Socrates Against Athens

Philosophy on Trial

James A. Colaiaco

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135024932
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

As an essential companion to Plato's Apology and Crito, Socrates Against Athens provides valuable historical and cultural context to our understanding of the trial.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION: A TRAGIC CONFRONTATION

Ever since Socrates' trial, that is, ever since the polis tried the philosopher, there has been a conflict between politics and philosophy that I'm attempting to understand.

–Hannah Arendt¹

IN 399 B.C., THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER SOCRATES was tried in his native city of Athens and condemned by a majority of citizenjurors. He was sentenced to death for allegedly disbelieving in the gods of the state, introducing new gods, and corrupting the young. Having engaged in a mission to reform the Athenians, fostering the pursuit of virtue and the improvement of the soul, Socrates threatened values and beliefs regarded as essential to the unity and stability of the city–called the polis by the ancient Greeks.² Athens, the world's first democracy, renowned for its freedom of speech, silenced the philosopher as a dangerous subversive. Socrates' indictment brought a climax to the tragic confrontation between politics and philosophy that had been building in Athens for years. Socrates represents individual conscience, freedom of expression, and the moral claim that one's duty to obey God is superior to one's duty to obey the state. Unless the individual is free to exercise moral autonomy, the state easily degenerates into a tyranny. Athens, on the other hand, represents the state seeking to protect itself from a dissenting philosopher who undermined traditional communal values.³ If individuals are free to follow the dictates of conscience in conflict with accepted social norms and laws, order might dissolve into anarchy. Occurring in the wake of the Peloponnesian War, in which Athens suffered a crushing defeat by Sparta, the trial of Socrates summoned many Athenians to reexamine values regarded as fundamental to the city. Socrates' philosophic mission challenged his fellow citizens to tolerate a critical mind who, ironically, could only have been produced in democratic Athens.

In the Apology, Plato has transmitted to us a re-creation of the trial of Socrates.⁴ In contrast to the Apology, which shows Socrates as a dissenter and civil disobedient, Plato's Crito shows him as an obedient citizen, refusing to escape the death sentence in order to uphold the laws of the state. In fact, the Crito features a Socrates who appears to undermine his radical stance in the Apology. Given the conflicting images of the philosopher, radical dissenter and obedient citizen, the question arises, who is the real Socrates? According to the conventional view, he was the victim of a democratic tyranny. But only in the modern era has democracy been associated with liberalism. Ancient Athenian democracy, despite its value of freedom, had no conception of individual rights and was frequently oppressive. Democracies depend upon the will of the majority for their survival. Yet the majority is not always right or just. Even in modern democracies, as the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill remind us, freedom can be endangered by a tyranny of the majority, in which the individual is subjected to oppression by law and public opinion. Individuals who have taken a stand against the state have often done so on the basis of conscience and belief in a superordinate moral law. In the nineteenth century, Henry David Thoreau protested the extension of slavery in the United States by disobeying the law to express his moral convictions.

A similar conscientious stand is found in one of the most famous passages in the Apology, in which Socrates asserts categorically that he would disobey the state rather than abandon what he regarded as the higher moral law of God. In the midst of his trial, Socrates hypothesizes that the jury might offer to acquit him if he agrees to end his philosophic mission. It was his life as a philosopher and moral critic that had led to his conflict with Athens. If he were to receive an offer of a conditional acquittal, Socrates proclaims, he would reply: “Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy.”⁵ Such a response, essentially a threat of civil disobedience, undoubtedly angered many jurors. Indeed, a more bold challenge to state authority, occurring within a court that was understood to represent the sovereign citizenry, would be difficult to find in ancient Greek history. Socrates, having already claimed a mission from God, to whom he professed to owe obedience above all, had established a basis upon which to justify resistance to state authority.

