August 28, 2013
A Reflection on Plato's Apology
This is the third time that I have read the Apology. That said, it had been over a year and a half since I last read it, so I decided to take my time and read the text as carefully as I would if I were reading it for the first time. I am glad that I did this for a number of reasons. First, I do not believe that I ever realized how poor Socrates's initial arguments against Meletus were. In 24b-24e, Socrates proposes an invalid argument against Meletus claim that he (Socrates) corrupts the youth. In response to Meletus, Socrates asks him to inform those gathered in the court who it is that improves the youth. When Meletus is silent, Socrates excoriates him and tells him that this shows that he has not really been concerned with whether or not Socrates has been corrupting the youth. Yet it simply does not follow that because Meletus claims that Socrates corrupts the youth that Meletus has to know who improves the youth. To get to that conclusion, Socrates's argument needs at least one more premise--namely, "if Meletus knows who corrupts the youth, then he also knows who improves them." From here we could claim that because Meletus does not know who improves the youth, he does not know who corrupts them. I realize that this is not quite the same thing as "has not been concerned about the issue," but it is at least closer and shows that Meletus is ill-suited to bring charges against Socrates because he does not actually know what he is talking about.
In a similar argument, Socrates claims that Meletus has wrongly brought charges against him, because he claims that Socrates and Socrates alone is corrupting the youth. I find Socrates's attempt to use an analogy from equestrian care (and eventually the claim that what applies to horse applies to all other animals) insufficient to establish his point. Far from showing that Meletus's claim is wrong by referencing others who clearly were corrupting the youth, Socrates says that just as horses do not have more than one person improving them, so too humans do not have more than one person improving them. Therefore, Meletus is wrong to say that all of Athens except for Socrates is improving the youth. But why should we think that this analogy is appropriate? Again, it would help if Socrates referred us at that point in his defense (25b-25c) to others who are clearly corrupting the youth. That would be sufficient to prove Meletus's claim false.
All of that being said, I do think that several of Socrates's arguments are quite good. I think that, for example, he really nails Meletus on his false charge that Socrate's does not believe in a god.
Two more comments and then I will stop. First, I think that Socrates's earlier claims about obeying the god would have been more powerful if he had mentioned the dreams and visions that Apollo had given as a further explanation for why he went around rebuking the people of Athens. His claim that the oracle said he was the wisest man does not mean that the oracle bade him (23b) to inquire of the wisdom of his fellow Athenians or to show them that they were not as wise as they thought. Second, I think that Socrates's comments regarding the inability to serve in political office and remain virtuous seem quite right. As he said, if one tries to live virtuously as a politician, one often is run-out of office because one is failing to adhere to the desires of one's colleagues. This, I believe, is remarkably sad, especially since the fact that Plato and Socrates held to this view means that this problem has been around a long time.
