Pericles' Funeral Oration
Pericles and
America
Pericles and Philadelphia
Aeschylus' Oresteia
Sophocles'
Oedipus and the Sphinx
Plato's Apology
Plato's Crito
Yet
to be illustrated:
Dr.
J's Lecture on Socrates
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Dr. J's lecture on
Socrates and The Apology
(a social, political
and philosophical overview)
(some of this is in note format - citations from Treddenick's Penguin edition)
The Trial Of Socrates: texts by two pupils, Plato and
Xenophon - both just the defense speech, not the prosecutor. Xenophon:
authenticity of text disputable – he was in Asia Minor at time of trial.
Plato: supposedly there, but wrote the Apology about ten years later.
Apology: a literary document
SOCIAL VIEW
Start with charges against Socrates, of being a
cosmologist and a sophist, as he himself points out in the Apology:
"There is a clever 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." (Section A, 18c)
"Socrates is committing an injustice, in that he
inquires into things below the earth and in the sky, and makes the weaker
argument defeat the stronger, and teaches others to follow his example."
(Section A, 19b)
"if you have heard anyone say that I try to educate
people and charge a fee, there is no truth in that either…" (Section B,
19e)
You already know that cosmologists, or natural
philosophers, were men who sought natural explanations for material processes,
as opposed to supernatural explanations. They rejected Poseidon’s trident blow
as an explanation for earthquakes, much like we eventually come to favor the
natural explanation for thunder over "God is bowling" or "God is
wrestling with the devil." Those are both examples of a culture drawing on
the divine for answers to questions about natural processes. But cosmologists
rejected the old gods.
Sophists were philosophers who turned their attention away
from investigation of the natural world and adopted a much more practical
approach to the use of philosophy. Sophists traveled wherever they could find a
client, and they earned their living by teaching such arts as rhetoric and
argumentation, skills that people eagerly paid to learn and use (and often
abuse). Protagoras (481-411 BC), earliest of the Sophists, is credited with
saying "man is the measure of all things." Protagoras will be expelled
from Athens in 415 BC. Sophists pointed out that while physis (nature)
is controlled by an unchanging set of laws that remain the same wherever you go,
nomos (custom, or man-made law) is arbitrary and changes from state to
state. This empowered men to think that they could shape the world and be
masters of their own fates. Originally, the goal of sophistry was defined as
"teaching excellence or virtue (arete)" primarily through
public speaking (the way any Greek of the 5th century made his way). But
sophistry became known as unscrupulous teaching that leads to unscrupulous
behavior. Because Athenian upperclass men made their way in society by learning
the skills of rhetoric and argumentation – remember you were your own lawyer
and press agent – then the sophists had more students than they could handle.
Everyone wanted to learn this new-fangled way of manipulating facts so they
could come out ahead. After all, isn’t that what rhetoric and argumentation is
all about? Manipulating your audience? Knowing the needs and likes of your
audience so that you satisfy them? So sophists sold their wares to the highest
bidder, and taught whatever skills would lead to success. So sophists eventually
came to be known for teaching young men to successfully argue anything two ways,
and being able to make any argument, right or wrong, win.
In 424, Aristophanes’ comedy The Clouds
presented a Socrates held up to ridicule as just such a sophist. Think of
Athenian Comedy as the Saturday Night Live of its day. The same way we can never
think of Linda Tripp again without thinking of John Goodman’s portrayal of
her, the Athenian audience always had Aristophanes’ vision of Socrates in mind
- a clownish man who operated a school in which he taught both Just and Unjust
Logic, possibly the basis for the charge that not only did Socrates himself
believe these things, but that he made a living by teaching these skills to the
impressionable youth of Athens. In the play, the lackadaisical and irresponsible
youth Pheidippides is sent to the school by father, who despairs over junior’s
mounting gambling debts. In a desperate ploy, he enrolls P in Socrates’ school
so he can learn "unjust logic" or how to make the weaker argument
outweigh the stronger, or "sophistry" so he can weasel his way out of
paying his debts. P becomes such an apt pupil that by the end of the play he
beats up his father, threatens the same to his mother, and argues the
righteousness of his acts by, in the words of Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas
Smith (Socrates on Trial), "the most shamelessly tortured
reasoning." In the Apology, Socrates makes a pointed reference to
Aristophanes and the damage he has done to his name.
