Thoughts on Plato's Apology and Crito

My last two dialogues were Plato’s Apology and Crito, which I read from a collection including those and a few other works from Yale University Press, translated by R.E. Allen. The translation, notes, and introductory material were good, although I skipped the general introduction to Plato since at this point I feel like I know enough about him. These are two separate dialogues, but they are short and intimately tied together, and it wouldn’t really make sense to read one without the other.

The Apology is Socrates’ defense speech in his trial for corrupting the youth and impiety. The introduction suggests that it’s entirely possible Socrates is committing suicide by criminal court rather than face the infirmity of old age, because the speech seems designed to annoy the jurors and makes no real attempt at all to avoid conviction. It is completely unapologetic, and while it makes a good argument, Socrates could probably have made the same argument that he hasn’t done anything wrong and is simply searching for virtue with a more conciliatory tone and been acquitted. He is, however, too principled (or maybe proud?) to do so. He also has the option to suggest his own punishment, and from what I understand he would almost have been guaranteed to receive exile rather than death had he put forward exile as an option. The intro also persuasively argues that the speech is likely to be pretty accurate historically—as in, Plato didn’t just make this up after the fact.

Socrates does say some pretty interesting things in the speech and I certainly admire him for making it. He says the he does not fear death as much as living an unjust life, which he would be if he stopped being a gadfly, stopped questioning people in his search for virtue, and gave a truly apologetic and simpering defense speech to avoid the charges. That’s something very few people can honestly say, but Socrates can. Echoing the Republic, Socrates says that anyone who wants to fight for what is just must, as he has done, live a private rather than public life, lest he be torn apart by the majority. This is a sentiment many in democratic nations likely feel today. Socrates in the Apology refuses to bow to public pressure and insists on speaking truth even though it will cause his death. Again though, I wonder if he could have spoken truth in a less abrasive way and avoided death—would that really have been so bad? Perhaps it’s a slippery slope from there to just being a slimy politician, but perhaps not. The Apology, like I said, seems to go out of its way to offend the jurors, as when he suggests he should be fed at public expense.

Interestingly, Socrates mission in life is divinely inspired by his personal internal voice/god (his “sign”) that has follows him throughout his life, as well as an oracle he received saying that he is the wisest of men. I did not realize just how important the sign was until I read the Apology. It apparently often intervened in his life and stopped him from doing things. His frank discussion of death is also very interesting—he basically says it’s either the dreamless sleep of non-existence or a change of form, and he fears neither.

On to the Crito. In the Crito, Socrates Crito begs him to escape execution and go into exile, and Socrates refuses. Crito argues he is leaving his children as orphans, that the judgment was unjust anyway, and that he has no obligation or reason to die. Socrates’ essentially argues that he has a duty to obey a valid (if incorrect) judicial judgment of the state in which he has been born, nurtured, and lived his entire life. If he does not, he is committing an injustice by essentially making war on the laws of Athens.

I don’t agree with Socrates’ premises here and don’t buy his conclusion. First, I don’t agree that it’s always wrong to prevent evil by doing it in return or first. Second, I even more strongly disagree that one’s ultimate loyalty is to the state rather than to something else like family or God. Socrates conclusion is a little more persuasive with the context that he could easily have left Athens before prosecution or suggested exile as an alternative punishment and did not do so. He can’t now break the law when he could so easily have avoided a death sentence before it was handed down; now that it has been handed down he must obey.

I think also that his overall argument about loyalty to the state makes more sense in the context of a Greek guy 2400 years ago with wealthy friends. If you don’t want to obey the state in modern times, then tough shit—it’s extremely powerful and it’s not like you can leave and go somewhere else. It’s probably impossible for you to emigrate long term to anywhere you’d want to live if you aren’t wealthy, and even if you did, you’ll probably find a pretty overbearing state wherever you go too. It’s tougher to argue that the state is owed your first loyalty when you have no choice in the matter, as it is now. Socrates, like many Greeks, could have gone and lived in any number of other city-states or even gone off to work on founding a new colony. To a much greater extent than now, he could choose the government that he wanted or even little government at all. Having chosen Athens, it makes more sense to argue that he is bound to follow it’s judicial decrees than it would be to say that someone now must accept the unjust decrees of a country they could never have left.