Commentary on Plato's Apology (17-26a)
The First and Only "Socratic
Dialogue"
In most collections of Plato's
dialogues it is usually the Apology
which begins the book, and rightly so, for the Apology is the dialogue which recounts an important, indeed,
perhaps the single most important event in Plato's life. The event recorded in
the Apology is very likely the event which is the seed from which the Platonic corpus was
to grow and so the seed from which Western Philosophy was to grow as well. I
want to say that had this event not taken place, it is unlikely there would be
any Platonic dialogues at all. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps the seeds of Plato's
philosophical journey had been sown long before the event "recorded"
in the Apology took place. Certainly
most of Plato's dialogues consist of accounts of discussions and conversations
that, if actual, would have taken place long before the event in question. So
there certainly could have been a Platonic corpus even without THE event. But
it does seem unlikely. Less likely still is that the dialogues we have would
have been the same in the absence of Socrates' defense before his fellow
Athenians.
As my heading reveals, I regard the Apology as a Socratic, rather than a
Platonic, dialogue. For in Apology,
Socrates speaks more as himself than in any other Platonic dialogue. Indeed, Apology is not really a Platonic dialogue at all (in not being
apoetic, e.g.) but rather a combination of Socratic autobiography and
impassioned self-defense of Socrates' way of life. More than any other Platonic
dialogue, we find the Apology
offering us a Socrates who is doing something different from, and much more
important than, teaching others by asking them questions and offering criticism
of their answers (although he does some of that too). In the Apology, Socrates offers us his raison d'être, along with the raison d'être for the so-called Socratic
method. For this reason then it is clear that in the Apology, we find a Socrates who "begins at the
beginning". Thus the Apology
marks a proper beginning for anyone interested in the Platonic corpus.
The
Beginning of Apology
Plato’s Apology begins with what appear to be Socrates' opening remarks to
defend himself against the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth before
his fellow Athenians in an Athenian court. (There are, of course, a variety of
academic divisions of the dialogue. I will ignore them here for the most part.
I will simply plow through the dialogue as I see fit). These opening remarks
reveal that Socrates is responding to those who have already pleaded their case
for Socrates being impious and a corrupter of the youth, although it will be
some time into the dialogue that all of this information is set out. The
opening remarks are important and instructive, however, and are as follows:
I do not know what effect my accusers have had upon you, gentlemen, but for my own part I was almost carried away by them -- their arguments were so convincing. On the other hand, scarcely a word of what they said was true. I was especially astonished at one of their many misrepresentations; I mean when they told you that you must be careful not to let me deceive you -- the implication being that I am a skillful speaker. . . . [In fact] I have not the slightest skill as a speaker -- unless, of course, by a skillful speaker they mean one who speaks the truth.
. . . My accusers, then, as I maintain, have said little or nothing that is true, but from me you shall hear the whole truth -- not, I can assure you, gentlemen, in flowery language like theirs, decked out with fine words and phrases. . . . It would hardly be suitable, gentlemen, for a man of my age to address you in the artificial language of a schoolboy orator. (17 a-c).
Now for anyone who doesn't worship at the
feet of Socrates, these opening remarks would be regarded as, one, the usual
(and useless) tripe of any convicted person (all who are accused claim to be
innocent, don't they?!) and two, as exhibiting a case
of Socratic irony or cluelessness, viz., when Socrates suggests that his
accusers' warning to avoid being deceived by Socrates is misplaced, since
Socrates traffics only in the truth, never deception. The claim that my
accusers are liars, or are telling falsehoods, goes hand in hand with claiming
that I am telling the truth. But the key matter, of course, is who is telling
the truth and this is not to be established by being given Socrates' own view
of the matter. As for Socrates' contention that his accuser's
misrepresent his skills as a speaker, some have seen it as ironic (i.e., such
that "something contrary to what is said is to be understood"). And
some have criticized those who see it as ironic. This debate matters not.
