The Failed (?) Rhetoric of Socrates – Identification, Non-conformity, and Subtle Criticism of the Court in Plato’s Apology of Socrates

Reviewed by: Plato's Apology of Socrates: A Literary and Philosophical Study with a Running Commentary Thomas C. Brickhouse Emile De Stryker and S. R. Slings. Plato's Apology of Socrates: A Literary and Philosophical Study with a Running Commentary. Leiden, New York, and Koln: E. J. Brill, 1994. xvii + 405 pp. Cloth, $103 (US). (Mnemosyne Supplement 137) Most of this book was written by Father E. de Stryker over a period of some thirty years and had not been completed when he died in 1978. After de Stryker's death, one of his students, Ferdinand Bossier, worked on the manuscript for several years only to abandon it when a publisher could not be found. Apparently, the manuscript sat untouched for some time until, in 1988, Professor S. R. Slings of the Free University at Amsterdam agreed to finish the project. Slings' contribution was to revise, edit, and, in places, correct de Stryker's research. Slings also added some forty pages of text and a number of footnotes. This brief account of how this book came into being helps to explain one of its [End Page 487] primary defects: much of the book, particularly the discussions of the philosophical views expressed in the Platonic Apology, is not informed by the many enormously helpful studies in Socratic studies published in the last quarter century. In fairness, Slings did revise certain sections in the light of recent work. But, in general, he saw little need to improve upon de Stryker's analyses. Of the one hundred and ten works Slings lists as "cited more than once," only fifteen were published since 1978. Of those fifteen, nine bear on Apology, and most of those only tangentially. According to his "Preface," de Stryker set out to produce a "supplement" to Burnet's edition of Plato's Apology (Plato's Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and Crito, with Notes, Oxford University Press, 1924), which de Stryker regarded as the single greatest work on Socrates' famous speech. Nevertheless, de Stryker thought Burnet's otherwise excellent notes needed updating and expanding. Moreover, existing commentaries failed in three key respects. They did not adequately explore the rich philosophical implications of the text; they did not appreciate the Platonic Apology as a magnificently crafted piece of fourth–century literature; and they did not understand that the importance of Apology as a philosophical work is inseparable from the literary qualities of the speech. To remedy these defects, de Stryker sought to provide a careful analysis of the "composition" of Apology, the composition being ". . . the way in which the structure is worked out in detail: each idea gets its proper place and emphasis, and the relations of the parts to one another give the whole its articulation on the one hand, and its unity on the other" (6). For de Stryker, one must first understand the speech's composition if we are to understand why it is so compelling. Slings remained faithful to de Stryker's general approach and his central assumption about the importance of the speech's composition to its persuasiveness. As de Stryker had intended, the book is divided into two parts. The first part consists of an introductory chapter followed by ten chapters of analysis and interpretation. These essays carry the burden of proving our authors' thesis that Apology is a philosophical and a literary masterpiece. The second part consists of ten sections of notes in which some aspect of virtually every line of the speech is discussed. Many of the notes draw comparisons between constructions in Apology and in other Platonic writings as well as in other fifth– and fourth–century works. The most significant inference de Stryker and Slings draw from their analysis of the composition of the Platonic Apology is that the work is largely, though not entirely, the product of Plato's imagination. Although they never make clear just how much of the work is fiction, it is enough in their judgment to falsify what is often called the "historicity thesis," according to which Plato's version is, in some sense, a report of what the historical Socrates actually said to the jury at his trial. Against the historicity thesis, de Stryker and Slings...

In Plato’s Apology of Socrates we see a philosopher in collision with his society—a society he nonetheless claims to have benefited through his philosophic activity. It has often been asked why democratic Athens condemned a philosopher of Socrates' character to death. This anthology examines the contribution made by Plato’s Apology of Socrates to our understanding of the character of Socrates as well as of the conception of philosophy Plato attributes to him. The 11 chapters offer complementary readings of the Apology, which through their different approaches demonstrate the richness of this Platonic work as well as the various layers that can be discerned in its presentation of Socrates. While the contributions display variety in both topics and angles, they also share common features: An awareness of the importance of the literary aspects of Plato’s courtroom drama, as well as a readiness to take into consideration the historical context of the work. Thereby they provide contributions to a manifold understanding of the aims and impact of the work, without losing sight of the philosophical questions that are raised by Socrates’ confrontational and unrepentant defense speech. Allowing the character of Socrates to take center stage, the chapters of this volume examine the philosopher in relation to ethics, and to politics and democracy, as well as to the ideology, religion, and virtue shared by the Athenians. Readers will also find reflections on classical Platonic subjects such as the nature of Socratic philosophical inquiry and of philosophy itself, as well as on the notoriously ambiguous relationships between philosophy, sophistry and rhetoric, and their several relationships to truth and justice. The anthology emphasizes and explores the equivocal and sometimes problematic aspects of Socrates as Plato presents him in the Apology, illuminating why the Athenians let the verdict fall as they did, while drawing out problematic features of Athenian society and its reaction to Socrates’ philosophic activity, thereby encouraging reflection on the role philosophy can play in our modern societies.

