| Notes on Plato'sas likewise all other human goods, both private and public. |
| Notes on Plato'sas likewise all other human goods, both private and public. |
1. Socrates says that his accusers are so eloquent that he almost forgot himself.
2. But he is surprised that they should warn the Athenian Senators against his eloquence, because he will prove he has none as he speaks.
3. If eloquence is speaking the truth, then, perhaps, Socrates says, he possesses some eloquence after all.
4. Socrates tells the Senators that he will speak the truth in his usual manner, not in the manner they ordinarily hear from orators.
5. Socrates says he is more concerned with the older false accusations than the more recent ones, because the older accusations have influenced Athenians from an early age and have made a lasting impression.
6. Socrates says he cannot summon his older accusers--such as Aristophanes--to appear before the Senate, because he does not know all of them.
7. The older accusations are: Socrates acts wickedly, and with criminal curiosity investigates things under the earth, and in the heavens. He also makes the worse to be the better argument; and he teaches these things to others.
8. Socrates says that many of the Senators hearing his defense have themselves heard him speak--and know the accusations to be false.
9. The accusation that Socrates takes money for his teaching, he says, is demonstrably false. He says that if a person has real knowledge it is right for him to receive compensation. But, Socrates says, he personally has no knowledge.
10. The accusations, Socrates says, have arisen because of a certain strange kind of human wisdom he possesses. The sophists, of which he was speaking earlier, appear to have a kind of super-wisdom--something more than human.
11. Socrates says that if he appears to speak in a somewhat self-serving manner, because the claim of wisdom attaching to him comes not from himself but from another source: the Oracle of Delphi.
12. Chaerepho, an acquaintance of Socrates, had asked the Delphic Oracle if there was anyone more wise than Socrates, and had been told that there was none such.
13. Socrates says that it was a puzzle to him when the Delphic Oracles asserted that Socrates was wise, because he was not consciously aware that he possessed any amount of wisdom, whether small or large.
14. So he went to persons who had the reputation of being wise to see if they were wiser than he--and therefore refute the Delphic Oracle's assertion that no one is wiser than Socrates.
15. Socrates saw that men acclaimed as wise appeared wise to others and were thought wise by themselves--but were in actually not wise at all.
16. When Socrates attempted to show the man who thought himself wise that he was not wise, the man became irate with Socrates. In this way, many people became enemies of Socrates.
17. Socrates reasoned with himself that he might be wiser than the men thought to be wise. For they thought that they knew something, when they didn't. But Socrates, not knowing anything, at least didn't think that he knew. Hence in this trifling particular Socrates appeared to be wiser than the self-acclaimed wise man, because he didn't think that he knew things which he didn't know.
18. As Socrates continued to examine those from various professions that were most celebrated for their wisdom, they appeared to Socrates to be most remote from it; but others who were considered as far inferior to the "wise men" possessed more of wisdom.
19. Socrates thought he might discover a poet wiser than himself, so he took some of the seemingly most wise passages of poets to them and asked them to explain the wisdom of those passages. Strange to tell, the poets couldn't explain the wisdom in their poetry. Which proved to Socrates that poets do not write poetry through having wisdom themselves, but are inspired by a higher, external wisdom.
20. So again, the Delphic Oracle's claim stood, because even though the poets considered themselves to be very wise men, they proved not to be so.
21. Socrates says that God only is wise. He came to understand that the Delphic Oracle's statement meant that the wisdom of men is little or nothing. The Oracle does not refer to Socrates personally, it only uses his name as an illustration, as if to say: He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.
22. Following the Oracle's statement, Socrates considered it his calling to refute the pseudo-wisdom of those who believed themselves to be wise.
23. Some rich, idle young men tried to copy Socrates' procedures, showing supposedly wise men that they were foolish--and increased the animosity toward Socrates.
24. Socrates three accusers were apologists for different kinds of persons who had been shown by Socrates to be pretenders in wisdom: Meletus, who had a quarrel with him on behalf of the poets; Anytus, on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians; Lycon, on behalf of the rhetoricians and orators.
25. Meletus, who believes himself to be a virtuous patriot, accuses Socrates of being a doer of evil, a corrupter of youth, and one who does not believe in the gods of the state and believes in other new divinities of his own.
26. Socrates says that Meletus is a doer of evil, and the evil is that he makes a joke of a serious matter, and is too ready to bring other men to trial from a pretended zeal and interest about matters in which he really never had the smallest interest.
27. By cross-examining Meletus, Socrates shows that his accusations are contradictory: claiming that Socrates does not believe in any gods and that he believes in (and teaches) new, strange gods.
28. Socrates says that a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad one.
29. Socrates says: now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfil the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death: then I should be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.
30. Socrates asserts: if you say to me, Socrates, this time we will not mind Anytus, and will let you off, but upon one condition, that you are not to inquire and speculate in this way any more, and that if you are caught doing this again you shall die; - if this was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply: Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?
31. Socrates believed that to his day no greater good had ever happened in the state than his service to God. For he did nothing but go about persuading all, old and young alike, not to take thought for their persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. Socrates told them that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come money and every other good of man, public as well as private.
32. Socrates stated to the assembly that if they killed such a person as himself, they would injure themselves more than you would injure him.
33. In the nature of things, an evil person cannot really injure a good person. An evil person may, perhaps, kill a virtuous person, or drive him into exile, or deprive him of civil rights; and he may imagine, and others may imagine, that he is doing him a great injury: but he is not.
34. Socrates said that he was not going to argue for his own sake, as they might think, but for theirs, so they wouldn't sin against the God in condemning Socrates, thereby sinning against the gift of Divinity.
35. Socrates warned the Athenian council that if they killed him, they would not easily find another like him, who, to use a ludicrous figure of speech, was a sort of gadfly, given to the state by the God; and the state was like a great and noble steed who was tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and required to be stirred into life. Socrates was that gadfly which God had given the state and all day long and in all places was always fastened upon them, arousing and persuading and reproaching them.
37. Socrates often spoke of an oracle or sign which came to him, a divinity which Meletus ridiculed in the indictment. This sign Socrates had had ever since he was a child. The sign was a voice which came to him and always forbid him to do something which he was going to do, but never commanded him to do anything. This oracle was what stood in the way of his being a politician. And rightly, he thought, for he was certain that if he had engaged in politics, he should have perished long ago and done no good either to them or to himself.
38. It is necessary that he who in reality contends for the just, if he wishes even but for a little time to be safe, should live privately and not engage in public affairs.
39. Socrates states that he had no regular disciples, but if anyone liked to come and hear him while he was pursuing his mission, whether he was young or old, he could freely come. Nor did Socrates converse with those who paid only, and not with those who did not pay; but anyone, whether he was rich or poor, could ask and answer Socrates and listen to his words; and whether he turned out to be a bad man or a good one, that could not be justly laid to Socrates' charge, as he never taught him anything. And if anyone says that he had ever learned or heard anything from Socrates in private which all the world had not heard, Socrates claimed that he was speaking an untruth.
40. After the Council sentences him to death, Socrates said: Athenians, your impatience and precipitancy will draw upon you a great reproach, and give occasion to those who are so disposed, to revile the city for having put that wise man Socrates to death. For those who are willing to reproach you will call me a wise man, though I am not.
41. Socrates prophesied to his murderers, that immediately after his death punishment far heavier than they had inflicted on him would surely await them.
42. Socrates said that to a good man nothing is evil, neither while living nor when dead, and that his concerns are never neglected by the Gods.
43. Socrates said that he looked forward to death, for he was thereby delivered from the "professors" of justice in this world, and would find the true judges who are said to give fair judgment in the next life.