******************************************************************
PHILOSOPHICAL
VIEW
"An unexamined life is not worth living."
(Section M, 38a)
"An evil man can't hurt a good man" (Section I,
30d)
"No man commits evil intentionally…he is just
uninformed as to the Good" (Section F, 25e)
"Make your first and chief concern not for your
bodies or for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls"
(Section H, 30b)
"Nothing can harm a good man either in life or after
death and his fortunes are not a matter of indifference to the gods."
(Section N, 41d)
So sophistry is double-edged: it allows rhetorical victory
at the cost of morality. If there was no objective way to measure arete,
or "excellence," then how was one supposed to know what really was
"good" and what really was "bad?" Did "goodness"
really exist or was everything relative? In fact, because of this very issue,
Socrates identifies himself as an ardent anti-sophist, although some of his
techniques are reminiscent of theirs. But most importantly, Socrates’
philosophy offers a solution to this problem of "moral relativism" –
that a shipwreck, for example is bad for the sailor but good for the
shipbuilder.
Let’s play a little game to see what Socrates is about.
Can you define courage? Let’s try – and remember, it
is my job to shoot down whatever definition you provide. xxxxxxxxxxxx
(inevitably student answers will reveal that courage is one thing here and
another there - depending on circumstances). The answer that "it
depends" recalls the moral relativism of the sophists – a philosophy
Socrates wholeheartedly argues against. It was this very theory that gave rise
to such unsettledness in the minds of Athenians – one famous sophist offers a
memorable example of this kind of argumentation:
So sickness is bad for the sick, but good for the doctor;
death is bad for the dead, but good for the undertakers and monumental masons; a
good harvest is good for the farmers but bad for the grain-traders; shipwrecks
are bad for the shipowners but good for the ship-builders; when iron is blunted
and worn away it is bad for others but good for the blacksmith; when pottery is
is broken it is bad for others but good for the potter; when shoes wear out and
fall to pieces it is bad for others but good for the cobbler; in athletics
victory in the quarter mile is good for the victor but bad for the losers.
(Dissoi Logoi 1.3 - translation from The World of Athens, 292)
FORMS
But let us return to the definition of courage...CAN it be
defined? According to Socrates, yes. Socrates believes that courage is one of
the many Forms or Ideas that reside in the Realm of Ideas, a sort of cyberspace
for Principles. These forms are eternal and unchanging. It is unfortunate for
us, though, that they reside in the Realm of Ideas, a place outside our sensible
world. Socrates, like many of his fellows, believed that Reality was not the
world that you and I live in and can perceive with our senses – any optical
illusion (such as putting a ruler in a glass of water and having it appear bent)
proves that we cannot trust our senses to perceive and understand the world.
(also use this example: Mash episode – Hawkeye loses his sight, the rain
drilling on the tent was like a steak sizzling on the grill.) We must seek
wisdom and knowledge via another route.
So how else can we know anything if we can’t use our
senses? Well, like many others of his time, Socrates was a Pythagorean, a
follower of the pre-Socratic philosopher Pythagoras. Now Pythagoras believed
that the entire cosmos worked according to mathematical principles – in other
words, that there was a plan, a great cosmic dance orchestrated by a divine
intelligence. As we have already discussed, the Greeks' concept of Philosophy
embraced areas of inquiry that we might call philosophy, natural science,
religion, metaphysics… but to these Greeks it was all the same – the pursuit
- or love – of knowledge – philos sophos.
Part of Pythagoras’ understanding of the cosmos was that our souls were
eternal, immortal – so his view of the cosmos was a kind of matrix into which
everything plugged in – including us. Socrates believed that the eternal Forms
– which reside in the eternity of the Realm of Ideas – was accessible via
the eternal part of ourselves – our soul. And that by cultivating our soul we
could establish a conduit through which we could achieve access to that Realm
and that information. The trick, of course, is learning how to achieve contact,
how to open that door. In the Apology, Socrates says that the cultivation of the
soul is the primary business of life, and that an unexamined life is not worth
living. And this is the key: it is through cultivating the soul – engaging in
inquiry, asking questions, rejecting blind acceptance of ideas -- that we
cultivate our souls. Of course, you have to have an open mind to engage in this
activity – which reminds us of the answer to the Oracle’s suggestions that
"there is no man wiser than Socrates" – he is wise only because he
realizes his own ignorance. Others – like Meletus and Anytus, for example –
go through life with blinders on, necessarily blundering their way through
because they don’t know that they can’t see.
