Socrates the Main Themes of Plato\'s Apology

Socrates

The main themes of Plato's Apology are the great irony of many of Socrates' claims, his use of the Socratic method of teaching, and his surprising strategy of questioning the fundamental validity of his trial itself, rather than putting on a vigorous and elegant defense of his actions as was expected by both his supporters and detractors, and likely by the people of the jury. Plato's Apology is a detailed account of the 399 BC trial of the great philosopher Socrates, in which Socrates was on trial for his life after being accused by Meletus, an ambitious young Athenian, and others of the upper class of being "a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the state, and has other new divinities of his own" (Plato, Apology). Ultimately, Socrates' defense led to his death, by his own hand, and the silencing of one of the world's greatest intellectuals, making Socrates a martyr to the cause of intellectual freedom.

Main Themes

The most important initial theme of the introduction to Plato's Apology is Socrates' surprising decision to choose to question the entire basis for his trial, rather than to put on an elaborate and eloquent defense as was likely expected by both his supporters, detractors, and the individuals in the jury.

At the end of his well-argued and carefully constructed defense, Socrates has engineered his response to get him found guilty and condemned to death, and he even chooses to drink the hemlock himself, rather than to flee as urged by his many followers. Socrates' voluntary death sentence is perhaps one of the more extreme actions to ever take place in the name of intellectual defense, and yet it was highly effective in many ways. The extremity of his punishment, and his own role in engineering this punishment, only served to ultimately better illustrate the absurdity and unfairness of his entire trial, as well as the heavy-handedness of his ultimate punishment. If Socrates had not been put to death by his own hand at the end of the trial, it is unlikely that future generations, such as ours, would have continued to study the trial as closely as an example of justice gone awry, and the unfortunate silencing of a great intellectual, ultimately making Socrates into a martyr for the cause of intellectual freedom of thought and speech.

Socratic irony is likely the most apparent and easily identifiable themes in the introduction to Plato's Apology. Socrates begins his apology by urging the jury to listen with open ears, and to pardon him if he accidentally slips into a common conversational style of speech, as he is lacks the ability to use the "set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases" that was used by his accusers, and will therefore seek to speak the truth rather than the falsehoods told by his opponents. This is a great irony, as Socrates was likely well-known in Athenian society as a great speaker (his accusers had even warned the jury of this fact), and his words show him to be a truly clever speaker, as well as acting as a way to parody the usual rhetoric used in such speeches, and showing the uselessness of rhetoric in revealing the truth. In claiming to be an ignorant man, Socrates ultimately shows his accusers to be more ignorant, thus revealing the irony that ignorance is, ironically, the very basis of great wisdom, which is humbling and requires the loss of pretensions. There is an additional layer of irony within Plato's Apology, as Socrates' words are clearly eloquent and persuasive (despite his claims to the contrary), as are his accusers', with an end result of perhaps cleverly chiding the jurors to listen to the validity of the respective claims, rather than to be swayed by the complexity and persuasiveness of their words themselves. As such, Socrates urges the jury to "think only of the justice of my cause, and give heed to that: let the judge decide justly and the speaker speak truly."

Socrates' use of what is commonly called the Socratic method of teaching comes from the understanding of ignorance as the basis of wisdom, and is one of the main themes of the introduction to Plato's Apology. The Socratic method of teaching is much different than the standard method of teaching, where the instructor simply puts forward what he or she knows to students who simply absorb the information. Socrates uses the Socratic method within his Apology, as he claims that he has little or no knowledge to impart, saying "He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing." After acknowledging that he knows nothing, Socrates then goes on to identify what his accusers think they know, and then systematically look into these arguments. Here, Socrates does not necessarily go about destroying his opponents' arguments directly; he simply tries to identify and break down the individual components of each argument, and thus better understand his opponent's claims of his guilt. He begins by looking at the very basis of the claims by Meletus: " "Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others."