Is Socrates Guilty?

Is Socrates Guilty?

Why am I writing this? I’m about to embark on a course entitled ‘Plato and the Pre-Socratics’, and I figured I would familiarise myself with some interpretive issues concerning Plato.  I am relatively familiar with his texts, but have never ventured into the wilderness that is Plato interpretation.  It isn’t my fear of the interpreters that has stopped me from going further, it is simply the need I felt to first read the texts carefully and then see what other people have to say. Now that I am ready to hear what other people have to say, I have gone through the first three essays of The Trial and Execution of Socrates: Sources and Controversies entitled: The Impiety of Socrates (M.F. Burnyeat), The Trial of Socrates: And a Religious Crisis (Robert Parker), and Does Piety Pay? Socrates on Prayer and Sacrifice (Mark L. McPherran).  I have also read the first part of Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies. The idea here is to read essays, not necessarily linearly, as the insights found in one text may lead me to previous essays, and then provide some sort of analysis with a narrative.  So here it goes.

In The Impiety of Socrates, M.F. Burnyeat provides a new 'reading' strategy one could use to read the Apology. Why would one propose a new strategy to reading Plato?  According to Burnyeat, much of Plato scholarship is ‘inconclusive guess work. Readers have often asked: ‘What is the relation between the historical Socrates and the Socrates portrayed in Plato’s Apology?’ Burnyeat admits early that he has nothing to add to this enterprise, and instead submits another potential way to read the Apology. The Apology should be read as ‘personal challenge’. What does he mean by this? As the Socrates of the Apology could not be identical to the real Socrates, the jury could also be not identical with the real jury. Therefore, a reader of the Apology ‘whether in ancient times or (here) today’, is asked to ‘pass judgment on Socrates’. Plato, Burnyeat claims, penned the Apology in a forensic form; unlike the routine dialogue where one is invited to 'join in a philosophical discussion', this dialogue takes the shape of a legal text. Burnyeat cites an 'ancient rhetorician' who also noted this seemingly legal style. This rhetorician saw the Apology as consisting in three main themes. First, the two drives of defence and accusation are interconnected to the form the judicial theme. Secondly, the work has a theme of praise for the character of Socrates. The third theme is the normative undercurrent of the work that asks: 'what is a philosopher?' The drive of accusation is, Burnyeat claims, the strongest aspect of the work, insofar as it is an accusation levelled against Greek culture and religion and has much to do with the question of whether he would be thought of as guilty or not by an Athenian juror. 

However, one is not supposed to judge as themselves; Burnyeat asks that you assume the position of an Athenian juror and think of what the most rational thing for you to have thought given your knowledge of Socrates. Therefore, there seems to be a degree of imagination involved in what Burnyeat prescribes. But without digressing into a premature critique of Burnyeat's interpretive method, let me state the charges as they are presented by Socrates himself at 24C of the Apology. Here are the charges: 1.not believing in the Gods of the State, 2. introducing new divinities, and 3.corrupting the youth. I’ll begin with the first charge; does Burnyeat think Socrates guilty of not believing in the Gods of the state? Burnyeat's first point once this question is raised is that, given his interpretive strategy, insofar as Socrates never says in the Apology that he believes in the gods of the state, why should we think he is innocent? In any legal case, if someone is attempting to prove his innocence, one will surely argue against his/her participation the illegal activity. Why then would Socrates completely ignore this rhetorical strategy? 

Given that Socrates doesn't defend himself of this charge, what would a reasonable Athenian juror conclude based on his knowledge of Socrates?  Burnyeat argues that Socrates would be perceived as a threat to Athenian culture and its religion. The god Socrates speaks of is radically different than Athenian gods, so much so in fact that the ideal Athenian juror (like you) would consider Socrates guilty of the first charge. The god of the 'Socratic religion' is a god that demands virtue and constant questioning from human beings (as they truly do not have virtue); unlike the gods of Athens, which teach clear ideas of what virtue is, and claim that you need gods to achieve it. For instance, the gods of Greek religion are gods one could barter with to get what you wanted in tough situations, yet the Socratic god can only do as virtue dictates and grants special treatment to no one. The patent hubris involved in claiming humans do not need help from the gods would, Burnyeat argues, undoubtedly raise fear in an Athenian juror of repercussions from the gods in relation to Socrates' impiety. I would argue that, insofar as Socrates is perceived as an educator, and is seen as teaching things that undermine Athenian culture and religion, he would also be thought guilty of corrupting the youth. It would be natural to think these teaching would corrupt youth, as they teach one seemingly false things about the gods and ethics; false things that will lead to a lack of eudaimonia for the individual and society.

Burnyeat's final discussion centres on the precise differences between the Socratic god and the Athenian gods. He approaches this topic by also proposing we read the Euthyphro as a double question: a) ‘does Euthyphro act piously in charging his own father with murder?’ and b) ‘is Socrates guilty of impiety?’ These two questions can be thought of as one question, and this question is in the work: 'what is the nature of piety in relation to murder and to other things?' Euthyphro's answer is famously that 'piety is what is pleasing to the gods'. Burnyeat argues that, while this definition is the standard Greek definition of piety, it is also revelatory as to a major problem within the Greek religion; namely that it isn't always easy to know what will be pleasing to the gods. In fact, Socrates' objection to this definition hovers around the fact that what could be pious to one god could not be pious to another, as they differ as to what pleases them. This directly affects Euthyphro, as he claims to think he is pious for bringing his father to 'justice', as well as the dominant Greek tradition who feels like it is pious. Socrates proposes a modification of Euthyphro's principle, and manages to get Euthyphro to agree to it; 'something is pious if it is loved by all the gods'. Burnyeat claims that, if this principle had replaced the common principle of that day, the Athenian religion would have been in peril. The god of Socrates would have never started the Trojan war, or have caused the horrors of the Iliad or the Theogony.

Socrates' Gods would have seemed different to the Athenian juror not only because of the ethical deviance, but also because of the new powers this god possessed. While not only speaking of a daemon, Socrates also announces that, whatever the court decides, he will remain unaffected; whether the charge is death or not. The one thing the Greeks did not have that the gods did have was immortality. Is Socrates stealing fire from the gods? 

Burnyeat finds Socrates guilty. However, he doesn't do so without bringing Plato down with him. According to Burnyeat, Plato also believed Socrates was guilty. However, as is made clear through the 'accusation' drive that Plato includes in the Apology, Plato was critical not of Socrates, but of the people that found him guilty. For the Athenian people to find Socrates guilty of impiety when he ultimately possessed the secret of virtue, meant to Plato that Athens had failed at its mandate.

What do you think?