The Last Days of Socrates

by Plato

  Not surprisingly for one brought up in an age when Pre-socratic philosophers and sophists made their mark in Athens, Socrates conceived of justice as a natural corrective force, operating throughout the cosmos and in the minds of men, not as a man-made institutional one. It was easy to see such views as subversive, and the Crito helps counter this impression. The Crito places great emphasis on Socrates’ acceptance of his obligations to Athenian law, not because that law is authoritative per se, but rather because higher law requires obedience to just agreements justly made, and an individual has agreed to abide by his city’s laws in choosing to reside there. It is left to the Apology (37e) to make it quite clear that the higher authority, associated with God and with the individual’s perception of what is right, takes precedence over this derived authority of the city’s laws.

  SOCRATES THE ATHENIAN

  How then did Socrates rate as an Athenian? Like many of his fellow citizens he expressed admiration for the government of Sparta,36 but other passages suggest that he thought well of his own city.37 He had no illusions about the dangers of democracy because he had seen too many of its excesses, and his philosophy tended to suggest that a chosen few would rule better than the many; but this translated into typically Athenian free expression of his ideas, not into the choice for some alien regime. Religions not traditional at Athens had a fascination for him, but he did not have an un-Athenian devotion to them.

  When it came to war the Apology (28e) shows how Socrates supported Athens in all that was expected of him. When it came to applying his principles in public duties he was just as firm (32a–d), and he expected others to be firm too (35c–d). He had no ambition for political leadership, but he offered intellectual leadership instead. And just as he saw death as the inevitable outcome of principled political endeavour, so it became the outcome of his social endeavours too. We cannot see him as a poor Athenian simply because he fell into disfavour with the Athenian people – so did Pericles, so too did Alcibiades. To be a great Athenian he had to be an inspiring figure, to fight at times against the tide, to risk being seen setting himself above the governing people. Socrates was an outstanding Athenian, and he paid the price for being one.

  But was it not particularly un-Athenian to get oneself condemned for deserting the city’s religion? As Michael Morgan has said, ‘The Athens of Socrates’ final years… was the scene of extreme religious heterogeneity and of intense unresolved conflict. The old and the new mingled. Festivals were celebrated with new sincerity by some, with offhand perfunctoriness by others.’38 In Socrates that conflict is mirrored – resolved even – in a single individual, who captures uniquely the spirit of his city in those turbulent times.

  Notes

  1. For instance, there is cross-examination of a witness in Andocides’ speech On the Mysteries, written within a year of the trial of Socrates.

  2. See Diogenes Laertius 3.49, probably drawing on Aristophanes of Byzantium whose arrangement of the corpus emphasized dramatic elements. See Chapter 4.iv of my Thrasyllan Platonism (Ithaca, 1993).

  3. The Penguin translation of Xenophon’s Socratic works has been updated and revised by Robin Waterfield (1990).

  4. Some fragments of Aeschines have been included as an appendix to the Penguin volume Plato: Early Socratic Dialogues, ed. T. J. Saunders (1987). Saunders’ introduction should be consulted for a fuller discussion of the nature of Socratic questions and conversations.

  5. ‘One should not believe Aristotle… when he says in the first book On Poetics (a mistake for On Poets) that dramatic dialogues had been written even before Plato by Alexamenos of Teos.’

  6. The fact that a single slave is invited to read an entire dramatic dialogue at Theaetetus 143c confirms that such works were not normally acted out by a plurality of readers.

  7. The important exception here is the Laches. Though ‘dramatic’, half the dialogue is over before the main philosophic conversation begins.

  8. On this topic see Gregory Vlastos, ‘The Socratic Elenchus’, in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1 (1983), pp. 27–74 and the essays in Gary A. Scott (ed.), Does Socrates Have a Method? Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato’s Dialogues and Beyond (University Park, 2002).

  9. Whereas Plato doubts if they are any more of a reflection than facts (erga), this is because facts as ordinarily conceived are viewed by Plato as a reflection of the true world in much the same way. Logoi and erga are both reflections of a single original (cf. Republic 509–11).

  10. The term for mathematical computation (logismós) is employed as a general term for ‘reasoning’ after the Meno, a work which makes much use of mathematics.

