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At the age of seventy Socrates was before five hundred Athenians in the court of law. Over his seventy years this was his first appearance in court. However, Socrates had allegations against him earlier in his life of being a Sophist. According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Sophist is defined as; a paid teacher of the Ancient-Greek philosophy and rhetoric (public speaking); meaning a human being who interrogates others tending to discover imperfection and formulate insignificant and extreme criticism. Two other earlier charges Socrates was accused of was aggravating citizens with his continuous cross examination of people who thought they held wisdom, to establish their ignorance and teaching the young men of Athens because they copied his form of method known to the Greek as elenchus.
Elenchus is defined as being the technique of Socrates questioning in a series of questions and answers by which the conversation can be controlled. Although, there was no truth in these allegations to prosecute him, those who accused him won by default because Socrates had no one to defend him. Socrates came up with a solution while in front of the jury to solve the problems of his earlier charges by addressing the allegations before the actual charges were introduced. Being accused of performing a sophist technique because he devoted his time to showing people the limitations of their knowledge amongst his community, was one of the reasons why Socrates earlier charges formed. He admitted a fee was never charged for his wisdom and declared he was not an expert of knowledge.
The fact was that there was nothing in any of these charges; and if it was heard that anyone had said he tried to educate people and charge a fee, there was no truth in that. Although, Socrates did believe that it was a fine thing if a man had the ability to teach, as in the case of Gorgias of Leon tini, Products of Ceos and Hippias of Elis. Socrates confessed he was not capable of sharing his wisdom to the privilege level of receiving money for his educating. In addition to his confession Events of Paros, a true sophist was introduced. Socrates was fascinated by this mans wisdom that it gave him the sense of understanding his own ignorance of not knowing how to educate when it came to beyond human qualities which lead to his declaration that even though he did have wisdom and would certainly become a proud and gentlemanly figure if he understood these things; but in fact, he did not. Despite the fact Socrates was talented enough to share his wisdom with others he acknowledged he was not at the same stage of those who charged a fee for their intelligence.
During Socrates life one of his boyhood friends, Chaerephon, went on a mission questioning the god at Delphi about Socrates wisdom and he was not Socrates was the wisest of all men. This is the reason behind Socrates developing his form of method. That is why he went about seeking and searching in obedience to the divine command, if he thought that anyone was wise, whether citizen or stranger; and when he decided that he was not wise, he tried to assist the god by providing that he was not this was carried out to develop the truth about Socrates wisdom to discover if he was indeed the wisest man alive. By performing this action he aggravated citizens with his elenchus technique which produced the truth in their wisdom to prove their ignorance. Since Socrates was able to acknowledge his ignorance, he believed he must have been the wisest man. The exchange of knowledge to the young men of Athens was an addition to Socrates earlier charges.
He had a well developed talent of rhetorical skills which was copied by the youth of Athens which let the accusers assume that Socrates taught his own brand of rhetorical tricks. He believed educating the youth with his wisdom was not an action he participated in. Although, he did confess they may have heard his method while going about his oracle mission and copied it simply because they enjoyed hearing other people cross-questioned. The reason why he was accused of teaching the youth of Athens was because the citizen who was questioned began to be annoyed since their questioner was also able to prove they were not definitely wise as they believed they were. The youth were able to discover their ignorance through the continuous questioning which was judged to be a philosophy of Socrates. Socrates had to face a lot of unpopularity over his seventy years which made the decision of solving the problems of his earlier charges easier by addressing them before the actual charges were confronted to the jury.
It was necessary for Socrates to remind the jury of the earlier charges he faced and was not prosecuted for, because he had to deal with these allegations first. By addressing the earlier charges before the actual charges were dealt with he was able to rid the gentlemen's minds of a false impression which was work of many years Socrates felt he had to deal with these allegations before the actual charges for a better defence in his case. It was necessary for Socrates to address his earlier charges of being a sophist, aggravating citizens with his elenchus method and teaching the youth of Athens before the actual charges were confronted. The reason was decided because Socrates had to live with the earlier charges for many years and he had to ensure the people who were judging him would not use his earlier charges against him.
He had to make sure their thoughts about his earlier charges were confronted and refreshed to allow him to have a fair trial on his actual charges.
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