It is kind of funny that none of us can pinpoint a
definition of the word of "courage" that works in all cases, and yet
we all know it when we see it. (Students will argue that a racist spouting hate
in a black church or anti-semitic rhetoric in a synagogue is showing a form of
courage since he is acting according to his principles in the face of danger.
But the immorality of the action bothers them - how can something immoral
- based on "wrong" principles - be "courageous?" And who is
to say that that is wrong? What system of ethics are we relying on? Socrates
offers a morally guided universe (not unlike a religion, eh?). That is why
although students will argue about the racist being courageous, everyone
agrees that a man running into a burning building to save a baby is courageous.
How can we be so sure??? How *do* we know courage when we see it???
Now I want you to think computers for a minute, and you
will see why in a moment. It has probably happened to everyone in this room at
one time or another that you finished writing something on your word processor,
went to save it, and it disappeared. Lost! Gone! And after you stopped
panicking, you went down the hall and found that one guy who could magically
find it again, even though you thought it irretrievably lost. We all know that
everything you write onto disk remains there, even after you erase it. And that
this information can be accessed by those who are initiated into the
"mysteries of the computer".
Socrates believed that not only were souls eternal, but
they were recycled as well. Think of your soul as a hard drive that has been
wiped clean of all the information it once knew because it comes from the realm
of ideas. Your job is to live a life in which you cultivate your soul – i.e.,
access that encoded information such as the true definition of Truth, Goodness,
Justice, etc. From the root word for "to know" in Latin,
"cognosco", we get words such as "cognition", for example.
And knowledge and how we know what we know is the crux of Socrates' philosophy. The reason that we cannot define "courage" right off the bat, but we
certainly know it when we see it, is because we are not seeing it for the first
time – that is an expression of what occurs when you cultivate your soul - the
information for "What is courage" has always been within us, written
on our hard drive - so when we see it, we are knowing it again – re-cogno,
or "recognizing it". In other words, when a form (such as
"courage") is performed,
we become informed.
Although the Realm of Ideas is not mentioned per se in the
Apology, its philosophy can help us to understand this dialogue. It is
easy to see how Socrates’ confidence in his spirituality can be misunderstood
as arrogance. But that’s how Socrates knows Justice when he sees it: he has
cultivated his soul during his lifetime in order to access the encoded
information. His world
is a morally informed world. Socrates knew it wasn’t just when the Athenian
Assembly unconstitutionally decided to try all the Athenian generals together in
one trial after they abandoned sailors thrown off their ships during the Battle
at Arginusae in 406. In response, Socrates walked out of the tholos (the round
building in the Agora where the council met) and
refused to participate. He also knew it wasn’t just when the oligarchic
tribunal called the Thirty conscripted private citizens to do their dirty work
and ordered Socrates himself to round up Leon of Salamis – an innocent man
deemed a threat to the government because of his wealth, status and integrity.
Socrates refused to participate and certainly would have been punished had the
Thirty not been abolished soon thereafter. And Socrates knows that this trial
isn’t just either – and that the charges against him are bogus, utterly
trumped up. So he refuses to play along (i.e., beg for his life as opposed to
showing them the injustice of their actions).
POLITICAL VIEW
"Socrates is guilty of corrupting the minds of the
young, and of believing in supernatural things of his own invention instead of
the gods recognized by the State." (Section F, 24c)
Charges suggesting political motivation for the trial:
The charge: Corrupting the youth - in a particularly
political way. Many of Socrates’ young students were aristocrats, suspicious
of the Man like any young generation, inspired by Socrates’ idea to question
authority, think for themselves, reject the establishment. Unfortunately, some
of these young men were the ones behind the oligarchic revolution, such as
Critias. So it is understandable that some would link Critias and his
pro-oligarchic view with his teacher, Socrates. And even Plato in his earlier
dialogues comments on Socrates’ criticism of Athenian statesmen, sentiments,
and policies. This from Xenophon’s Apology:
"Socrates was said to have taught his companions to
despise the established laws by insisting on the folly of appointing public
officials by lot, when none would choose a pilot or a builder or a flautist by
lot, nor any other craftsman for work in which mistakes are far less dangerous
than mistakes in statecraft. Such sayings, his accuser argued, led the young to
despise the established constitution and made them violent."