  11. For this rationale, see Diogenes Laertius 3.57, and the anonymous Prolegomena to Plato’s Philosophy 25. The ‘paradigm’ notion explains why these works should be separated from a work set immediately before the Euthyphro (Theaetetus) together with works set between it and the Apology (Sophist, Politicus).

  12. One might argue, likewise, that the Crito had done much to explain Socrates’ readiness to die; certainly Crito’s major speech shows that Plato is already responding to criticism of Socrates’ uncompromising tactics during and after the trial (45e), and the whole work justifies his readiness to face death rather than commit an act of injustice.

  13. Isocrates in his speech Against the Sophists of c. 390 BC, shortly before the Euthydemus, clearly has Socratic practitioners of eristic in mind.

  14. There has been much debate recently on the vexed question of whether Socrates or any other character can be regarded as a spokesman for Plato’s own views. See on this Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato (Lanham, 2000).

  15. At times this has resulted in a split in the figure of Socrates even within Platonic dialogues, most notably in the split between the surface-Socrates and the notorious alter ego of the Hippias Major. Also note the presence in the trio Theaetetus–Sophist–Politicus of young men, one of whom has the same name as Socrates and the other the same physical features.

  16. He does seem to set himself up as something of an expert in ‘erotics’ at Symposium 177d, etc., and Lysis 204c.

  17. In addition to the Apology, see Theaetetus 150c–151d.

  18. For a spirited defence of the view that Socratic irony is not outright dishonesty, see G. Vlastos, ‘Socratic Irony’, Classical Quarterly 37 (1987), 79–95. My own view would be somewhat less extreme than that of Vlastos.

  19. See here G. Vlastos, ‘Socrates’ Disavowal of Knowledge’, Philosophical Quarterly 35 (1985), 1–31.

  20. There is much discussion in the Charmides of the possibility that the virtue of sophrosyne (self-control, orderliness) might be a matter of self-knowledge and/or the ability to recognize knowledge/ignorance.

  21. My own recent work has shown that Socratic interrogation in the supposedly early dialogues are designed to test the interlocutor for knowledge rather than a theory for its truth or falsehood. However, I do not doubt that such a test has implications for Socrates’ thoughts on what is true and what is false. See my article in Scott, Does Socrates Have a Method?

  22. Theaetetus 150c–151d; Apology 33c.

  23. Note that Socrates also attributes his expertise in ‘erotics’ to God; Lysis 204c.

  24. Symposium 216c.

  25. cf. Apology 39c.

  26. See Euthyphro 11b–c, which, in making the statue-maker Daedalus his forebear, is less than conclusive in its support for the tradition. The story in the Theaetetus that his mother was a good midwife should not be taken as indicative that his mother had a career; see Tarrant, Classical Quarterly 38 (1988), 116–22.

  27. Note that the Parmenides depicts Socrates at around the age of twenty conversing with Parmenides and Zeno the Eleatics, but this work does not appear to be trying to tell us anything about Socrates and the story may have been invented to suit Plato’s dramatic purposes. In any case Socrates is not in charge of the argument here.

  28. He tells us in the Cratylus (384b–c) that he was unable to afford Prodicus’s f
ifty-drachma course, and had to settle instead for the one-drachma course.

  29. The earliest instance of this mentioned in the Symposium (220b–d) actually took place on this Thracian campaign.

  30. Laches 181a–b, 188c–189b; Symposium 220d–221b.

  31. See particularly Euthydemus 272c, where an allusion to Ameipsias’s play is highly probable.

  32. Here I am indebted to the work of Paul A. Vander Waerdt, whose own Chapter 2 in his collection The Socratic Movement (Cornell U.P., 1993) may usefully be consulted.

  33. Note that the agnosticism of Protagoras (fr. 4) suits the Socrates of the play less well than the more overt ‘atheism’ of Prodicus (fr. 5).

  34. In Archelaus there seems to be no appreciable separation of Intelligence from the material principles and no appreciable cosmic role for it as a result.

  35. See, for instance, the edition of K. J. Dover (Oxford, 1968).

  36. Hippias Major, 283c ff., Protagoras 342c ff., etc. – passages full of irony, but also Crito 52e.

  37. Protagoras 319b ff., Crito 52b.

  38. Platonic Piety (New Haven and London, 1990), p.20.

  Further Reading

  Literature on Plato is extensive. I have confined myself here to mentioning a number of works written in English, usually quite recent, which the reader may find to be of assistance. For information on more extensive bibliographies, please refer to p.381 of the Penguin volume entitled Plato: Early Socratic Dialogues (ed. T. J. Saunders, 1987), but note also the appearance of a more recent extensive bibliography on Socrates:

  Katz, Ellen L., and Navia, Luis E., Socrates: An Annotated Bibliography (London and New York, 1988).

