Plato’s “Apology” of Socrates is perhaps one of the most famous and most important works to have been produced in the classical age of Greek philosophy. Written as a speech in a legal proceeding, the defense of Socrates primarily concerns the philosopher’s justification in breaking the law against ‘impiety’ – for offending the Olympian gods recognized in the city’s festivals and other official activities. Socrates’s charge was that, in the way it was laid, Socrates had been carrying on his philosophical work in Athens long before the event in question. The Apology is a reconstruction of Socrates’s speech at the time, and, in doing so, Plato accomplishes a philosophical description of Socrates’s “search for meaning” and of truth. He makes Socrates respond sincerely to the charges as lodged. In so doing, Socrates takes the time to enlighten and guard his dedication to philosophy, and the specific ways he has followed that in discussions with young men and with prominent individuals in the city (Cooper and Hitchinson 17).
At the core of Socrates’s argument is his claim that, so far from offending the gods through his philosophizing and his theoretical thinking, or presenting disbelief in them, he has religiously followed their lead in making himself as the best person as he can and inspiring others to do the same. He argues that the gods want, more than anything, that we as human beings shall be good, and goodness depends principally upon the worth of our comprehension of what to care about and how to act in our own lives. Thus, philosophy, according to Socrates and through his style of discussion, is the pursuit of that understanding.
One of the more interesting ideas and concepts that Socrates delved upon in his apology is his search for meaning, truth, and knowledge. For Socrates, the role of philosophy is to inquire into the fundamental nature of the universe – to seek to uncover the laws of the world and seek answers to the foundational questions that define human existence. The inquisitive scholar may discern from this the value that Socrates lays on knowledge and the search for meaning. We learn from the Apology that Socrates does not know what virtue is. But he seems confident that he knows very well what we expect or hope for from virtue; he seems confident that he knows the power we expect it to have.
Plato himself adopts this philosophy, with his well-established quote: “Man is a being in search of meaning”. Deriving from Socrates’s arguments, Plato theorizes that the search for meaning is the fundamental activity of human existence. In one sense, meaning for Plato entails the interpretation of an individual’s life. People are naturally inclined like to tell stories about their identity in order to make sense of their lives. They do this for therapeutic reasons; telling stories relieves stress and unburdens an individual decimated by trauma. Telling stories also seems to be a basic mechanism in which people record information about thoughts, feelings, and experiences in memory and translate them to other persons. Thus, in the pursuit of creating meaning and a “world of meaning”, the individual begins to interpret his own meaning of people, places, and things.
The creation of meaning is may also be seen as a process for the expansion of the self. This second interpretation of meaning-making views it as a response to feelings of insignificance. In the context of human history or of the vast mass of people currently alive, one’s own life can seem insignificant. To negate this perception, people tend to identify themselves as a member of a large community rather than and individual. This community that has a past and a future, such as a family, profession, nation or religion.
Maybe the most forthright understanding of meaning is a search for one’s own goals and personal values. One’s decisions are created not out of thin air, but because we have made certain choices better than others. People don't always know what they want -- including what they want out of life. The resolution of such uncertainty (particularly when it comes to life goals, as opposed to, say, preferences between brands of tooth paste) is without a doubt one goal that people want to attain when they say that they are seeking meaning. Many personal growth programs appear to be focused on meaning making of this type. By creating meaning through these methods, the individual becomes concerned with making sense of his life directions and the values that he must pursue in order to live a good life. If gaining a sense of what one "really" wants eventually augments happiness, then this kind of meaning-making is consistent with utility growth.
Ultimately, Plato’s and Socrates’s emphasis on meaning making serves distinct primordial functions within the human psyche. These functions are often taken to be to improve our own selves, as functions of our innate desire for well-being and self-improvement (Leibowitz 23).
Works Cited
Plato. Complete Works. Ed. John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1997. Print.
Leibowitz, David. The Ironic Defense of Socrates. Cambridge: CUP, 2010. Print.
