It is obvious that Socrates had an enviable ability to argue his opponents into the ground. He would choose an appropriate victim, set the agenda, invite his opponent to speak his thoughts freely, and then counterpunch the poor fellow into submission. Lacing his attacks with heavy irony, he was not content until he had elicited from his hapless victim a confession of ignorance. He would then propose that, after heavy debate and heavier drinking, they take to their beds and resume the battle another time. But, unsurprisingly, he never had a second dialogue with the same person. And many of those who had suffered by his words turned against him. He was, as he admitted, a gadfly whose chief delight was stinging the complacent Athenians into self-reflection, but that meant he irritated his powerful contemporaries in more ways than one. He tried to teach the Athenians the virtues of wisdom, courage, love and justice in the midst of corruption and cowardice. Such unarmed prophets are likely to come to grief.
In 399 BC he was charged by the Athenian democracy with corrupting the youth of Athens and introducing false gods to the community. Tried and sentenced to death for his refusal to compromise his intellectual integrity, he died a martyr to the truth. He lived and died arguing and his martyrdom is the best argument for argument in the Western rational tradition.
When asked by a friend what charges have been brought against him by the Athenian democracy, Socrates replies ironically that his accuser, Meletus, must be a wise man for he knows how the Athenian youth are corrupted and who their corrupters are. He cheerfully admits that he has a benevolent habit of pouring out himself to everybody, and would even pay for a listener. He knows that the Athenians think him too talkative and wonders why they do not merely laugh at him rather than engage in their serious and deadly project which is sure to end badly.
Socrates never denies the charge of corrupting the youth. He argues against Meletus that either he does not corrupt the youth or he corrupts them unintentionally. He asks Meletus to call several witnesses to testify on his behalf, but the closest he comes to denying the charge is his admission that his aim in life is to urge men to pursue virtue: if in saying these things he corrupts the youth that would be harmful indeed. However, Socrates refuses to defend himself in the usual manner. Rather than engage in the type of dialogue for which he is famous, he employs heavy rhetoric and emphasises the lies and prejudices of his accusers rather than address himself to the actual charges they brought against him.
Socrates’ speech to the court appears in Plato’s essay, Apology. Socrates begins his speech to the large jury by telling them that, unlike poets and politicians, he has a special sort of wisdom – he is wise because he knows that, with respect to philosophical matters, he knows nothing, and that is more than they know. He relates how he went to the artisans, conscious that he knew nothing and sure that they knew many important things. But he discovered that he was mistaken: they did know many things of which he was ignorant but he observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets. Because they were good workmen they thought they also understood all sorts of intellectual matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom. And so he asked himself whether he would like to be as he was, having neither their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both, and he answered himself that he was better off as he was. He admits that this inquisition has produced many dangerous enemies and has given rise to slanderous criticism. He concludes that he is called wise, for his hearers always imagine that he possesses the wisdom which he finds lacking in others. The truth is that, compared to the gods, the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing.
Socrates will not agree that he is a curious evildoer who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause. He has nothing to do with physical speculations, and does not teach for money. Rather, he admits to acquiring enemies because he refuses to speak or act hypocritically. After talking with a politician who had an impressive reputation, Socrates says that when he began to talk with him, he could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and so he tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise. The consequence was that he and his friends hated Socrates, who left him saying to himself that although he does not suppose that anyone knows anything really beautiful or good, he, Socrates, is better off than those who know nothing but think that they know. He neither knows nor thinks that he knows. In this latter particular, then, he believes he has the advantage of him.
It was the custom in Socrates’ time to propose to the jury a penalty for his alleged crime. Socrates proposes that which is his due. He asks what returns should be made to a man who has never been idle in his life but who has been careless of matters of wealth, family interests, military offices, magistracies, and plots and parties. Reflecting that he was really too honest a man to be a politician and live, he devoted himself to doing the greatest good privately to as many people as possible. He did his best to persuade every man in the jury that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests. But as he never harmed anyone, he refuses to try to refute great slanders so that he does not harm himself. He will not admit that he deserves any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should he?
After the good democrats of Athens condemned Socrates to death, he addressed them saying that he was convicted because he did not have the impudence or inclination to address them as they would have liked him to do, weeping, wailing and lamenting, and saying things which they have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, Socrates maintains, are unworthy of him. During the trial he thought that he ought not to do anything common or mean even though he was in danger: nor does he now repent of the style of his defence since he would rather die having spoken authentically than speak in their manner and live.
He concludes with addresses to his accusers and to his friends and predicts that his murderers will suffer grievously for their actions. Without his restraining influence, accusers will appear who will be more inconsiderate and brutal. If the good citizens of Athens believe that by killing men they can prevent accusers from censuring their evil lives, they are seriously mistaken. There is no possibility of escaping from them in an honourable manner; the noblest way is not to disable others, but to improve oneself.
To his friends Socrates points out that death is not to be feared, but welcomed. Either death is like an eternal peaceful sleep and therefore not to be despised, or death is a journey to another place where all the dead reside; it represents a fascinating journey for all of us. He looks forward to the possibility of conversing with Homer. He is excited by the prospect of conversing with ancient heroes who have suffered death through unjust judgements. Above all, he shall be able to continue his search for knowledge and he hopes to discover who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. In another, better world they do not put a man to death for asking questions.
Many readers of Plato have wondered why Socrates did not defend himself better. Did he want to die by effectively committing suicide? He neither presented himself as a noble man, nor put the jury into a receptive mood. Indeed, he deliberately antagonised them by attacking politicians, poets, playwrights and craftsmen for claiming knowledge of matters of which they were ignorant. In lacing his speech with heavy irony and dubious rhetoric, Socrates was identified with the worst of the Sophists and it is therefore unsurprising that he was brought to trial. Socrates knew what he was doing and in the Apology tells us that he refused to humble himself before the jury and speak in a language he detested. In choosing not to speak in the manner expected of a defendant, he remained true to his life’s project: to urge people to pursue virtue. His project required that he tell the truth and act virtuously and this is what he did, even if it meant his death. Because he claimed that he knew nothing, he was accused of dishonesty, but his ignorance was the foundation of his teaching. He aimed for the truth – to be a true Homo sapiens - but he was accused of intellectual corruption.
Socrates made many enemies. People in positions of authority do not like to be humiliated by people who are clever with words. He was so clever and vehement in debate that his fellow citizens set upon him