Law and the Moral Paradox in Plato's Apology* RONALD F. HATHAWAY 1. ASSUMPTIONS LET US SUPPOSE, in agreement with the oldest tradition, that the dialogues of Plato are Socratic? Let us suppose that every philosophic question presented in the dialogues as fundamental can be made intelligibleonly in terms of the Socratic standpoint. Let us further suggest that the heart of the Socratic standpoint is the view that although nature and law (nomos) axe not in harmony with one another them exists a philosophic preservation of right through reason which if scrupulously followed will bring about a kind of harmony .between nature and law or a natural justice.2 Then it is argued that Plato's Apology is the firstplace in which one can see the principal problem posed by the Socratic standpoint, the puzzling nexus of law and the Socratic moral paradox. The first part of Socrates' questioning (erotesis)of Meletus is based on a paradox which in this carefully chosen context places the maximum possible claim upon law for its sonse of mercy and justice,a claim which ifallowed to stand would seemingly undermine the entire meaning and role of punishment in law? Contrary to the bias of modern commentary, there is nothing "'accidental" or merely occasional about the moves of Socrates here; his questioning of Meletus is intended to be an archetype and a paradigm. In order to show this point clearly, it will be necessary firstto correct three mi.~leading assumptions about the Apology currently in vogue and next to propose a working definition of a paradox. To begin with, the titleof the Apology is wrong; it is not an "apology." Socrates does not excuse himself. The right rendering of its titleis,as many scholars have * I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Thomas Schrock for reading earlier versions of this paper. Plat. Epist., II, 314c3-4; Aristot[e, De arte poet., I, 7-9, 1447b lI; Aristotle, De part. anon., I, 1, 642a28-31; Cicero, De oratore. [[I, 15, 60, 67, 72; Academica, I, 16-17; II (Lucullus), 74; De fin., V, 84; D. L. Socrates. II, 47; D.G. 567, 1-4. Cf. Rep., VI, 501b 1-7 with Laws, IX, 874e7-875d 5; Laws, X, 889e-890a with the sequel; Crat., 390c2-11. Cf. Xenophon, Mere., I, vi 15; Dio Chrysostom, IH De regnoo 29-41. s George Anastaplo, "Human Being and Citizen, A Beginning to the Study of Plato's Apology of Socrates," Ancients and Moderns: Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss, ed. J. Cropsey (New York, 1964), p. 18: "Socrates' argument . . . denies the possibilities . . . perhaps even of any legRimate criminal law." Cf. Arthur W. H. Adklns, Merit and Responsibility (Oxford, 1960), pp. 304-308, for a brief sketch of Plato's treatment of punishment. [127] 128 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY noted, 4 Defense of Socrates, and I shall hereafter refer to it as the Defense. Defenses and excuses are different things. Second, the Defense, invariably called one of the dialogues of Plato, is obviously not a dialogue but a work of forensic or protrcptic rhetoric, s The ancient view that the Defense is a "declaration" of what it means to be a philosopher e captures the surface ambiguity of the work, which is deeper than rhetoric, regarded as persuading to believe with words, and shallower than philosophy, regarded as pursuing truth with valid arguments. The dialogues of Plato differ from the Defense in one cardinal point. The dialogues are investigations of things, not of men. The unknown, the quae~tio of the Defense can be answered with a yes or no, guilty or not guilty, but the unknowns or quaestiones of the dialogues cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. It may be objected that further consideration would show that the Defense raises philosophic questions. Yet as a point of departure it would be a mistake to treat a speech in defense as something other than it is, a philosophic investigation. The third false assumption is that the style of the Defense or other adduced historical evidence is sufficient proof that Plato, at the time of writing, was naive as a philosopher...

In Plato's Apology of Socrates, Socrates claims that any just person who becomes involved in politics will be destroyed by the multitude and that the philosopher must therefore lead a private life. I argue that Socrates' elaboration of his relation to the political community, especially in the trial of the generals of Arginusae and the arrest of Leon, raises more questions than a cursory reading can answer both with respect to the logical structure of the argument in the Apology and in comparison with other Socratic formulations of the relation of philosophy and the city. Far from demonstrating the incompatibility of philosophy and politics, Socrates in the Apology and other dialogues limns the features of a conception of political life that incorporates philosophical principles of moderation and dialectical examination into an understanding of politics directed towards the moral and intellectual development of the citizens.

