Key ideas: “The Apology purports to give us a version of what Socrates said in court when facing a pubhc prosecution for impiety on the grounds that he was faihng to acknowledge the city’s gods, introducing new divinities, and corrupting the youth. It gives his main defence speech, his epitimesis (estimation of the correct penalty) and his final address to the jurors after condemnation to death.” (from Introduction)
I have gained this reputation, gentlemen, from nothing more or less than a kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom do I mean? Human wisdom, I suppose. It seems that I really am wise in this limited sense…
You know Chaerephon, I presume. He was a friend of mine from boyhood, and a good democrat who played his part with the rest of you in the recent expulsion and restoration. And you know what he was like; how enthusiastic he was over anything that he had once undertaken. Well, one day he actually went to Delphi and asked this question of the god as I said before, gentlemen, please do not interrupt what he asked was whether there was anyone wiser than myself. The Pythian priestess replied that there was no one. As Chaerephon is dead, the evidence for my statement will be supplied by his brother here…
When I heard about the oracle’s answer, I said to myself, ’What is the god saying, and what is his hidden meaning? I am only too conscious that I have no claim to wisdom, great or small;…
After puzzling about it for some time, I set myself at last with considerable reluctance to check the truth of it in the following way. I went to interview a man with a high reputation for wisdom, because I felt that here if anywhere I should succeed in disproving the oracle and pointing out to my divine authority, ‘You said that I was the wisest of men, but here is a man who is wiser than I am.’…
Well, I gave a thorough examination to this person I need not mention his name, but it was one of our politicians that I was studying when I had this experience and in conversation with him I formed the impression that although in many people’s opinion, and especially in his own, he appeared to be wise, in fact he was not. Then when I began to try to show him that he only thought he was wise and was not really so, my efforts were resented both by him and by many of the other people present. However, I reflected as I walked away:
‘Well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.’
From that time on I interviewed one person after another. I realized with distress and alarm that I was making myself unpopular, but I felt compelled to put the god’s business first; since I was trying to find out the meaning of the oracle, I was bound to interview everyone who had a reputation for knowledge.
And by Dog, gentlemen (for I must be frank with you), my honest impression was thus: it seemed to me, as I pursued my investigation at the god’s command, that the people with the greatest reputations were almost entirely deficient, while others who were supposed to be their inferiors were much more noteworthy for their general good sense.
Last of all I turned to the skilled craftsmen. I knew quite well that I had practically no understanding myself, and I was sure that I should find them full of impressive knowledge. In this I was not disappointed; they understood things which I did not, and to that extent they were wiser than I was.
However, gentlemen, these professional experts seemed to share the same failing which I had noticed in the poets; I mean that on the strength of their technical proficiency they claimed a perfect understanding of every other subject, however important; and I felt that this error eclipsed their positive wisdom.
Please do not be offended if I tell you the truth. No man on earth who conscientiously opposes either you or any other organized democracy, and flatly prevents a great many wrongs and illegalities from taking place in the state to which he belongs, can possibly escape with his life. The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private Hfe and leave politics alone democracy, and flatly prevents a great many wrongs and illegalities from taking place in the state to which he belongs, can possibly 32a escape with his life. The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private Hfe and leave politics alone.
I will offer you substantial proofs of what I have said; not theories, but what you better appreciate, facts.
The only office which I have ever held in our city, gentlemen, b was when I served on the Council. It so happened that our tribe Antiochis was presiding when you decided that the ten commanders who had failed to rescue the men who were lost in the naval engagements should be tried en bloc; which was illegal, as you all recognized later.
On this occasion I was the only member of the executive who opposed your acting in any way unconstitutionally, and voted against the proposal; and although the public speakers were all ready to denounce and arrest me, and you were all urging c them on at the top of your voices, I thought that it was my duty to face it out on the side of law and justice rather than support you, through fear of prison or death, in your wrong decision. This happened while we were still under a democracy.
Well, gentlemen, for the sake of a very small gain in time you c are going to earn the reputation - and the blame from those who wish to disparage our city - of having put Socrates to death, ‘that wise man’, because they will say I am wise even if I am not, these people who want to find fault with you. If you had waited just a little while, you would have had your way in the course of nature.
You can see that I am well on in life and near to death. I am d saying this not to all of you but to those who voted for my execution, and I have something else to say to them as well.
No doubt you think, gentlemen, that I have been condemned for lack of the arguments which I could have used if I had thought it right to leave nothing unsaid or undone to secure my acquittal. But that is very far from the truth. It is not a lack of arguments that has caused my condemnation, but a lack of effrontery and impudence, and the fact that I have refused to address you in the way which would give you most pleasure. You would have liked to hear me weep and wail, doing and saying all sorts of things e which I declare to be unworthy of myself, but which you are used to hearing from other people.