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Reading Response To Plato's 'The Apology'

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Noor Toshani Professor Strom-Olsen Political Theory I 28th September 2014 Reading Response – The Apology The Apology introduces us to Plato’s account of Socrates as he negotiates his life before an indictment placed upon him by Meletus, among others who were resentful and offended by Socrates’ defiance of their wisdom. Socrates’ charge is “corrupting
the young, and not believing in the gods in whom the
city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel.” (24b) When informed that he is indeed the wisest by the oracle, Socrates embarked on a journey to refute or confirm this prophecy, and in doing so, came to realize that he is not wisest because he knows all, but his wisdom stems from his recognition that he does not know what he does not know. His experimentations rewarded him with hate from those who were subjected to them and those surrounded by them. Youth became attracted to his examinations and began to carry out their own, thus irritating many. Socrates ponders that “those examined by them are angry at me, not at themselves, and they say that Socrates is someone most disgusting and that he corrupts the young.” (23c) …show more content…

“When the rulers whom you elected to rule me stationed me in Potidaea and Amphipolis and at Delium, I stayed then where
they stationed me and ran the risk of dying like anyone else.” (28d) He continues to uphold his position and belief that this is his divine calling when he says “I, men of Athens, salute you and love you, but I will
obey the god rather than you; and as long as I breathe and am
able to, I will certainly not stop philosophizing, and I will exhort
you and explain this to whomever of you I happen to meet, and I will speak just the sorts of things I am accustomed

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In the Apology by Plato, Socrates defends himself against his accusers in court, and begins by declaring that he is not an especially great speaker but that he only speaks the truth. In this, he tells his accusers that they should not fear him but only the truth itself. In the depiction of Socrates' last speech, he makes a bold claim that he has been deemed the wisest man in Athens by the god of Delphi ( Plato, ., Jowett, n.d. ). He goes on to explain that while he searched for those that thought themselves wise,

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A: III. The Apology of Plato: what was Socrates saying? A comparison and contrast of the rhetorical strategy of Socrates in FS 11, Plato’s Apology to the rhetorical strategy of the speaker in the Athenian law court speech you read for your report. Find all you can that is unconventional and counter conventional in what Socrates says.

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Socrates says, “But either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally… if my offense is unintentional, the law does not mention unintentional offenses.” (Apology 39). Athens puts Socrates on trial for corrupting the youth, which, in reality is a debatable offence purely rooted on personal opinion. Socrates says that he was never intentionally trying to corrupt people’s minds. By saying this in his defense, he is allowing Athenians to now rethink about what he has truly taught them and realize that the only way he could have corrupted people’s minds, were if they took what he said the wrong way.

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He mentioned that he would worship the idea of asking them questions, discuss his sufferings to others. He believed that he would win either way because he would be living a better life of finding out who is wide and he could continue his search for true and false knowledge. His arguments are valid because after he states his beliefs, he explains why he thinks what he thinks to be true. He created the theory of, “Either death is a state of nothing ness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world by another” (Plato).

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New accusers say that Socrates corrupts the youth and does not believe in the gods of the State, and has new divinities of his own. To defend himself against these charges, Socrates asks Meletus some questions. As a result, Meletus is shown to be contradicting himself and making accusations that are absolutely absurd. To the question “Who are the improvers of the youth?” Meletus replies that they are all citizens, but not Socrates, arguing that he is only one who is corrupting them.

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“ Either I do not corrupt the young or, if I do, it is unwillingly, and you are lying in either case” (Apology 31) Socrates believes that if he presents a point to the

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For this week's journal entry, I would like to bring up the idea of "wisdom" in reference to Plato's Apology.  Personally, I find that the way in which Socrates defends is wisdom is admirable, and although it leads to the verdict of him being killed, I think that this decision and the reaction by Socrates helps define wisdom. Socrates, in essence, says that he does not fear death because he is wise.  No one knows what death is -- perhaps it may be the best thing a person gets to experience. However, a person that is unwise would approach death into thinking that it is the worst thing that can happen in life.

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Here is my first piece of evidence to support my point. “I happen to be a gift of the god to the city; and this is how you can tell: Unlike most people, I have neglected all my own interests, and I’ve put up with this private neglect for so many years, while always attending to your business.” (Lines 108-111) In the quote stated above, Socrates claims that even with the annoyance people found in him, he pursued in his mission to help the people. Even though he had to give up his interests and hobbies, he did not give up his mission and focused on his work with the people all those years.

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“…if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death: then I should be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of the unknown: since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good” (Apology, 29a-29b). This potent statement not only highlights Socrates’ wisdom, it effectively makes use of his belief that he is wise because he knows nothing. By saying that he knows nothing of the afterlife, it gives him the reason to illustrate to his audience that he cannot fear what he does not know.

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There are many in this world who have died innocently for what they believed in and for taking actions to make a change in their society for the greater good. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in equality for all races in the United States and lead the Civil Rights Movement for African Americans. He also believed in education and in values of morality based on religion and conscience. Socrates believed in searching for the truth, in rhetoric, in questioning the world, the meaning of life, and reaching the virtue of knowledge. Both of them carried on actions that would attempt to surpass the status quo of the mentality of the society they lived in.

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In the reading of “Plato Apology”, Socrates’ vindicates what he values and beliefs to a jury to prove his innocence. Indeed, Miletus a poet, Anytus a craftsmen and Lycon a politician brought an oral charges against Socrates’ attested him of impiety and corrupting youth, required him to appear before the King Archon the legal

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Making enemies and becoming the topic of conversation, the Athenians began to view Socrates as a threat to their beliefs and way of life and sought to end it. In order to end this, Socrates was accused of blasphemy (Mod1SlideC7). Socrates’s accusers took him to court and after Socrates did not play their game by asking to be sent into exile, and in the end, he was sentenced to death. After reading the textbook and Plato’s writing influenced by Socrates, I realized that in the period of his life Socrates was indeed truly a threat to the Athens society, because he looked for answers that no one else bothered to find which challenged their culture.

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I think that it is a little ironic that Socrates, the man who was all about intellect, had an intellectual error. Socrates was a man who focused on the truth, and unfortunately he failed to realize that the truth might not be what everyone else was focused on. In relation to what I stated earlier here is some in text evidence; Socrates said “to disregard the manner of my speech- it doesn't matter how it compares- and to consider and concentrate your attention upon this one question, whether my claims are

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Socrates was a great philosopher of the Greek world. He was quite an atypical and distinctive person. Being different from all the other philosophers of the land, Socrates was teaching his students ideas totally out of the ordinary from what the society believed was right. As a result, he displeased many people so much that they decided to get rid of him. Socrates was put to trial, accused of spoiling the youth of Athens, tried and sentenced to death.

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