The Trial of Socrates (399 B.C.)

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The Trial of Socrates (399 B.C.)

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Title: The Trial of Socrates (399 B.C.)

1
The Trial of Socrates (399 B.C.)

Lecturer Wu Shiyu
Email shiyuw_at_sjtu.edu.cn
http//sla.sjtu.edu.cn/bbs

2
Introduction

In 399 B.C., a trial, one of the most famous of
all time, was in progress in Athens. The accused,
Socrates, seventy years old, Athenian greatest
thinker and teacher, was convicted and later on,
executed.
The specific charges against him guilty of
impiety guilty of corrupting the young.

3
Socrates

That is what Socrates has been doing for years
going around Athens, questioning and questioning
everybody he could find What is justice? What
is piety? What is right and wrong?

4
Delphi Oracles Answer

Socrates' friend Chaerephon consulted the oracle
at Delphi, asking the question that if anyone was
wiser than Socrates.
The Oracle offered the answer that none was
wiser.
When Socrates was told this, he believed that
what the Oracle had said was a paradox, because
he believed he possessed no wisdom whatsoever.

And then he went around Athens, approaching men
considered wise by the people, including
statesmen, poets, and artisans, with the purpose
of refuting the Oracle's answer.
By this, however, Socrates realized that each man
he questioned who thought he knew a great deal
and was wise turned out, in fact, not wise at
all.

6
10. Delphi Oracles Answer

Socrates then knew that the Oracle was right, in
that while so-called wise men thought themselves
wise and yet were not, he himself knew he was not
wise at all which, paradoxically, made him the
wiser one since he was the only person aware of
his own ignorance.
And the saying that I know that I know thing
which is attributed to Socrates had become well
known. And it is Socrates' paradoxical wisdom
which made the prominent Athenians he publicly
questioned appear foolish, became infuriated, and
finally turned against him.

Then in 399 B.C., Anytus, a supporter of
democracy who had suffered personally under the
tyrants, with two other men Meletus, and Lycon of
lesser prominence prosecuted Socrates. They
accused Socrates of impiety and corrupting young
men.
Obviously, charges like these are especially
difficult to prove, and equally difficult to
refute. However, impiety ranked as an extremely
serious crime because the gods were believed to
punish the entire city-state if it harbored
impious individuals.

By Athenian custom, Socrates trial took only one
day. The jury consisted of 501 Athenian citizens.
Instead of weeping, pleading, parading his
children in front of the jury like the standard
procedure in an Athenian courtroom, Socrates,
according to Plato, took the position that the
best defense was a strong offense.

Using the question-and-answer method for which he
was famous and which had apparently gotten him
into trouble, he defended for himself and also
pointing out the inconsistencies in his accusers
allegations. The following excerption is chosen
from Platos Apology which showed Socrates
denial of the charges against him (Handout)

10
Platos Apology

Meletus Let me ask you this, why dont you say
all right, Socrates, we know these are
trumped-up (??) charges, but we are tired of your
going around and harassing us like this, arent
you ashamed of living such a life that everybody
in Athens hates you?
Soc No, I am not ashamed. I took on this
mission from God, and what would make me ashamed
is if I stop doing it.

Well, I tell you well, Socrates. If you will
stop doing it, we will drop these charges.
I am not going to do that. I am going to
continue. As long as I live, I am going to go
around and question, and follow the truth
wherever it is.

All right, Socrates, if you are so smart, why
arent you in politics?
Well, I am gonna tell you why. Because no honest
man can survive in your democracy. It is so
corrupt.

Now what you expect me to do at this stage is to
bring in my wife and children. Thats standard in
Athenian trial. You bring in your wife and
children and you say, Look, if you put me to
death, it is going to rob my family of all
support, and the children are supposed to cry
and the wife is supposed to cry, and you are thus
humiliated. That is part of the purpose of the
trial. You know that I am not going to bring them
in. Yes, Ive got children and a wife, but I am
not going to bring them in. That has nothing to
do with the trial whatsoever. It is for you to
make your decision. But I tell you this, I will
continue my mission.

Nearly half the jury of 501 (280 to 221) Athenian
citizens voted in favor of Socrates he seems to
have lost his case by about thirty votes.
Meletus, who was presiding over the trial, had
proposed the penalty of death.
Athenian procedure called for convicted
defendants to recommend an alternative penalty,
and it seems clear that Socrates accusers
expected him to propose exile and would have
been quite content to see him leave town.