In the mid-nineteenth-century, John Stuart Mill, in his famous essay On Liberty, lauded Socrates as a saint of rationalism and viewed him as a martyr for the cause of philosophy. According to Mill, a liberal in defense of individual freedom, Athens had “condemned the man who probably of all then born had deserved least of mankind to be put to death as a criminal.” For Mill, a society unwilling to tolerate a high degree of freedom of thought and discussion sacrifices the values essential for the richest development of both the individual and the community. Yet, Mill conceded, we have every reason to believe that the Athenian court had “honestly found him [Socrates] guilty.”⁶

Among the most famous depictions of the philosopher is a painting by Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, first exhibited in Paris in 1787 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The scene depicted is from the last days of Socrates, as portrayed in Plato's Phaedo. We see Socrates sitting up on a bed surrounded by devoted followers, reaching for the cup of poison hemlock that would end his life. He is pointing upward with his other hand, as if to emphasize an idea in the philosophical discussion on the immortality of the soul that, according to Plato, had occupied him and his companions during his last days. The conflict between the philosopher and the state may be perceived in the majesty of the figure of Socrates, the painting's center, pointing up, maintaining his conviction that his commitment to his philosophic mission ranks above his duty to obey the state. The painting also depicts a consistent Socrates: By accepting the death penalty, he remains faithful to Athens while adhering to his principles.

Produced in Paris just before the French Revolution, David's painting has been interpreted by many as a depiction of Socrates the champion of free thought crushed by tyranny. Nevertheless, the painting can be perceived as a celebration of Socrates symbolizing the ideal patriotic citizen who sacrifices his life for the state. According to this ideal, the individual must be willing to place civic duty above personal interest. David's Socrates serenely prepares to depart stoically from this life. Although regarded throughout history as an example of an individual who defied the state, Socrates could not be denigrated for disrespecting the laws of Athens. This paradoxical image, disobedient yet respectful of law and order, has inspired centuries-old disagreements about the philosopher's significance and his relationship with Athens. The interpretation of David's painting as a glorification of patriotic self-sacrifice is articulated in the Crito. In this dialogue, Socrates' friend Crito attempts to convince the philosopher, awaiting execution, to defy the verdict of the Athenian court and flee Athens. Socrates agreed that the death sentence imposed upon him was unjust. But the philosopher's devotion to Athens and the rule of law made escape unconscionable for him. Having been unjustly condemned, Socrates nevertheless willingly surrendered his life to the city he loved.

Several modern interpreters have viewed the trial of Socrates as the result of a tragic collision between two defensible positions. According to G. W. F. Hegel, the essence of tragedy is a conflict not so much between characters as between viewpoints, each rational and justifiable, yet lacking a more comprehensive vision that would have encompassed the good in the opposing side. As A. C. Bradley summarized Hegel's view: “The competing forces are both in themselves rightful, and so far the claim of each is equally justified; but the right of each is pushed into a wrong, because it ignores the right of the other, and demands that absolute sway which belongs to neither alone, but to the whole of which each is but a part.”⁷ According to this interpretation, each side, while justified in itself, becomes wrong in its inflexible one-sidedness. H. D. F. Kitto sees merit in the positions of both the philosopher and his city: “Nothing can be more sublime than the bearing of Socrates during and after his trial, and this sublimity must not be sentimentalized by the representing of Socrates as the victim of an ignorant mob. His death was almost a Hegelian tragedy, a conflict in which both sides were right.”⁸ In the words of Romano Guardini: “The truth, which must be emphasized again and again, is that here an epoch–a declining one, it is true, but still full of values–confronts a man who, great as he is and called to be a bringer of new things, disrupts by his spirit all that has hitherto held sway. In the incompatibility of these two opposing sets of values and forces lies the real tragedy of the situation.”⁹ Those who see merit in both sides usually hold that Socrates, although morally superior, was legally guilty. As J. B. Bury, one of the foremost modern historians of ancient Greece, declared: “Socrates was not condemned unjustly–according to the law. And that is the intensity of the tragedy. There have been no better men than Socrates; and yet his accusers were perfectly right.… The execution of Socrates was the protest of the spirit of the old order against the growth of individualism.”¹⁰

While most people today sympathize with Socrates, the courageous individual abiding by his moral principles, the fear among many Athenians is understandable, for the philosopher posed a profound threat to the city. Athens deserved its reputation as a city that cherished freedom; whereas people throughout the rest of the world were mere subjects, virtually the property of rulers, a significant number of the Athenian population were citizens, taking part in determining the laws that governed the community. While the Persian and Egyptian empires were ruled by the few for the benefit of the few, Athens set the standard of a direct, participatory democracy. As its great leader Pericles proclaimed, Athens was the school for all of Greece, a role model for those who sought cultural and political excellence. The conflict between Socrates and Athens was not between absolute good and evil. To see Socrates as an example of a perfectly innocent individual crushed by a tyrannical state is to reduce the trial to a mere morality play. The Athenians, on the whole, were neither unintelligent nor malevolent. Once the historical and cultural context is understood, the Athenian position becomes more substantial. At the same time, Socrates' moral superiority grows larger when viewed from the vantage point of modern liberalism. In defense of Athens, history has shown that even the best societies sometimes betray their principles. In fact, placed in a similar situation, with one's fundamental values and beliefs under assault in a time of crisis, many people today would probably vote to condemn Socrates.