What's important is that Socrates has done nothing more here than contend he is
no deceiver and that anyone who suggests otherwise is a liar. No doubt there is
a sense in which Socrates truly believes this. On the other hand, it is hard to
believe that Socrates is completely unaware that many in Athens regard him as a
skillful speaker or as capable of deceiving people, in some sense. If he has no
clue about his reputation in Athens, he's been talking to people without
hearing or seeing them. The bottom line then is that Socrates is, in a
perfectly legitimate sense, a skillful speaker who can and does deceive people.
(More on this below; in particular, I am not claiming that Socrates is guilty
of deceiving people in the same way that dishonest salespeople deceive people,
or in the way that liars deceive people. Nor am I claiming that Socrates is
always aware that he is deceiving people.
The primary way in which Socrates deceives people, I assert, is by contending
that his elenchus has shown that they
are not virtuous, or don't know or care what virtue is, etc. Since Socrates'
claims rest, I believe, on faulty ideas about virtue, and what knowledge of
virtue involves or requires (not to mention occasionally
using questinable techniques in arriving at a refutation of his interlocutors'
claims), they are deceptive. Again, more on all of this as I go. If I am
correct, Socrates' promise to offer the jurors nothing but the truth is already
in trouble.).
Socrates’ accusers
Socrates goes on to distinguish between his "earliest accusers" and his "later accusers". The earliest accusers include "a great many people", who have "for a great many years", filled the jurors' minds (from childhood on) "with untrue accusations" against Socrates as follows:
There is a wise man called Socrates who has theories about the heavens and has investigated everything below the earth, and can make the weaker argument defeat the stronger. (18b).
Socrates also claims that those who make these "untrue accusations" are his "dangerous accusers, not only because of their number, their anonymity (Aristophanes notwithstanding) and the length of time they have been spreading their lies but also because such wise men are thought by all to be atheists. The later accusers are Anytus, Meletus and Lycon, who claim Socrates is impious (believes in false gods or no gods at all) and by his teaching corrupts the youth. Socrates begins his defense by dealing with his earlier accusers, as follows:
You have seen it yourselves in the play by Aristophanes, where Socrates goes whirling round, proclaiming that he is walking on air, and uttering a great deal of other nonsense about things of which I know nothing whatsoever . . . [and] I take no interest in it. . . . The fact is that there is nothing in any of these charges, and if you have heard anyone say that I try to educate people and charge a fee, there is no truth in that either.. . . I happened to meet a man who has paid more in Sophists' fees than all the rest put together -- I mean Callias . . . . So I asked him -- he has two sons, you see -- . . . whom do you intend to get as their instructor? Who is the expert in perfecting the human and social qualities? . . . Who is he, and where does he come from . . . [a]nd what does he charge? Evenus of Paros, Socrates, said he, and his fee is five minas. . . . I should certainly plume myself and give myself airs if I understood these things, but in fact, gentlemen, I do not. (19c--20c).
Socrates is here defending himself against
the charge that he is either a natural scientist type of wise man or a Sophist
(paid teacher of virtue) and although he is neither scientist nor Sophist his
defense seems a bit odd, for it is dubious that many Athenians took him to be
either. Socrates is, in short, attacking something of a straw man. Socrates
moves closer to the point when he offers to explain to the jurors why he has
attained a certain sort of "false notoriety", and offers to explain
what he has done that has led so many to misrepresent his activities and
beliefs.
Socratic Wisdom
At 20d, Socrates claims that his reputation is due to "nothing more or less than a kind of wisdom", a human wisdom. However, Socrates "shall call as witness to [his] wisdom, such as it is, the god at Delphi." (20e). Socrates then relates the story about his friend Chaerephon going to the oracle at Delphi and asking: Is there anyone wiser than Socrates?, and getting the answer, No one. Once Socrates was told the story by Chaerephon, he felt obliged to "check the truth" of the oracle's decree. So he hunted up a man with a reputation for wisdom (a politician), gave a thorough examination to the man, which examination convinced him that the man was not wise at all. However,
. . . when I began to try to show him that he only thought he was wise and was not really so, my efforts were resented both by him and by many of the other people present. (21d).