  Adkins, A. W. H., Merit and Responsibility (Chicago and London, 1960).

  Allen, R. E., ‘Law and Justice in Plato’s Crito’, Journal of Philosophy 69 (1972), 557–67.

  — Plato’s Euthyphro and the Earlier Theory of Forms (New York, 1970).

  — Socrates and Legal Obligation (Minneapolis, 1980). Annas, Julia, ‘Plato’s Myths of Judgement’, Phronesis 27 (1982), 119–43.

  Arieti, J. A., ‘A Dramatic Interpretation of Plato’s Phaedo’, Illinois Classical Studies 11 (1986), 129–42.

  Ballard, E. G., Socratic Ignorance: An Essay on Platonic Self-Knowledge (The Hague, 1965).

  Barker, Andrew, ‘Why did Socrates Refuse to Escape?’, Phronesis 22 (1977), 13–28.

  Bedu-Addo, J. T., ‘Sense-experience and the Argument from Recollection in Plato’s Phaedo’, Phronesis 36 (1991), 27–60.

  Benitez, Eugenio (ed.), Dialogues with Plato (= Apeiron 29.4) (Edmonton, 1996).

  Benson, Hugh H., ‘The Dissolution of the Problem of the Elenchus’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 13 (1995), 45–112.

  Bostock, David, Plato’s Phaedo (Oxford, 1986).

  — ‘The Interpretation of Plato’s Crito’, Phronesis 35 (1990), 1–20.

  Brickhouse, Thomas C, and Smith, Nicholas D., ‘A Matter of Life and Death in Socratic Philosophy’, Ancient Philosophy 9 (1989), 155–66.

  — Plato’s Socrates (New York, 1994).

  — ‘Socrates and Obedience to the Law’, Apeiron 18 (1984), 10–18.

  — Socrates on Trial (Oxford, 1989).

  Burger, Ronna, The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth (New Haven, 1984).

  Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (Cambridge, Mass., 1985).

  Calef, Scott W., ‘Piety and the Unity of Virtue in Euthyphro 11e–14c’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 13 (1995), 1–26.

  Calvert, Brian, ‘Plato’s Crito and Richard Kraut’, in S. Panagiotou (ed.), Justice, Law and Method in Plato and Aristotle (Edmonton, 1987).

  Clay, Diskin, Platonic Questions: Dialogues with a Silent Philosopher (University Park, 2000).

  Cohen, Marc S., ‘Socrates on the Definition of Piety’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 9 (1971), 1–13.

  de Strycker, E., and Slings, S. R., Plato’s Apology of Socrates (= Mnemosyne Suppl. 137) (Leiden, 1994). Dorter, Kenneth, Plato’s Phaedo: An Interpretation (Toronto, 1982).

  — ‘Socrates on Life, Death and Suicide’, Laval Théologie et Philosophie 1976), 23–41.

  Dover, Kenneth J., Aristophanes’ The Clouds (Oxford, 1968).

  — Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1974).

  Easterling, P. E., and Muir, J. V. (eds), Greek Religion and Society (Cambridge, 1985).

  Frede, Dorothea, ‘The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato’s Phaedo 102a–107a’, Phronesis 23 (1978), 24–41.

  Friedländer, Paul, Plato (trans. H. Meyerhoff), 3 vols. (New York, 1958–69).

  Gallop, David, Plato’s Phaedo (Oxford, 1975).

  Gill, Christopher, ‘The Death of Socrates’, Classical Quarterly 23 (1973), 25–8.

  Gonzales, Francisco J., The Third Way: New Directions in Platonic Studies (Lanham, 1995).

  Gosling, J. C. B., Plato (London and Boston, 1973).

  — ‘Similarity in Phaedo 73 seq.’, Phronesis 10 (1965), 151–61.

  Gower, Barry S., and Stokes, Michael C. (eds), Socratic Questions: New Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates and its Significance (London, 1992).

  Griswold, Charles, Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings (New York, 1988).

  Gulley, Norman, The Philosophy of Socrates (New York, 1968).

  Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy, vols. 3 and 4 (Cambridge, 1969, 1975). Volume 3 is also available in two separate paperbacks, entitled Socrates and The Sophists (Cambridge, 1971).

  Hackforth, R. M., Plato’s Phaedo (Cambridge, 1955).

  Irwin, Terence H., Plato’s Ethics (Oxford, 1995).

  — Plato’s Moral Theory (Oxford, 1977).

  Kahn, Charles, ‘Did Plato write Socratic Dialogues?’, Classical Quarterly 31 (1981), 305–20.

  — Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form (Cambridge, 1996).

  — ‘Problems in the Argument of Plato’s Crito’, in Nature, Knowledge and Virtue, ed. T. Penner and R. Kraut (Edmonton, 1989), 22–44.

  Kerferd, G. B., The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge, 1981).

  Kraut, Richard, Socrates and the State (Princeton, 1983).

  Ledger, Gerard, Recounting Plato (Oxford, 1989).

  McAvoy, Martin, The Profession of Ignorance with Constant Reference to Socrates (Lanham, 1999).

  McPherran, Mark, ‘Socratic Piety in the Euthyphro’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 23 (1985), 283–309.

  — The Religion of Socrates (University Park, 1996).

  Montuori, Mario, Socrates, Physiology of a Myth, trans. J. M. P. and M. Langdale (Amsterdam, 1981).

  — ‘The Oracle given to Chaerephon on the Wisdom of Socrates’, Kernos 3 (1990).

  Morgan, Michael, Platonic Piety (New Haven and London, 1990).

  Navia, Luis E., Socrates: The Man and his Philosophy (Lanham, New York and London, 1985).

  Press, Gerald A. (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? (Lanham, 2000).

  Rankin, H. D., Sophists, Socratics and Cynics (London, 1983).

  Robinson, Richard, Plato’s Earlier Dialectic (Oxford, 1953).

  Robinson, T. M., Plato’s Psychology (Toronto, 1970).

  Rosen, Frederick, ‘Piety and Justice in Plato’s Euthyphro’, Philosophy 43 (1968), 105–16.

  Rowe, Christopher, and Schofield, Malcolm (eds), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (Cambridge, 2000).

  Rudebusch, George, Socrates, Pleasure, and Virtue (New York, 1999).

  Saunders, T. J. (ed.), Plato: Early Socratic Dialogues (Penguin, 1987).

  Schmid, W. Thomas, Plato’s Charmides and the Socratic Ideal of Rationality (Albany, 1998).

  Scott, Gary A. (ed.), Does Socrates Have a Method? Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato’s Dialogues and Beyond, (University Park, 2002).

  — Plato’s Socrates as Educator (Albany, 2000).

  Seeskin, Kenneth, Dialogue and Discovery: A Study in Socratic Method (Albany, 1987).

  Stokes, Michael C, Plato:
Apology of Socrates (Warminster, 1997).

  Stone, I. F., The Trial of Socrates (Boston, 1987).

  Tarrant, Harold, ‘Midwifery and The Clouds’, Classical Quarterly 38 (1988), 116–22.

  Taylor, A. E., Plato: The Man and his Work (London, 1960).

  — Socrates (Garden City, 1953).

  Taylor, C. C. W., ‘The End of the Euthyphro’, Phronesis 27 (1982), 109–18.

  Teloh, Henry, Socratic Education in Plato’s Early Dialogues (Notre Dame, 1986).

  Tredennick, Hugh, and Waterfield, Robin (eds), Xenophon: Conversations of Socrates (Penguin, 1990).

  Vander Waerdt, Paul A., The Socratic Movement (Ithaca, 1993).

  Versenyi, Lazlo, Holiness and Justice: An Interpretation of Plato’s Euthyphro (Lanham, New York and London, 1982).

  Vlastos, Gregory, ‘Is the “Socratic Fallacy” Socratic?’, Ancient Philosophy 10 (1990), 1–16.

  — ‘Socrates’ Disavowal of Knowledge’, Philosophical Quarterly 35 (1985), 1–31.

  — Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge, 1991).

  — ‘Socrates on Obedience and Disobedience’, Yale Review 42 (1974), 517–34.

  — ‘Socratic Irony’, Classical Quarterly 37 (1987), 79–95.

  — Socratic Studies (Cambridge, 1994).