrates. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Edition Limited. Translated by Tom Griffith.