The Formal Charges Against Socrates THOMAS C. BRICKHOUSE and NICHOLAS D. SMITH Ar n9a OF PLATO'S Apology, Socrates begins his defense against what he calls the "first" accusers, whose slanders he sees as posing an even greater threat to him than those of the newer accusers, Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon. Because these older accusations are the more dangerous, he undertakes first to defend himself against them. But from 24B to ~8A Socrates elects to address the charges of the "new" accusers by an interrogation of one of them, Meletus , the officiaP author of the indictment against him. This interrogation has been the source of a good deal of puzzlement to scholars, for during the imerrogation Meletus seems to many readers to be ill prepared to defend his own charges coherently. To some, this is a decisive sign that the entire interlude is largely, if not wholly, invented by Plato to discredit Socrates' prosecutors as inept and unprincipled? Other readers see the interrogation We are indebted to Gregory Vlastos, Charles M. Reed, Jean Roberts, Mark McPherran, Ilavid M. Halperin, Walter Englert and the editorial staff of this journal for their helpful suggestions and criticisms of various earlier drafts of this paper, and to the National Endownwm lin the Humanities for helping to fund our research on this topic. All errors, however, are uurs alone. ' Meletus is at least nominally the principal prosecutor of the case, but this of course does not rule out his acting on someone else's behalf. Many believe that Anytus was the real force behind the prosecution (about which, see note 4 l, below). The clearest statement of this position can be found in the treatment of this issue by Reginald Hackforth in The Compositionof Plato'sApology(Cambridge, x933), 1o4-1o. An absurd exueme of this view is argued by Thomas G. West, Plato's Apology of Socrates (Ithaca and London, 1979), 134-5o, who dismisses Socrates' arguments in this section as "among the most ridiculous used by him anywhere in Plato" and see this as proof that the entire interrogation is l'lato's attempt at comedy writing (135). Though we do not take the arguments of this paper as providing evidence for or against the view that Plato's Socrates is an accurate representation of the actual man himself, we do oppose the view that Plato's account in this case must be seen as providing Socrates no serious and substantive defense, for such is precisely what we propose can be lound, even if the defense in question is only one of Plato's invention. ()ne reason for wondering whether this part of Plato's account is his own invention, howincr . we will not take seriously. Someone might wonder whether the incident could take place at [457] 458 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 23:4 OCTOBER 1985 as showing that neither Socrates nor even Meletus takes the formal charges as the real motive for the prosecution. To Meletus and his collaborators, the formal charges, we are told, are a legal pretext for other complaints that could not themselves legally be prosecuted, but could none the less comprise such a bias against Socrates as to ensure his conviction on the charges they could bring. And on this view, the legal fiction involved was so evident that St)crates would not honor the formal charges with a serious refutation. Instead , he undertook in his interrogation of their nominal author merely to demonstrate to the jury that his prosecutors had shown a careless unconcern for ulorality and the law by employing such patently senseless and unsupportable charges against him.3 In this paper we wish to challenge such established interpretations by showing that both Socrates and his prosecutors may sensibly be taken as having viewed the formal charges as reflecting important issues to be decided by the court, even if (as we are wholly disinclined to doubt) other concerns also influenced the prosecution and outcome of the case? In Part i, we review the meaning of the specific charges themselves. In Part ~, we argue that the three prosecutors can reasonably be assumed to have intended the official indictment to be taken as specifying serious crimes actually...

book is an excellent companion to Plato's Apology and a valuable discussion of many of the main issues that arise in the early dialogues. Reeve is an extremely careful reader of texts, and his familiarity with the legal and cultural background of Socrates' trial allows him to correct many common misunderstandings of that event. In addition, he integrates his reading of the apology with a sophisticated discussion of Socrates' philosophy. The writing is clear and succinct, and the research is informed by a thorough acquaintance with the secondary literature. Reeve's book will be accessible to any serious undergraduate, but it is also a work that will have to be taken into account by every scholar doing advanced research on Socrates. -- Richard Kraut, Northwestern University

Abstract: This article interprets Plato's Apology of Socrates in the light of recent studies on the Athenian amnesty of 403 and the rhetorical conventions to which the amnesty gave rise. Comparing the Apology to Lysias' Against Eratosthenes , it argues that Plato's defense of Socratic philosophy engages with the psychology of collective memory that inhered in the rhetoric of amnesty-era Athens. Additionally, it argues that, in composing the Apology , Plato took inspiration from Lysias' speech directly. Ultimately, this article advances our understanding of Plato as a literary artist, social critic, and political thinker.

