Apology

Author: Plato

The Apology is an account by Plato of Socrates standing before a jury of people arguing his case for why he should not be put to death. In Athens, juries were very large, Socrates jury totalled 501 people.

His charges were that he was manipulating the youth, and did not believe in the cities Gods, and even invented false Gods.

Socrates made a very compelling argument against his charges, but failed to win the majority of the Jury. He was sentenced to death at the end of the book by the jury.

Socrates attributes the behaviour that led to him standing trial as due to a message he received from an oracle that claimed he was the wisest of all mankind. Socrates reasoned that the only way this could be the case was because he recognized how little he understood the world compared to others, who view themselves as wise.

To determine if this was the case, Socrates decided to go around town and question different groups of people to see if they were truly wise and ultimately prove to them that they are not wise. His actions were well received by the youth of Greece, but the people he questioned and proved not to be wise were understandably not too impressed with Socrates telling them that they were actually ignorant by thinking themselves wise. Because of the insult Socrates caused these people, he claimed they invented crimes against him which is what led to his trial. He said that they would much prefer to invent lies about Socrates then to accept the truth that they are much more pretentious then they are wise.

Socrates attempted to argue down his punishment to a fine, but that was rejected. Socrates accepts the sentence to be put to death. He talks about not wanting to beg and plead and would rather die honourably knowing that his actions were in the right, and he was not guilty of what his accusers said.

Major themes that I think contributed to this book being so famous

Socrates makes a point to not beg and plead the jury for his life. He doesn’t bring his family obligations into it or mention his kids, which apparently was very common to do. Instead, he chastises the jury and tells them to stop being so focused on money, power, and status, and instead focus on the quality of their soul.

He gives an analogy that he is actually like a fly that bites the neck of a horse, and spurs it on from sluggishness. He says that he is actually a gift to Athens because he forces people not to become intellectually lazy, or consider themselves too wise.

He also warns the jury who voted to put him to death that by silencing their critics, they have harmed themselves a lot more than they will harm him. A poignant statement.

Ultimately, Socrates accepted the fact that he was to die. He said he would die soon anyways as he was seventy years old already. He was excited for death in a way as he assumed he would carry on philosophizing with other great people who were already dead.

During his speech, Socrates describes three types of people that he approaches in his quest to find truly wise people. He questions politicians, poets, and craftsmen.

In his questioning of politicians, he found that they thought of themselves as very wise, but in reality did not know much. We can draw obvious parallels between politicians in this context to politicians in our time.

When questioning the poets, Socrates came across something a bit different. He found that they were able to create things of genius, but in questioning them, he learned that they were not able to explain or understand what they created. So Socrates determined that their ability to create was some sort of internal inspiration, but was not tied to intellect. Like the politicians, Socrates also found that the poets thought they were very wise on a breadth of topics, but were in fact very ignorant. I’ve heard parallels drawn between the poets of Athens to celebrities of today. We’ve all heard celebrities stand up at the Oscars or some other event and give some virtuous speech about who knows what, as if they had a remote understanding on the topic. Meanwhile the only reason they are there at all was because they won a best actor in an animated series award.

Lastly, Socrates talked to craftsmen. With the craftsmen, he concluded that they were in fact very wise in their respective fields. But he said that they assumed that they could apply their wisdom in their fields across other fields in which they also know nothing.

So Socrates concluded that he would rather be like himself, who knows that he knows nothing instead of having the false belief in a great wisdom like the others groups all did.

The last reason I think this book has endured so long is that any book that has Socrates as its subject seems to have become very influential in our judicial systems. It’s interesting seeing Socrates argue in court, and cross examine the person who is accusing him. It reminded me a lot of real legal proceedings or court shows. Pretty amazing to see the influence he had on modern legal processes and how he fathered what we now call the Socratic method.