The confrontation between Socrates and Athens is similar to that dramatized in Sophocles' Antigone, one of the greatest masterpieces of Greek literature. The tragedies of the historical Socrates and the mythical Antigone arose out of their being caught between two contradictory paths of duty–one's obligation to conscience versus one's obligation to the state. Like Antigone, Socrates could not fulfill one duty without violating the other. He had to choose. The conflict dramatized by Sophocles' Antigone resonated deeply with the Athenians. Socrates probably saw the play, and it undoubtedly exerted a powerful effect upon the Athenians, including Plato. Citizens brought what they had learned about difficult civic issues from the theater into their deliberations in the Assembly and their judgments in the courts.¹¹ Having to participate often and in different forums–evaluating dramas in the theater, weighing decisions in the Assembly, and judging the arguments of litigants in the lawcourts–the Athenian citizenry was among the most informed and proficient in history.

While Greek tragedy is said to have died with Sophocles and Euripides, a study of Plato's Apology reveals that the trial of Socrates is a dramatic agōn, or contest. In fact, in Athens the trial was called an agōn tēs dikēs, a contest of right.¹² The courtroom became a theater, the scene of a contest between Socrates and the city, between philosophy and politics. Athenian drama was not merely a public performance attended by those interested in spectacles; theater occupied an integral place in the life of the polis and was attended by virtually all citizens as part of their civic duty.¹³ Like the spectators in the theater, the Athenian jurors represented the collective citizenry, participating in an institution that reinforced their identity as a group. As William Arrowsmith explains, the Athenians created a “theater of ideas” that became “the supreme instrument of cultural instruction, a democratic paideia complete in itself.”¹⁴ Christian Meier argues that tragedy and politics were intimately related in Athens.¹⁵ Tragedy not only validated traditional values, reinforcing group cohesion, but also exposed and questioned conflicts and inherent contradictions in Athenian society. Jean-Pierre Vernant observes that Greek tragedy explored the inherent tension between the polis, represented by the anonymous chorus of citizens, and the exceptional individual, represented by the tragic hero. While in earlier history, the exceptional character stood out as the Homeric hero of the Greek epics, during the fifth century B.C., when Athens sought to subordinate the individual to the community, the exploits of the individualistic hero were regarded as a potential threat to the unity of the polis. Only by taming the heroic individual could the community survive. The Homeric hero had become a problem.¹⁶

In 399 B.C., therefore, Athens, the city that gave birth to tragedy as a literary genre, became the scene of a real-life tragedy involving a conflict between an exceptional individual, Socrates the philosopher-hero, and the state. As with drama, the trial of Socrates took place in the civic center of Athens and included a public performance before a large audience of citizens who served as judges.¹⁷ The dramatic aspects of Socrates' trial were recognizable to his contemporaries. Life in the Athenian polis was profoundly theatrical.¹⁸ Indeed, the culture of classical Athens has been characterized as a “performance culture.”¹⁹ Athenians saw themselves as performing on a stage, as it were, compet...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• 1. INTRODUCTION: A TRAGIC CONFRONTATION
• 2. SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE TRIAL
• 3. SOCRATES AND RHETORIC
• 4. SOCRATES CONFRONTS HIS OLD ACCUSERS
• 5. SOCRATES' RADICAL PHILOSOPHIC MISSION
• 6. THE ATHENIAN POLIS IDEAL
• 7. SOCRATES CONFRONTS HIS PRESENT ACCUSERS: THE INTERROGATION OF MELETUS
• 8. SOCRATES BRINGS THE PHILOSOPHIC MISSION INTO THE COURT
• 9. THE POLITICS OF AN UNPOLITICAL MAN
• 10. THE TRIAL CONCLUDES: SOCRATES CONDEMNED
• 11. SOCRATES AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE: THE CRITO
• 12. CONCLUSION: A CONFLICT UNRESOLVED
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index