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The Apology: The Beginning of Plato's Own Philosophy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
It has often been assumed that Plato's Apology is a faithful recreation of Socrates' speech on the final day of his trial in 399 b.c.; that it contains almost nothing of Plato's own philosophy; and that it therefore represents rather the position of the historical Socrates on how to live and how to philosophize. In this belief, Schleiermacher relegated the Apology to an appendix to his translation of Plato, along with (among others) some spurious works. His view was followed by Zeller and Grote in the late nineteenth century, and further popularized in the 1920s by Burnet's edition of the Apology.
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References
1 Schleiermacher, F., Platons Werke3 (Berlin, 1855; first edn 1804), ii.125–30.Google Scholar
2 Zeller, E., Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung4 (Leipzig, 1889; first edn 1844–52)Google Scholar, ii (1) 195–7 n. 1; Grote, G., Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrales, i (1865), p. 281.Google Scholar
3 Burnet, J., Plato's Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates and Crito (Oxford, 1924), pp. 63–6Google Scholar. Most recent discussions take broadly this same view: cf. Vlastos, G., introd. to Vlastos, G. (ed.), The Philosophy of Socrates (Garden City, 1971), pp. 3–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘Socrates’, Proc. Brit. Acad. 74 (1988), 89–111Google Scholar; Allen, R. E., Socrates and Legal Obligation (Minneapolis, 1980), pp. 33–6Google Scholar; Brickhouse, T. C., Smith, N. D., Socrates on Trial (Oxford, 1989), pp. 2–10Google Scholar; Reeve, C. D. C., Socrates in the Apology (Indianapolis, 1989), xiii (with reservations).Google Scholar
4 Hackforth, R., The Composition of Plato's Apology (Cambridge, 1933), pp. 1–7.Google Scholar
5 Burnet, op. cit., pp. 63–4. Although Grote goes along with the view of Apol. as giving ‘in substance the real defence pronounced by Socrates’, he also (op. cit., i.281–3 and n.) quotes Dionysius of Halicarnassus' view of it (Ars rhet. VIII A8, De antiq. or. B, De Demosth. dict. 23) as ‘not a report of what Sokrates really said, nor as approximating thereunto, but as a pure composition of Plato himself, for three purposes combined: – 1. To defend and extol Sokrates. 2. To accuse the Athenian public and Dikasts. 3. To furnish a picture of what a philosopher ought to be.’ Grote adds, ‘All these purposes are to a certain extent included and merged in a fourth, which I hold to be the true one, to exhibit what Sokrates was and had been, in relation to the Athenian public’ If we may add to this fourth purpose the qualification ‘as perceived by Plato’, Grote's view seems to be in substance the same as my own.
6 E.g. Polycrates' pamphlet Accusation of Socrates and Lysias' reply; cf. Hackforth, op. cit., pp. 4–5.
7 Grote in his first edition (op. cit., p. 283 n.) suggested the possibility that there had been ‘two distinct forms of indictment’, on the ground that there were three different accusers – Meletus, Anytus and Lycon. But in his third edition he deleted this passage. In recent work the difference between the two versions has been noted, but no special significance attached to it (Brickhouse and Smith, op. cit., p. 30; Reeve, op. cit., p. 74).
8 The view of Leo, Strauss, Xenophon's Socrates (Ithaca and London, 1972, p. 74).Google Scholar
9 Burnet's view (op. cit., p. 102): commenting on ἒχει δ πως ὧδε (24b8), he attributes the alteration to Socrates' attitude, ‘quoting from memory’, but does not indicate whether Socrates did so intentionally or not.
10 This change makes καιν less conspicuous in P than in DL/X. In the subsequent argument Socrates totally neglects the force of this restrictive adjective, which might have carried much weight in the DL/X version, and only deals with consequences of belief in δαιμνια (cf. 27b3–28a1). Notice also the effect of the disjunctive phrase εἴτ' οὖν καιν εἴτε παλαι at 27c6, which clearly weakens the force of καιν.
11 Burnet, op. cit., p. 104.
12 Hackforth, op. cit., pp. 59–104.
13 Book 10 of the Laws, Plato's last work, offers the finest exposition of his lifelong position on ‘piety’.
14 Rep. 2 is evidently written for this purpose.
15 That Meletus was not in the least concerned with the matters in question is strongly emphasized by a fourfold reiteration: 24c7–8, d9, 25c3–4, 26b1–2.
