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Book Report APOLOGY In the? Apology? , Socrates tackles his accusers against certain accusations made against him in the Court of Law of Athens, Greece. The nature of the accusation that has caused him to stand trial is such that? Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others? (Plato.
The Republic and other plays. pg- 449. Doubleday publishing; New York- 1989). Socrates begins with first identifying the type of accusers he has, which consist of those who are in direct contention with him, the primary accusers, since they are the ones who contrived the accusations. Then there are those who accuse simply because they believe in the accusations, which in form of rumors, have been festering into their minds for so long that no longer do they let their rationale decide the authenticity of the accusations. The later kind is the one Socrates feels sorry for, because they did not bother look into the nature of the accusations themselves and have blindly accepted them to be true.
These secondary accusers also consist of those who are holding grudges against Socrates on old matters. Thus the gist of? Apology? is the battle of good and evil, of truth and lies, where Socrates is hoping that the people of Athens will recognize his bona fide intention to do good. The primary accusers are namely Meets, who has a quarrel with Socrates on behalf of the poets; Anytus, on behalf of the craftsmen, and Lycos, on behalf of the rhetoricians. Socrates does away with each of them by revealing the false nature of each accusation.
One of the accusations is that Socrates is an evil-doer where Socrates points out that it is the good-doer who is rare to find just like the trainer of the horses (Plato. pg- 454). He then explains that if he was corrupting others, he too would have been corrupted long ago and there would be no good left. Also he rebuttals the charge of not believing in Gods while believing in higher divinities. The charge, he shows how ludicrous was indeed in nature since how can anyone believe in flute playing and not the flute player (Plato, pg- 457). How can one believe in spiritual and divine agencies, and not in spirits or demigods?
But ultimately Socrates? defense is his self-lessens. He attributes his deeds to his duty towards God. He makes it clear that the obligation to truth is far more closer to God than any other social one that is marked by malice. His poverty, his unchanging and impartial ways that he followed all his life to search for the truth and when having found it, give it to others without taking into consideration what the government in power would say or do about it in itself is an evidence and a virtue that rises above all others to prove him innocent. His defense is simple and artless because it is the truth, within which some more properties emerge.
One of these can be identified as the simplicity of truth and the other is its universality. Truly, although several impugn Socrates of wrong-doing and misguiding the youth, he was not the first or the last one tried on such a charge. This points to the nature of truth to be unchanging. Despite all the advances a society may claim to having made, or convince its citizens to look at things with a perspective beneficial to the state, one can see why immutability so much moved the likes of Plato and Aristotle. The metaphysics of Socrates is soft dualism, since he acknowledges the material world and its role towards the transcendent, God. The epistemology is moderate realism where sensible world is knowable and knowledge of transcendent-intelligible reality inferred from sense knowledge of physical world.
The ethics are of Natural Law where the sense world is valued as ordered to the spiritual realm. The philosophy of Human Nature is soul-body dualism where both: human body and soul are acknowledged. Although Socrates seems to consider both possibilities: one of simply an unknown unconscious state and one of a transcendent state where he would be united with the Gods, in both cases he recognizes the goodness that lies in death. Thus his conclusion affirms and convinces the goodness in the nature of the created universe as Socrates puts it, ? no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death? (Plato, pg- 470). The political and social implications are personalism where person is both individual and social.
Individual possesses intrinsic dignity by virtue of relation to the Absolute. Personal dignity is a given, as inviolable which is neither self-determined nor determined by state. Primary obligation, Socrates makes it clear, is to God from which flow natural duties to others in family and community. The state should recognize the individual?
s obligation to the transcendent and do nothing to impede it, if not able to foster it. The state should recognize all rights that spring out of obligation to the transcendent, God. Personal Commentary: Socrates, I realized was not the first or the last one to face such crisis in his lifetime and meet such an end for speaking the truth. I was able to identify the parallels between him and others of his like, namely Jesus Christ, Galileo, William Wallace, Spartacus etc. who too were persecuted or died as martyrs for what they believed in was true and right. Based on the same worldview as the author?
s worl view, I specifically found the following quote energizing and uplifting instantly and recognized it since William Wallace utters similar words in the movie Brave Heart, ? and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death? (Plato, pg- 467). Bibliography Republic and other works, Plato
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