It was personal resentment towards Socrates that brought him apologizing to the Athenian judicial system, than anything else. Socrates was charged for being a sophist for his way to present the weaker arguments as the strongest, and physicalist because he investigated things that lie in the skies and beneath the earth. However, Socrates responds with masterly eloquence. He says that that the most dangerous Athenian citizens are those who manipulate young minds and fill them with falsehoods about “one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause” (Jowett). Both Meletus and Anytus accused Socrates of corrupting the youth and impiety and wanted Socrates to be sentenced to death for those charges. Using his art, Socrates starts defending himself by saying that it is preposterous to accuse a single man of corrupting the youth, implying that everybody else is helping the youth. With a clever set of questions to Meletus, Socrates challenges Meletus to tell who the improver of the youth is since he had gone to such trouble to discover the corrupter. With Maletus’ silence, Socrates proved that Meletus had no particular concern in the matter and only tries to make fun of a serious matter, bringing other men to trial.
As for the charge for impiety, Socrates uses the question-answer pattern again to drive Meletus to the conclusion Socrates wanted from the start. Socrates is being accused of not believing in the gods “which the state acknowledges” (Jowett), but some other divinities. Socrates asks Meletus to tell the court whether he has brought Socrates in front of the jury for teaching others to acknowledge some gods, hence is a complete atheist or believe in different gods than others. When Meletus replies positively to the first claim (Socrates being an atheist), Socrates defends himself using Anaxagoras the Clazomenian’s books. He tells that the doctrines Meletus accuses Socrates of are found in Anaxagoras’ books and that the judges are not ignorant to have not known that. In other words, Socrates does not tell the youth something that they already do not know. He also claims that no one corrupts the youth voluntarily because an evil act leads to evil. It would be as if Socrates wanted to hurt himself by hurting the youth, which is irrational; and, if by any chance, Socrates corrupted the youth unintentionally, he should be educated and not brought to court for it.
Socrates’ role in the Athenian society is like that of a gadfly’s to a horse. The gadfly does not allow the horse to go to sleep or become sluggish. Like the gadfly, Socrates also tries to prevent the Athenians from becoming careless, sluggish and rather arrogant thinking that they know it all, when it fact they do not. He has admitted that the only thing he knows is that he knows nothing, which is the greatest wisdom for a sophist to admit. The search for the things he does not know, including other divinities, the sky and the things beneath the earth makes him a researcher and not a sophist or atheist. If God is the wisest of all, no man should ever claim that they know everything, because they would only be foolish to be unaware of their true ignorance. Being humble and trying to acquire knowledge makes a human wiser. The Socratic Wisdom unveiled as Socrates’ speech went on, for his persuasive skills seem to present serious counter-claims to what he was accused of. He made his audience feel pity for him by mentioning that he is a senior and that he has children. He also says that he deserves free meals for the remaining of his life, because he had been offering his services to the City entirely for free his whole life. Moreover, at the age of 70, Socrates would soon meet death, and Athens should bear the heavy burden of condemning an old man. This must have intimidated his audience and accusers. Another thing is that Socrates mentions that he could have won his case if only he had manipulated the emotions of those listening and judging, which he says he did not do, and that he preferred to speak only the truth. We all know that he did, actually! Another example of his clever mind. He “plays” with words and drives people’s thought to where he wants. If it was on me to decide, I would free Socrates of his charges, because, to me, his claims are cleverly expressed and rational.
References:
Plato (399 BC), “The Apology”. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Retrieved Jan. 26, 2014 from: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html