Socrates walked away from the encounter
reflecting that he was certainly wiser than the politician but that neither he
nor the politician had any knowledge worth boasting about. However, Socrates
reflected that he, unlike the politician, was conscious of his ignorance and
this made him wiser than the politician. Socrates' wisdom then consists of his
not thinking he knows what he does not know. (21d). So long then as Socrates
doesn't think he knows what he does not know, no one will be wiser than him,
for this is precisely what Socratic wisdom comes to, i.e., not thinking you
know what you do not know.
This sort of experience was repeated, says
Socrates, when he questioned poets and then followed that up with examination
of skilled craftsmen. In the case of both, however, Socrates admitted that
"they understood things which [he] did not" but both groups were
guilty of thinking they knew things which they did not
know. This led Socrates to conclude that "this
error more than outweighed their positive wisdom." Socrates goes on to
claim that the effect of his work aroused a great deal of hostility toward him
and led to "various malicious suggestions, including the description of
[Socrates] as a professor of wisdom." (23a). Socrates contends that the
description is due to the fact that when he succeeds in disproving another
person's claim to wisdom, bystanders think he knows everything about the subject
in question. But the truth, says Socrates, is that
"real wisdom is the property of God" and "human wisdom has
little or no value" (23a). Socrates concludes that the oracle only uses
his name as an example, as if to say that "the
wisest of humans is he who has realized, like Socrates, that in respect of
wisdom he is really worthless." (23b).
Socrates also claims that he is on a mission from God (yes, like Jake and Elwood) to prove to those who think they are wise that they are not wise. He says that his mission has kept him too busy for either politics or his own affairs and that he has been "reduced to extreme poverty".
Finally, Socrates says another cause of his
unpopularity is that "a number of young men with wealthy fathers and
plenty of leisure" have attached themselves to Socrates and enjoy watching
him performing his elenchus, so much so that they take up the practice
themselves, questioning others a la
Socrates. The "victims" of these young men blame Socrates for filling
the young men with false ideas. According to Socrates, "[i]f you ask [his critics] what he does, and what he teaches
that has this effect, they have no answer . . . ." (23d). As such, says
Socrates, his critics do nothing more than offer the "stock charges
against any philosopher", including that of making the weaker argument
defeat the stronger. Socrates also claims that Meletus offers his complaints on
behalf of the poets, Anytus on behalf of the craftsmen and Lycon on behalf of
the politicians and orators.
Socrates' account of the origin of his
notoriety reveals, I think, not only that many Athenians regard him as a
bothersome old fool capable of making the weaker argument defeat the stronger
argument but also why they do so. As such, Socrates pretty much admits that the
old slanders and misrepresentations against him are not slanders or
misrepresentations at all but are pretty accurate. (Is a juror supposed to
believe that all politicians, poets and craftspeople are really as ignorant as
Socrates claims to have shown they are? Is a juror supposed to believe that the
bystanders who became angry with Socrates were too blind to see the legitimacy
of Socrates' techniques and arguments?).
Socrates admits that spectators became angry with him. Surely they did so
because they believed that Socrates had not in fact established that his
interlocutor was not really wise and that Socrates' techniques were not aimed
at truth so much as refutation. And Socrates admits here that his main goal, in
the name of the god at Delphi (Apollo) of course, is to refute his opponents so
as to reveal that human wisdom has little or no value. Socrates and his
community are obviously at odds over the matter of the worth of the Socratic
mission from God. He sees himself doing God's work (which must, by definition be
good and right!) while the community regards him as a crazed old man who is
positively deluded about the force of his arguments and the worth of his
mission. It should be appreciated, however, that Socrates has not provided the
jurors any reason to doubt the accuracy of the "slanders" against
him, and so no reason to agree with him that the popular characterizations of
him as a "philosopher", "free thinker", or "someone
who makes the stronger argument the weaker" are
"misrepresentations" of him and his work. On the contrary, it seems
that a right thinking juror who hears Socrates claiming to have
"disproved" the claims of wisdom of politicians, poets and craftsmen,
and admitting to have earned the ire of bystanders, would and should conclude
that perhaps there is truth in the characterizations of Socrates as the
purveyor of an "unjust logic".