Socrates' Trial and Conviction of the Jurors in Plato's Apology Dougal Blyth I am going to argue in this paper that, in the three speeches constituting his Apology of Socrates, Plato presents the judicial proceedings that led to Socrates' execution as having precisely the opposite significance to their superficial legal meaning. This re-evaluation will lead to some reflections on the politics of Socrates' defence, and, similarly, on Plato's own aims in writing the Apology. I want to show not only that the trial as portrayed demonstrates an inevitable dereliction of duty by the democratic jury, but also, more interestingly, that throughout the proceedings Socrates understands the meaning of the trial precisely in terms of his anticipation of the jurors' judicial incapacity. In the prooimion to his defence speech, Socrates requests that the jurors ignore his manner of speaking and concentrate on whether his case is just, "since this is a judge's virtue (), while that of a rhêtôr is to speak the truth" (18a5-6, cf. 35c2-5). We can gloss the expression "a judge's aretê" in this context as his function, or responsibility.1 Socrates claims that he, himself, fulfills his own responsibility as a defendant to tell the truth (17b4-c4, 33c1-2, cf. 34b5, 35b9-c2) in a speech that asserts his exemplary piety in Apollo's service and his beneficial influence on the Athenian youth. But if, in claiming that he is innocent of the charge, Socrates does tell the truth, then those jurors who thereupon convict him of impiety and corruption, and subsequently sentence him to death, have failed in their duty to judge rightly. My claim is that Socrates sees the trial as a test of the jurors' abilities. It is characteristic of Socrates to test people regarding their concern for virtue and justice, a habit to which he devotes extended discussion during his defence, even dramatising it provocatively in a central passage (29d7-e5) that I aim shortly to analyse in detail. Moreover, Socrates specifically withholds from the jury the title of dikastai or judges; he does finally award the title in his address following the sentence, but only to those who have voted [End Page 1] to acquit him (40a2-3).2 The possibility thus emerges that Socrates has treated the legal proceedings all along as a moral (and intellectual) test, or trial, of the empanelled jurors themselves, to see whether they are capable of the legal function to which they have been allotted. In that case, Socrates is putting on trial, not just those individual citizens, but the very legal system of democratic Athens. Socratic irony and truthfulness Before considering Socrates' own explicit judgement during those final remarks on the jurors' moral offence and punishment, I should first address briefly the issue of Socrates' irony. In the past, some writers have asserted that this irony involves him in not telling the truth about himself during his defence, in which case the jury might well have been justified in convicting him. Actually, there does seem to be a consensus among the more extended treatments of the Apology that have emerged during the last decade, at least on the point that Plato presents Socrates as committed to making as sincere an attempt at a defence of his case as is consistent with his philosophical commitment to virtue, and so to telling the truth.3 I shall not re-argue this point in detail, but shall take it to be secured by two basic considerations: consistency with the Crito would require Socrates to recognise a legal obligation to make a sincere attempt at defence while his obligation to Apollo to continue his mission in Athens if possible would motivate that attempt with the goal of acquittal.4 Instead, I want to show what role irony does have in Socrates' defence, given that his principled law-abidingness requires him to attempt to persuade the jury, in accordance with truth and justice, that he is innocent (cf. 19a6-7, 18a7-b1, 18e5). Where Socrates acknowledges the obligation to defend himself, he remarks on the difficulty he faces, a difficulty that has resulted from the slander to which he has long...

Brickhouse and Smith argue, contrary to virtually every modern interpretation of Plato's Apology of Socrates, that Plato's Socrates offers a sincere defence against the charges he faces. In doing so the book offers an exhaustive historical and philosophical interpretation of and commentary on Plato's Apology. The authors demonstrate that Socrates' moral and religious principles prohibit him from needlessly risking a negative vote at his trial. By providing a complete commentary, they show that each specific claim Socrates makes in the Apology can be construed as a sincere attempt to inform the jury of the truth and convince the jurors of his blamelessness. The effect of these two strategies is a novel interpretation of the Apology which sheds new light on various aspects of Socrates' life and philosophy.