However, Socrates claimed that he was in fact a
public benefactor, suggesting first a reward for
his benefactions (????) or then, a fine
equivalent to about 13 kilos of silver.
The jury, no doubt annoyed by this, elected the
death penalty. Some of those who had earlier
voted not guilty now turned against him by
voting in favor of death penalty.

Socrates was first put in prison for at that
season, the people were forced to wait for the
return of the vessel before they could kill him.
During this period, a small band of his pupils
gathered around him in prison and some of them
even arranged for everything for the masters
escape.
But Socrates refused, claiming that his whole
life a search for absolute truths had been a
preparation for death.

Socrates, we have arranged everything. You can
escape, go to the city of Thebes, and there
receive hospitality.
And he says, I am not going to escape, I am
going to stay right here. If I were to escape
after having been found legally guilty, that
would set a bad example. I am going to obey the
law. And so the young people will not be
corrupted by my example.

????????????

19
The Trial of Socrates
20

He has sent away his wife and children, and some
of his students are weeping and he says the words
I gave in an earlier lecture, I sent my wife
away and now here you are, worse than women,
weeping like this. Stop it! What is bad? I am
going to die. My whole life has been a
preparation for death, preparing myself so that
my soul will be free.
And the whole life of a philosopher, the search
for wisdom is the preparation for death because
wisdom is the understanding of absolute truths,
of absolute justice, absolute harmony, absolute
beauty, absolute honor, and the soul that has
prepared itself will be united with God. And that
is what I wait for.

In the words of Plato, such was the end of the
man who, of all the men of our time, was the
best, the wisest, and the most just.
And Xenophon and Plato, by the words of their
Apology, would hand down through history this
condemnation of the Athenian democracy, which had
put to death the best man of its age, who had
fearlessly spoken out for truth and whose whole
life was a living witness to the search for
wisdom. The greatest of all the Athenians,
Socrates, immortal, passing his legacy down.

In the end, Socrates was executed by one of the
customary Athenian methods, being ordered to down
a poisonous draft of hemlock.
By the words of his Apology, Plato would hand
down to posterity this condemnation of the
Athenian democracy that had put to death the best
man of that age, whose whole life had been a
search for wisdom.

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??????????????????
Platos Apology
???

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????????????????????????????????????????????,?????
?????????????????????????,????????????????????????
???????????

We place Socrates and his trial within the
framework of Athenian democracy and the aftermath
of the great war with Sparta.

26
Introduction

The trial is regarded as the most infamous
episode in Athenian history in the aftermath of
the Peloponnesian War.
What caused such intensity of hatred as to put an
old man on trial and for such severe charges?

27
The Aftermath of the Peloponnesian War

The Greek World
engulfed the Greek world
The Athenian Culture
never regained the prosperity of its Golden
Age
The Trial of Socrates

28
Oligarchy at Athens The Thirty Tyrants

Lysander installed an oligarchic government
consisting of thirty citizens from the wealthy
elite.
Only one or two were moderate people like
Theramenes.
They became known as the Thirty Tyrants for the
brutal conduct.
Brutally suppressed their opposition in Athens by
forcing many Athenians into exile and throwing
their leaders into jail. They even carried out a
series of murders.

29
The Thirty Tyrants

The most terrifying figure of the Thirty was
Critias
One of the best pupils of Socrates and a relative
of Plato.
A passionate antidemocrat and a longtime admirer
of the Spartan constitution.
Critias brutally ordered murders by the hundreds
without a qualm(?? ).
He had the moderate Theramenes put to death
simply because he was moderate and wealthy, and
not on his side by forcing him to drink hemlock,
the poison used soon afterwards to execute
Socrates.

30
The Thirty Tyrants

Some Athenians were murdered because their
political propositions, others were murdered
simply because they were wealthy. Through these
terrible activities, the Thirty Tyrants created
an eight-month-long period of terror in Athens.
Not all the victims were political enemies many
were wealthy metics.

So violent and brutal that the Spartans did not
interfere when a prodemocracy resistance movement
finally came to power and ended the violence and
brutality of the Thirty. Athenian people had
Critias killed in a battle.
The Athenians restored their democratic
government, with bitter memory of divisiveness
(??).