Understandable, but not necessarily supportable – just
because Socrates has some issues with the details of the running of the
government doesn’t necessarily mean that he espouses a different form of
government. And just because both Xenophon and Plato are diehard oligarchs
doesn’t necessarily mean that Socrates is – you will be hard-pressed to
prove that he *is*, using the texts we have.
But it is understandable how they tried to make a case
against Socrates corrupting the young who turned against the democracy, like
Critias and Charmides. But this court wants it both ways: they try to blame
Socrates for all their ills – including their democratic ones! Xenophon
specifically names Alcibiades as another youth ruined by Socrates. A traitor,
true, but always a democrat. BUT. Officially – at least openly - Socrates
could not have been tried for such crimes of corrupting the likes of Critias and
Alcibiades, because in 403/2, amnesty was granted for crimes committed before
and during the reign of the Thirty Tyrants. And it was our very own Anytus who
was involved in the passing of that law. The law said that you couldn’t try
a man for crimes committed before the reign of the Tyrants – it didn’t say
that you couldn’t insinuate guilt by association. And apparently this was a
common practice for those prosecuting individuals with reputations earned in
earlier days. But Socrates himself calls our attention to his refusal to go
along with the immoral actions of the Thirty – Leon of Salamis, despite grave
personal danger. And just in case Critias and Alcibiades are not the only such
corruptees, Socrates himself invites any witness who can prove that harm came
from his teaching to come forward - this would not be a violation of amnesty.
But no one does.
And, too, Chaerophon was a great friend of both Socrates
and the democracy. Which brings us to yet another possibly politically motivated
charge against Socrates: the charge of impiety.
The charge: that Socrates "disbelieves in the
gods" (Section D, 23e)
The refutation: in fact, his entire life is devoted to
proving the Oracle of Delphi right, he claims. This same Chaerophon once asked
the Oracle whether there was any man wiser than Socrates and was told
"no." Although he found that hard to believe, Socrates knew that
Oracles spoke in riddles, so he set out to understand the answer. In the text of
the Apology Socrates outlines his actions: he questioned
everyone with a reputation for wisdom – poets, craftsmen, politicians – and
after engaging them in conversation, determined that they in fact were not wise
at all, and concluded that no man was wiser than he because he admitted his
ignorance. Socrates himself realizes that he has earned a bad reputation as well
as political enemies in his pursuit of wisdom:
"They were so jealous, I suppose, for their own
reputation, and also energetic and numerically strong, and spoke about me with
such vigor and persuasiveness, that their harsh criticisms have for a long time
now been monopolizing your ears. There you have the causes which led to the
attack upon me by Meletus and Anytus and Lycon, Meletus being aggrieved on
behalf of the poets, Anytus on behalf of the professional men and politicians,
and Lycon on behalf of the orators." (Section D, 23a)
And Socrates shows us his technique – his Socratic
method of backing his opponents into rhetorical corners – in his
cross-examination of Meletus (Section G, 26b- 28a).
Socrates’ defense: that he has followed the god’s will
despite numerous disadvantages; lacking the time for other personal or
civic pursuits (23b7-9), he has earned only suspicion and enmity from his
countrymen (21e1-2, 22e6-23a3, c7-d2) as well as great personal poverty
(23b9-c1). But he will risk even death to complete his mission: encouraging
people to give up their pretense of wisdom (23b4-7) – to convince them to care
for wisdom, truth, and the perfection of the soul more than wealth, reputation
and honor (29d2-30b4)
Second charge of impiety: "of believing in
supernatural things of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the
State." (Section F, 24c)
He gets Meletus to contradict himself in regard to the
second charge of impiety – that Socrates has introduced new gods into the city
(although he also says that Socrates believes in no gods at all, an
impossibility for both to be true):
Robert Garland (in Introducing New Gods: The Politics
of Athenian Religion, Cornell 1992 see
below) argues that the most significant charge
against Socrates is the charge of impiety. Or atheism? Which is it? Well, it’s
both, and neither, and it is the exchange between Meletus and Socrates on this
issue – the grandest example of the Socratic method in the Apology
– that proves the trumped-up-ness of the entire affair. Socrates gets him to
admit that at one and the same time, he is being tried for "not
acknowledging the gods at all (atheism) and "that he honors god other than
those official gods of the Athenian State." A big clue that the charge is
politically inspired comes when Meletus confuses Socrates with Anaxagoras,
expelled from Periclean Athens for claiming that the Sun and Moon were not gods
at all – in fact he described the moon as a white-hot rock about the size of
the Peloponnesus (Galileo is charged with heresy against the Catholic church for
making almost exactly the same observation…over 2000 years later in 1632).
