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Double Jeopardy

“Be sure that if you kill the sort of man I say I am, you will not harm me more than yourselves.”

***

“On the other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day, testing themselves and others — for the unexamined life is not worth living for men, you will believe me even less.”
Socrates, of The Apology is an eloquent figure who is an unrivaled guide to the good life – the thoughtful life, and he is as relevant today as he was in ancient Athens. The Socrates presented here, cruder and perhaps more self-absorbed than in the other dialogues could still be an important key to the entire Platonic corpus, tying together many of the disparate themes and apparently contradictory conclusions of the other dialogues.

The Apology is a bold and determined argument in favor of Socrates and of the life he represents; it is also a straight conviction of the ‘democracy’ that convicted him, convicting themselves in the process. In addition to being a celebration of Socrates, the Apology serves as a crucial introduction to Plato’s own thinking. What it represents above all is philosophy as Socrates (or Plato, if we want to be fastidious about it), understood and wished to promote it. The Apology is the introductory course.

The traditional English title, ‘The Apology’ does little justice to the content of this dialogue. The Greek ‘apologia’ means ‘defense’ and not the modern ‘apology’ as translations render it, and that is what Plato undertakes here - to defend Socrates as well as he can against the charges that were leveled against him, the charges for which was eventually convicted. But the work is not only, or even primarily, a defense against the specific charges on which Socrates stood trial. By setting those charges in the wider context of morality and the meaning of life, Plato in this “Apology” provides a rationale for the whole Socratic way of life, and thus of a defense of philosophy itself.

The Apologia of Socrates

The Apologia comprises two main components (one minor speech, on the death penalty, is omitted from discussion in this review):

1. Socrates’ main defense (17a-35d)

2. Socrates’ address to the jury, after being sentenced to death (38c-42a)

— In effect, The Plea & The Final Statement.



Socrates starts off logically, breaking up his accusers into the proximate and the ultimate accusers: the ones who have brought the charge against him being the ‘new’ ones and the ones like Aristophanes who have slandered him for years now being the ‘old’ ones. He makes and important point here about the absurdity of being given only such a limited amount of time to defend against charges that were propagated and insinuated into the jury’s beliefs over so many years. This calls to mind the trial-by-media that is so popular today and the issue of how much the judges of today can stay apart from pre-conviction by automatic-infusion of prejudice in popular cases.

Socrates carries on this vein and presents his arguments as an imaginary dialogue between him and his chief accuser (Meletus), ridiculing him and showing up the anti-logic of the accusations. Here, Socrates makes Meletus seem almost like a straw man, against whom victory is won too easily to be convincing - and this is often taken as a fault in Plato’s writing itself. But we need to look a bit more closely at Plato's strategy. The ‘primary’ charges of atheism and religious innovation are answered superficially because they were themselves superficial, a mere front to conceal the true motives of the prosecution. Socrates refers directly to this in the important opening section of his speech, where he replies to his 'earlier accusers'. It is these earlier accusers, who were exposed by his rational method to be following a morally subversive lifestyle that wants to get rid of him. The proximate Meletus is a mere cover to this ultimate reason for the trial. Socrates shows this cowardly subterfuge well-deserved contempt.

But we soon realize that he moves on from this refutal of charges, which he obviously considers to be frivolous and not worth wasting the time of the Athenian public on (In democratic Athens, juries were randomly selected representatives of the whole people. Hence, as Socrates makes clear, he is addressing the democratic people of Athens). He instead utilizes the bulk of his speech to concentrate on explaining what he does, why he does it and how in fact it benefits the city as a whole. Staying true to his life’s mission to the last breath.



Hence, this dialogue starts first, of course, as a defense, then it turns into a description of the philosophical life, as embodied by Socrates. This description then evolves into, and becomes indistinguishable from, an exhortation to everyone – whether jurors, the people of Athens or modern readers – to live philosophically. And finally it serves as a primer on Plato’s own philosophy and writing - as the later dialogues mimic the ideas, methods and themes ‘Socrates’ lays out in this account of his life and goals.

The Death of Socrates

In death, Socrates gives us another important clue towards understanding Platonic thought. Plato speaks at length in The Republic about how men’s conception of death has to be altered for them to be able to live courageously. As long as they fear death, they will not be able to live with courage. Here, in death, Socrates compares himself to the fear-less hero Achilles, who embraced death in spite of a direct prophesy that foretold death as the outcome of his victory. This is a very important comparison and worth dissecting a bit:

Why does Achilles not fear death? Ordinary people can only perceive this as a heroic abnegation of life for some higher principle. This makes that sort of courage unattainable to most. As long as you care for earthly possessions and expect death to be bad, you will never have the courage to do the right things even in the face of death. Crucially, Socrates points out that both these assumptions are baseless. He asks us how we know that death is bad and that life’s possessions are good. Instead he seems to be saying that our fear of death and lack of courage arises from a fear of what will happen after death. This though directly connects to the Republic where Socrates wants his city’s mythologies to be modified so that a pleasant life awaits us after death, hence the people of the Republic can be courageous without having to call on Achilles-like heroism, or on Socrates-like Temperance.

Hence, in The Apology Socrates asks the best of us - to choose between Heroism and Renunciation - an impossible ask; but a more mature Plato in The Republic tells us that he will take away the source of our fear, that is the only way he can expect men to be courageous.

Double Jeopardy

True to the last to his philosophical calling, Socrates addresses his plea and his last statement not to the Jury alone but to the entire Athenian public, and even, we can say, to the entire human race. He required of us that we think, honestly and dispassionately, and decide the truth of these charges by reasoning from the facts as they were.



This was Socrates’ final challenge: to care more for our minds, our power of reason, than for our luxury and comfort, undisturbed by the likes of “Gadflies” like him, disturbing our slumbers. We can see then that The Trial and Death of Socrates is in fact The Trail and Death of Reasoned Opinions that challenge the established order of comfort and luxury, and has been reenacted many many times since then and to our day.

In an ironic case of double jeopardy, Socrates is still on trial for the same offense. Seen in this light, as Plato wants us to see it, the failure is ours, as much as the ancient Athenians.
“So I am certainly not angry with those who convicted me, or with my accusers.

This much is all I ask of my accusers: when my sons grow up, avenge yourselves by causing them the same kind of grief that I caused you, if you think they care for money or anything else more than they care for virtue, or if they think they are somebody when they are nobody.

Reproach them as I reproach you, that they do not care for the right things and think they are worthy when they are not worthy of anything. If you do this, I shall have been justly treated by you, and my sons also.

Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one.”