32
Socrates

An ancient Greek philosopher, who helped to shape
Greek beliefs. The ideas he created are present
in our culture today.
Born in 470 B.C., grew up during the Golden Age
of Athens, a time period when Greece was very
powerful, lived in Athens.
His father wanted him to become a sculptor

33
Socrates
34
2. Socrates

At young age, Socrates searched for wisdom and
truth.
Show no interest in money, would allow groups of
men to listen to him speak, never take money from
them.
Socrates would stand on a stoa while teaching
others. Ruins of stone stoas can still be seen in
Athens today.

35
2. Socrates

He has been a brave soldier, fought as an
Athenian infantry man in major battles of the
early Peloponnesian War when he was no longer
young.
He has a family his wife, Xanthippe, has sort of
a reputation as a shrew he has children,

But mainly he seems to spend his time just
walking around Athens, talking and questioning,
He has a vigorous group of students who are
devoted to him, people like Alcibiades and
Critias.

37
Socrates
38
2. Socrates

Socrates was known for being a bit strange. He
went into a trance(?? )when he thought hard about
a problem.
He might stand still for days on end without
moving, eating, or sleeping.
Men in the city would gather around Socrates to
watch him.
Once he was finished thinking, he would snap out
of his trance and go on as usual.

39
3. Two Divergent Portraits of Socrates

Socrates himself never wrote anything. We do not
have many sources available representing a
reasonable portrait of the real Socrates.
Two divergent portraits of Socrates
Aristophanes comedy The Clouds works of
Socrates well-known pupils, Xenophon and Plato,
whose lives were shaped by their teacher, and
from Aristotle, father of the university, who was
also influenced by the ideas of Socrates through
his teacher, Plato.

40
4. The Clouds by Aristophanes

The Cloud produced in 423 B.C.
Socrates could be a danger to Athenian
traditional society gave Aristophanes the
inspiration.
Socrates is presented as a cynical sophist. For a
fee, he offers instruction in his Thinking Shop
to his pupils by using the Protagorean technique.

41
4. The Clouds by Aristophanes

Socrates is such a person who can make a good
argument seem bad and a bad argument seem good.
His pupils were taught how to argue effectively
for any position, even an outrageously immoral
one.
A vivid scene presented in the comedy is the
protagonists son, a Socrates pupil, argues
against his father that a son has the right to
beat his parents.

42
5. First Source of Athenian Hostility to Socrates

By attending Socrates Thinking Shop, the young
men of Athens showed their disrespect for
tradition and for their elders.
This makes an indelible impression on the
Athenians, especially the old generation. They
felt that Socrates could be a danger to the
conventional conception. Then the comedy ends by
burning down Socrates Thinking Shop.
Therefore, from the play, we can see one
important source of Athenians hostility against
Socrates. And elements of the legal charges made
against him in 399 B.C. were already present in
this comedy.

43
6. The Portrait of Socrates from his pupils

A totally different portrait from his pupils
Plato, Xenophon, and Platos pupil, Aristotle,
father of the university.
Both Plato and Xenophon were in their late
twenties at the time of Socrates trial.
All of the three intellectual figures, Xenophon,
Plato and Aristotle, were forever molded by what
happened on a single day in the year of 399 B.C.

For Plato, Socrates trial and execution were the
beginning of his whole intellectual pursuit of
truth. Plato paid his great tributes to his
teacher, Socrates, by putting his ideas into the
mouth of Socrates (Platos Dialogues)

45
7. Platos DialogueThe Euthyphro

This dialogue presents vividly the man on trial.
Socrates, who stops, instead of focusing his own
trial in defense, is trying to help this man
understand that he does not know that he is
taking the gravest actions based on the thinking
he was wise but in fact he is not.
Socrates understood the first step in knowledge
is to define words and that people frequently
acts on the bias of what they think they know
without ever pursuing.

And that is what Socrates has been doing for
years, going around Athens, questioning and
questioning everybody he could find What is
justice? What is piety? What is right and
wrong?

47
8. Socratic Method

Aristotle observed about Socrates that the two
things could be attributed to him inductive
reasoning and universal definition.
Socrates believed that the best way to develop
ideas was in the give and take of conversation,
and the best way to educate people was to ask
them a series of questions leading in a
particular direction ( The Socratic Method).

Socrates never directly instructed his
conversational partners instead, he led them to
draw conclusions in response to his probing
questions and refutations of their cherished but
unexamined assumptions.