Impiety laws passed in the 450's were clearly directed against Pericles’
circle and passed by his detractors. And Socrates’ reliance on the authority
of the Oracle of Delphi couldn’t have helped his cause much – the Oracle had
fallen out of favor in Athens since its prophecies all seemed to favor her
opponents in the PP War.
In addition to the oracle of Apollo, Socrates claims to
follow another divine guide, his daimonion – a guiding voice, a sign
of the gods. The exact definition was taken up by Kierkegaard in his doctoral
dissertation. An objective reality outside Socrates? A figment of his
imagination? His conscience? A private oracle? Can’t tell:
"I am subject to a divine or supernatural experience,
which Meletus saw fit to travesty in his indictment. It began in my early
childhood – a sort of voice which comes to me; and when it comes it always
dissuades me from what I am proposing to do, and never urges me on. It is this
that debars me from entering public life, and a very good thing, too, in my
opinion…the true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a
short time, must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics
alone." (Section J, 31d-32a)
Two problems arise for Socrates because of this daimonion:
1. This "sign" was taken to have
"crypto-oligarchical" leanings, since it appeared to cause Socrates to
work outside the system – outside democracy. Socrates claimed that it spoke to
him and convinced him to stay out of politics – that a just man could not
practice politics. And understandably so, this seemed to offend those in
charge…
2. Note that he is not accused of introducing false
gods, just new ones. Just like his philosophy (Realm of Ideas) rejects
the sensible world in which we live as a way to achieve knowledge, Socrates
seems to reject the Athenian gods - and this is taken as a politically
subversive act since the Athenian religion is a state religion. As Kierkegaard
argues in his dissertation: "Socrates replaced the concrete individuality
of the Greek gods (anthropomorphosed, with temples and sacrifices) with
something completely abstract - this was seen as subversive and undermining, as
standing outside the established canon of public and private gods."
Socrates spends the remainder of his speech explaining his
philosophical view of how men should spend their time – how they should live,
what they should view as important, how they should determine the action they
take. And he makes possibly his most famous statement when he identifies himself
as the gadfly sent to sting Athens into action, to awaken the sleeping citizens
from their torpor, to show them the way to enlightenment, enrichment, and a
fulfilled life. Socrates is not shy in suggesting that Athens needs him – that
"you will not easily find another like me – and if you take my advice,
you will spare my life" (Section I, 30e-31b)
And, too, we can see the rotten core of the Athenian
democracy at this point when we look at the numbers: although we don’t know
the exact number of jurors in the case (500 or 501), we do know that Socrates is
found guilty by a margin of 60 votes: 280 to 220 (or 221). Socrates fairly dares
them to go through with their injustice, not helping a bit by offering a
reasonable suggestion for punishment, which he is asked to do. (He suggests that
he be treated as a state hero and be given the same free lunch every day for a
year that is reserved for winners at the Olympics!). When the verdict of death
comes back, we find an overwhelming vote (an increased majority – over 2/3)
for the death penalty, rather than a fine. This means that at least 50
jurors who had originally deemed Socrates not guilty sentence him to death!
***For further discussion of this
chapter of Garland's book, see Professor
Dan Tompkins' notes on Temple University's Intellectual Heritage Program's
website.
copyright
2001 Janice
Siegel,
All Rights Reserved
send comments to: Janice Siegel (jfsiege@ilstu.edu)
date this page was edited last:
08/02/2005
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