16 That Socrates is the one who tells the truth is constantly asserted in Apol.: 17b7–8, 18a6, 20d5, 22a2, b5–6, etc. At Gorg. 473b6 the truth is declared to be the unique property of Socrates (taking καί as appositive, with W. Hamilton's translation [Harmondsworth, 1960]). For a variant of the same point, cf. Tht. 150a8–b4, b9–c3: Socrates as midwife, though barren, still has the ability to distinguish truth and falsity of thought.
17 For a different view on this problem, based on a distinction between two senses of ‘knowledge’, see Vlastos, G., ‘Socrates' Disavowal of Knowledge’, PQ 35 (1985), 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 Socrates' self-defence in Xenophon's Apol. (11–21) is similar to Xenophon's defence of him in Mem.
19 In my view it is in Tht. that truth and falsity first become clearly propositional; and that shifts the focus of the problem of knowledge from ‘wisdom’ to knowledge in general (πιστμη): cf. Tht. 145d7–e9.
20 This is most clearly expressed in Socrates' declaration that the widespread misrep-resentation and enmity to which he is subject are rooted in enmity against a certain kind of human ‘wisdom’, in terms of which he is justly called ‘wise’ (20d6–9).
21 I take οὔτε μγα οὔτε ομικρν as an emphatic total negation governing the whole sentence, not accusatives of respect qualifying σοϕς ν. But the usual understanding of this phrase in the latter sense does not impair the force of my argument. The TLG supplies nine other examples of this phrase and its variants (οὔτε μγα οὔτε μικρν, οὔτε τι σμικρν οὔτε μγα, μτε μγα μτε σμικρν) in the Platonic corpus, in all of which it functions as a total negation and qualifies the verb: Apol. 19c4–5, 24a5, 26b1, Phil. 21el, 32e6–7, 33b3, Laws VII 793c7, X 900e7, Epist. VII 349b5–6.
22 σνοιδα μαυτῷ used with participle sustains the gravity of this important passage by revealing Socrates' firm internal awareness of his not being wise, in sharp contrast to the oracle's pronouncement. On this verb and its later history, see further Schwyzer, H. R., ‘“Bewusst und unbewusst” bei Plotin’, Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique 5 (1960), 343–78.Google Scholar
23 On the function of virtue, which constitutes one's being how one is, in Plato's earlier dialogues, cf. Burnyeat's, M. F. excellent paper, ‘Virtues in Action’, in Vlastos, (ed.), op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 209–34.Google Scholar
24 The image of Socrates, who is never defeated by an impasse but always finds a way out, is reminiscent of Eros in Smp., who ‘always dwelling in deficiency … always contrives some devices’ (203d3–6). It is explained that Eros possesses deficiency and device as the two constituents of his nature. So it would be mistaken to imagine that Plato here conceives the process of acquiring knowledge as a transition from ignorance, i.e. from deficiency of knowledge to possession of it. That Eros, the personification of the philosopher, is between the wise and the ignorant (204b1–c6) also suggests a different moral. At the summit of Diotima's story of mysteries, acquisition of knowledge is explained as the process of begetting true virtue (212a2–7).
25 This is a revised version of a paper first read to the B Club at the University of Cambridge on 20 November 1989, and then to a meeting of the Liverpool/Manchester group for Ancient Philosophy on 5 December 1989. A later version was delivered as an invited address to the 65th annual meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, at San Francisco on 30 March 1991. I owe much to the discussions at these meetings, and to the helpful criticisms of a number of friends, colleagues and auditors, in particular Myles Burnyeat, Geoffrey Lloyd, G. B. Kerferd, Henry Blumenthal, Julius Moravcsik, Gerry Santas, John Ackrill, and the Editors of CQ, who also kindly improved my English. While I was preparing this final draft, Gregory, Vlastos' book, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar appeared. I am pleased to find in it views more akin to my own than in his previous papers. Although the view which I propose in this paper is different from his, I have long been encouraged and stimulated by his love for the Socrates of Plato's earlier dialogues and by his pioneering papers in this field.