49
Socratic Method
50
5. Second Source of Athenian Hostility to Socrates

This indirect method of searching for the truth
often left Socrates conversational partners in a
state of puzzlement and unhappiness. His Athenian
citizens come be as puzzled and frustrated to him
as Euthyphro did in the dialogue.
They felt they were forced to believe and admit
that they were ignorant of what they began by
assuming they knew perfectly well and that the
principles by which they lived there were unable
to withstand close intellectual scrutiny.

And what makes it more annoying is Socrates
failed to give a direct and an ultimate answer.
This, like Aristophanes The Clouds, shows
another source of Athenians hostility to
Socrates.

52
11. Third Source of Athenian Hostility to Socrates

The third possible source of hostility concerns
Socrates association with his two pupils,
Alcibiades and Critias, and his remarks about
democracy.
For the Athenians, who believed their democracy
was superior to the government of the Spartans,
their defeat by the Spartans was incomprehensible
and unacceptable, they were ready to find
scapegoat (???).

53
11. Third Source of Athenian Hostility to Socrates

Alcibiades and Critias, Socrates two pupils, had
done the most damage to the Athenian democracy.
Both of them were Socrates best pupils and yet
both of them were openly hostile to Athenian
democracy. Alcibiades, one of Socrates most
devoted followers, once commented at Sparta that
democracy is acknowledged folly. In the eyes of
Socrates Athenian critics, this must represent
the teaching of Socrates.

Critias, another Socrates follower and the most
notorious one of the Thirty Tyrants, had played a
leading role in the murder and plunder in the
violence and brutality by the Thirty-Tyrants. But
both of them were already dead, only Socrates was
available.

55
11. The third possible source of hostility

Socrates was also blamed for ever speaking
sharply about democracy. Most people, he pointed
out, arent terribly thoughtful or analytical, so
why should most people, that is, the majority,
make the life and death decisions that affect the
polis?

56
11. The third possible source of hostility

In fact, as other scholars have proposed, it is
hard to determine whether Socrates really opposed
democracy for Socrates enjoyed puncturing
illusions, and it may be that had he lived under
a monarchy or an oligarchy, those would have been
the governments he spent his time undermining.
But combined with his association with Alcibiades
and Critias, however, his pointed remarks about
the foibles of democracy seemed downright
unpatriotic, and he could easily enough be cast
as purveyor (???) of dangerous ideas.

57
12. The Fourth source of Athenians hostility

Another possible source of Athenians hostility
is that Socrates held unusual views on religion.
He made several references to his personal
spirit, although he explicitly claimed that it
never urged him on, but only warned him against
various prospective events. Many of his
contemporaries were suspicious of Socrates's
daimonion as a rejection of the state religion.
It is generally understood that Socrates's
daimonion is akin to intuition.
Moreover, Socrates claimed that the concept of
goodness, instead of being determined by what the
gods wanted, actually precedes the entire
business of deities. Many Athenians blame that
the act of desecration of of the images of a god
was at least partly responsible for the Athenian
defeat in Sicily.

From Platos Dialogues, we can see that Socrates
had a keen wit and an engaging personality. And
for this, pupils flocked to him eagerly, like
Plato and Xenophon. But he had nothing that could
be called a school. And Socrates was poor for his
refusal to charge fees and therefore, he was not
a sophist. His goal was to inculcate moral
excellence. Like the sophists, however, he used
clever arguments and subjected conventional
notions to rational analysis.

59
Quotations from Socrates

By means of beauty all beautiful things become
beautiful.
For this appears to me the safest answer to give
both to myself and others and adhering to this,
I think that I shall never fall, but that it is a
safe answer both for me and any one else to give
that by means of beauty beautiful things become
beautiful

60
Quotations from Socrates

False words are not only evil in themselves, but
they infect the soul with evil.
In every one of us there are two ruling and
directing principles, whose guidance we follow
wherever they may lead the one being an innate
desire of pleasure the other, an acquired
judgment which aspires after excellence.

61
Quotations from Socrates

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
For when I don't know what justice is, I'll
hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or
not, or whether a person who has it is happy or
unhappy.

62
Quotations from Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living for a
human being.
I do nothing but go about persuading you all,
old and young alike, not to take thought for your
persons or your properties, but and chiefly to
care about the greatest improvement of the soul.
I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but
that from virtue comes money and every other good
of man, public as well as private. This is my
teaching, and if this is the doctrine which
corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.

63
Thank You!

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