Plato’s Apology

Plato’s Apology records the speech Socrates made to the jury in defense against the charges of failing to acknowledge the city’s gods, introducing new gods\divinities, and corrupting the youth of the city. His speech raises interesting questions: what does Socrates mean when he talks about wisdom (as he often does during his speech) and why does he tell the jury that to live life without studying it would render it meaningless (Plato, 14)? Is Socrates afraid of the death penalty that is first threatened and then confirmed by the proceedings? At first look, Socrates’ speech is more or less the defense speech that one would expect from the man, but on looking deeper, the whole dialogue is full of hidden discussions on the above topics and more besides. Plato often includes these powerful themes of wisdom in his writing.

Wisdom is a word that is often used by Socrates in his own defense – but he does not seem to think about wisdom in the same way we do. After detailing his search among the populace for someone who he deemed wise, Socrates says that while all the politicians, artisans and poets he spoke to (Plato, 3-4) were indeed wise in some respects (since they knew many things he himself didn’t know), they were still not wise in what he termed the wisdom ‘attainable by men’ (Plato, 3) because they did not know that they were ignorant of many things. In Socrates’ mind, then, true wisdom was knowing that your own personal knowledge had limits (Plato, 9), and admitting that, rather than making pretenses to things you were unclear on (Plato, 3). This attitude was perhaps what spurred Socrates later on when he told the jury that the ‘life which is unexamined is not worth living’ (Plato, 14).

Socrates, after he has been found guilty of the charges leveled against him (with the punishment still undecided) and in answer to his own supposition that the jury would advise him to live out the remainder of his days quietly and without indulging in philosophy, tells the jury that ‘the life which is unexamined is not worth living’(Plato, 14). From the sheer number of names Socrates mentions in only one section of his speech (Plato, 12) as well as the section near the beginning where he mentions going to politicians and artisans, among others (Plato 3-4), it is apparent that he has spoken to many people over the course of his career – it is unlikely that Socrates would have continued in this vein if he had not enjoyed it and wanted to continue. It seems that to Socrates, life without philosophy would indeed not have been worth living, and further than that would not have been a life at all. Seen in this light, his referral to Achilles (‘the son of Thetis’) on page eight of the Apology takes on a different light.

From looking at the frequent mentions of the death penalty within the speech (see: Plato, 8; 10; 11) we must assume that Socrates knew there was a very good chance of him being condemned to death by the court, and so we must question whether or not he feared that verdict. From the manner in which Socrates mentions death and the possibilities of what lies beyond, I would contend that Socrates does not fear death – in one section of his speech (Plato, 8) he likens himself to the heroes of old: Achilles; Patroclus; Hector – using their actions as justification for his own, and also using their own disregard for death as a mirror for his own focus on avoiding disgrace in being caught doing what is wrong rather than avoiding death.

To sum up, Plato’s record of Socrates’ defense speech has more to it than meets the eye. Rather than simply refuting the charges against him, Socrates uses the speech as a vehicle to discuss the meaning of wisdom, even to the extent of seeming fearless or indifferent to the death penalty that hangs over the proceedings before finally becoming a reality in the last section of his speech. When Socrates told the jury that an unexamined life wasn’t worth living (Plato, 14) he was saying nothing more or less than the absolute truth. Even if that did mean his death.

Work Cited

Plato and Jowett, Benjamin (trans.), Apology.