This point seems to have been missed or
ignored by many a commentator on the Apology,
most of whom are inclined to be sympathetic and more to Socrates'
characterizations of his work and its results. To take a notable example,
C.D.C. Reeve in his Socrates in the Apology
(all Reeve references here will be to this book, unless otherwise noted), does
his best to try to convince the reader of the sincerity of Socrates' disclaiming
any knowledge of science and oratory attributed to him by Aristophanes in the Clouds. While Reeve makes a convincing case for
Socrates' sincerity, his arguments are rendered irrelevant by his claim that "Socrates' disclaimer of oratory should not be
taken to extend to the elenchus or its unintended inculcation through
practice." (Reeve, p. 19). While this
conveniently allows Socrates' disclaimer to be sincere, it also renders the
disclaimer of no import to the jurors. For the jurors (whether rightly or
wrongly, it matters not), the question of whether Socrates is or is not a
practitioner of "unjust logic" just is the question of whether he
does or does not buttonhole people and try to refute their answers in an
attempt to reveal their "ignorance", i.e., it's a question of whether
or not Socrates practices the elenchus. Since Socrates freely admits that he
does so, the jurors have no choice but to hold that Socrates is a practitioner
of "unjust logic". Indeed, from the jurors' perspective, if Socrates
does refuse to include his elenchus within the boundaries of oratory (as Reeve
claims) then his disclaiming any knowledge of oratory will appear to be nothing
more than verbal sleight of hand, a sneaky way of trying to deny that he is a
practitioner and teacher of "unjust logic", someone who tries to make
the weaker argument defeat the stronger. In short, Socrates' disclaimer will
serve as wonderful example to the jurors of precisely the sort of thing that
Socrates disclaims any knowledge of, or ability to do. Is it any wonder they
will find him guilty?!
Be this as it may, interesting questions can
be raised about Socrates' claim that "human wisdom has little or no
value" and his claim, "the wisest human is he who realizes that in
respect of wisdom he is really worthless". It surely doesn't take a Ph.D.
to appreciate that these claims sound odd. The first phrase sounds odd in that
it seems to allow that there is such a thing as "human wisdom" and
yet says it has little or no value. This is like saying there is something
called human happiness and it has little or no value, or that there is human
good but it has little or no value, etc. But if these are accepted then what is
one to say of human ignorance, human sadness and human evil? It seems right to
say they have no value but then why prefer human wisdom to human ignorance, or
happiness to sadness or good to evil?
Surely the value of human wisdom far exceeds the "value" of human
ignorance. Socrates' other claim suggests that humans are not capable of genuine
or true wisdom and so have none. Putting them together we get something like:
Human wisdom isn't really wisdom (or Wisdom) at all and so is of little or no
value. This sounds right, or at least better than either one alone, whether one
agrees with it or not. Thus, I will interpret Socrates' mission as based on his
belief (which he gets from the god at Delphi, of course) that human wisdom
isn't really wisdom (or Wisdom) and thus is of little or no value. In this
form, Socrates' key belief, the belief on which he based his later life's work,
has a very obvious Platonic flavor.
Like Plato, Socrates can be read as saying that human wisdom is a pale shadow,
a poor imitator of the real deal and the sooner we appreciate this the better
off we will be. (I'm not sure why we'll be better off or how this
"knowledge" of the uselessness of human wisdom will help us. It seems
to me to suggest just the opposite of what Socrates thinks we ought to be
doing, i.e., it suggests that the search for "real wisdom" (Wisdom),
and so virtue (or Virtue), is futile. If so, wouldn't we all do better turning
our backs on "the examined life" and focus on having fun?! And could any conclusion be more at odds with Socratic
doctrine?!).
Last
modified September 16, 2011
JAH,
Professor
Dept. of Philosophy