HREE SOURCES of anti-Socratic invective appear in our ancient texts: (1) The original accusation of Meletus and the public feeling which lead to the accusation.' The basis of this charge seems to be that Socrates, anti-democratic himself, was responsible for the education and thus the excesses of Critias and Alcibiades.2 Polycrates the Sophist composed a KaTnyopia aZWKpaTroV in the late 390s which concentrated on this political charge. Such charges or a defence against them appear only in fourthcentury literature, e.g., Xenophon's Apology and Memorabilia, Plato's Apology, or in such oddities as Libanius' Apology of Socrates from the fourth century A.D.3 Charges of anti-democratic behavior had become irrelevant after the time of the great democracy. (2) The biographical tradition beginning with Aristoxenus' Life of Socrates.4 Seething with hatred and malignity, he collected or invented a mass of derogatory information: Socrates was extremely lustful but did no harm because he confined himself to married women and prostitutes (fr. 54a and b); he was quick to anger (fr. 56), and so on. This tradition seems to have little in common with the original accusations against Socrates in 399, but rather owes its liveliness to the widespread polemic between philosophical schools in addition to strains of fanaticism, personal aversion, conceit, and a delight in racy stories on the part of Aristoxenus himself. (3) The polemic of the Epicureans, on which I wish to concentrate. The Epicureans are often said to be characterized by /3Xao-qrtLla and KaKIryopla, abusive and defamatory language, as Plutarch puts it (Non posse 1086 f).5 The evidence for this abusive language is two-fold: first, the

Almost a quarter century before the Athenians tried Socrates for impiety and for corrupting the youth, Aristophanes, the comic poet, had made similar accusations against him in his play, the Clouds. Reading Plato's Apology, the principal account of Socrates' trial, alongside the Clouds, Michael Zuckert observes that the two works are similar in structure, and that the Apology is a response to Aristophanes' claim, implicit in his criticism of Socrates' that rationalism is politically irresponsible in addition to being defective as an avenue to knowledge. The structural similarity may also aid our understanding of why Socrates' defense failed, a matter that has troubled students since antiquity.

<i>Plato's Apology of Socrates: A Literary and Philosophical Study with a Running Commentary</i>. Emile de Stryker , Simon R. Slings , E. de Stryker

<i>Plato's Apology of Socrates, and Crito, and a Part of the Phaedo</i>. C. L. Kitchel

This book offers a controversial interpretation of Plato's Apology of Socrates. By paying unusually close attention to what Socrates indicates about the meaning and extent of his irony, David Leibowitz arrives at unconventional conclusions about Socrates' teaching on virtue, politics, and the gods; the significance of his famous turn from natural philosophy to political philosophy; and the purpose of his insolent 'defense speech'. Leibowitz shows that Socrates is not just a colorful and quirky figure from the distant past but an unrivaled guide to the good life - the thoughtful life - who is as relevant today as in ancient Athens. On the basis of his unconventional understanding of the dialogue as a whole, and of the Delphic oracle story in particular, Leibowitz shows that the Apology is the key to the Platonic corpus, indicating how many of the disparate themes and apparently contradictory conclusions of the other dialogues fit together.

In the first half of On Demosthenes, Dionysius of Halicarnassus' mature critical essay, he presents the case that Isocrates, Plato and represent the three finest stylists when it comes to speaking with the diction approved by audiences. In the process of making an argument for the Demosthenic ideal, Dionysius needed to find commensurate speeches by Isocrates and Plato to compare with Demosthenes. For Isocrates, he compared the most elegant portion of On the Peace with a portion of an epideictic from Demosthenes' Third Olynthiac. It was a good choice. However, for Plato, finding an appropriate speech in the philosopher's writing proved more difficult. Of course, we would readily assume that by the first century BCE Dionysius should have felt compelled to use the Apology as the Platonic exemplar. It clearly ranks as one of the impressive speeches in all of history. For his part, were he not to use it, Dionysius was well aware critics would complain that the Apology presents itself as the ideal choice for this kind of analysis. So in anticipation of this objection and his otherwise obscure choice to use Socrates' funeral oration in the Menexenus, he dismisses Plato's Apology as something other than a true forensic and therefore not a viable candidate. He offers the following tantalizingly cryptic reason: There is one forensic by Plato, the Apology of Socrates; but this never saw even the threshold of a law-court or an open assembly, but was written for another purpose and belongs to the category neither of oratory nor of dialogue. I therefore pass over it. (On Dem. 23). Within his own lifetime Dionysius already felt compelled to respond to charges of impiety for committing the sin of suggesting that one could find infelicities in Plato's compositional style. In a letter responding to Gnaeus Pompeius' complaint that, You should not have exposed the faults of Plato when your purpose was to praise Demosthenes (Gn. Pomp. 1), Dionysius responded that had he not objectively compared the best discourses of Isocrates and Plato with those of his argument would have been unpersuasive as well as a criti