Commentary
on Plato's Apology (24--26)
Socrates' defense against Meletus
At 24b, Socrates announces his intent to defend himself against his later accusers, beginning with Meletus. About this part of the Apology, C.D. C. Reeve says:
Nothing in
the Apology has evoked more unanimous
response than the . . . cross-examination of Meletus. Almost everyone, even the
most cautious, is convinced that it does not establish, is perhaps not even
intended to establish, that Socrates is innocent. Socrates "entraps"
Meletus into saying things he does not mean -- the story goes -- and then
"refutes" him with arguments at once irrelevant to his charges and
fallacious. (Reeve, p. 74).
Though I will quote more from this passage
from Reeve below, let me say here that Reeve is correct (more or less) about
how "the [usual] story goes" and that the usual story offers, more or
less, the only sane and non-sophistic reading of this part of the Apology. Although we will see Reeve
challenging the usual reading below, his challenge reveals him to be (although
this hardly needed revealing) a Socratic disciple, utterly unable to see his
master guilty of any wrong, let alone serious wrongs like entrapping
interlocutors and giving irrelevant and fallacious arguments. Although I have
great respect for Reeve's erudition and philosophical skills, it is sad to see
him using his considerable talents and knowledge to try to get around (and
soft-sell) Socrates' obvious sophisms in this section of the Apology. It is such behavior that lends
support to those who hold, first, that there are as many truths as there are
interpreters and that philosophers are those who are
good at making the weaker argument appear to defeat the stronger argument.
To see that the usual story is on the mark,
one need look no further than Socrates' opening gambit
against Meletus. After laying out the charges against him (viz., corrupting the
youth and impiety) Socrates uses the all-too common and all-too faulty ploy of
the accused, viz., claiming that one's accusers are also guilty of something or
other. In particular, Socrates claims that
"Meletus is guilty of treating a serious matter with levity . . . and
professes concern and keen anxiety in matters about which he has never had the
slightest interest." (24c). And then Socrates says the he "will try
to prove this to [the jury's] satisfaction." (24c). But the jurors should
be saying, "Don't bother Socrates, for it matters not what Meletus is or
is not guilty of; show us you are not a corrupter of the youth or
impious." There is no legitimate way to avoid concluding that Socrates is
guilty here of "trying Meletus" when the matter before the court is
Socrates' guilt or innocence. It would be nice if we could just call this spade
a spade and ignore all sophistic arguments trying to show otherwise. But let's look
at the evidence.
Of Socrates' "proof" that his
charges against Meletus are true, irrelevant though it is, there is much not to
like. Socrates asks Meletus to say who it is that influences the young for the
better, insisting that Meletus "must know, if
[he] is so much interested". The text then finds Meletus slow to answer,
at which point Socrates hastily concludes that "Meletus . . . cannot
answer" and then declares that Meletus' inability is "a sufficient
proof in itself of what I said, that [Meletus has] no interest in the subject
[of the welfare of the young]." (24d).
Socrates is simply wrong on both counts, viz., wrong that Meletus must know who
influences the young for the better if he is interested in the young's welfare,
and wrong that Meletus' inability to answer is proof of lack of interest.
Meletus might claim that no one in present-day Athens influences the young for
the better, in which case a non-answer, or the answer, no one, would be
compatible with an interest in the welfare of the young. But even if Meletus
admitted that he didn't know who uplifts the young and had never bothered to
investigate the matter, his failure is obviously compatible with an interest in
the matter. He could have claimed that his focus up till now has been on those
who are the most obvious corrupters of the young, a task which is
simultaneously easier and more likely to produce results than that of finding
the uplifters of the youth. Socrates' "proof" then proves nothing at
all.
Eventually, however, Socrates gets an answer
from Meletus, who claims that the laws make the young good. Socrates does not
accept this answer, insisting that he wants to know "the person whose first business it is to
know the laws." (24e). Meletus cites a group of such people, viz., the
members of the jury. Eventually, Socrates gets Meletus to say that everyone in
Athens, except for Socrates, "has a refining effect upon the young",
and thus that Socrates alone demoralizes them. Now although Meletus' view is
hopelessly optimistic, as well as highly implausible, it is obvious that its
implausibility or even falsity cannot be taken to establish Socrates'
innocence. For the statement's implausibility and likely falsity is due to the
unlikelihood of everyone other than Socrates being a benefactor of the young, or
Socrates being their only corrupter, rather than on the implausibility or
likely falsity of Socrates being a corrupter. Socrates, however, tries to make
the case that Meletus' claim is not merely implausible but that it in fact
reverses the truth of things. It is much more likely, says Socrates, that
improvers of mankind are few in number while the corrupters are many. Socrates'
argument is based on an analogy with horse trainers, with Socrates claiming
that the ability to improve horses lies with a few (viz., horse trainers)
whereas "most people, if they have to do with horses and make use of them,
do them harm". (25b).
Even allowing that there is a viable analogy between the help and harm of
horses and that of young people (a rather generous assumption, don't you
think!), the conclusion that benefactors are few while non-benefactors or
harmers are many, does much to establish the obvious, viz., the implausibility
of Meletus' contention, but nothing to establish that Socrates is not a
corrupter of the youth. Most importantly, Socrates' conclusion does not warrant
the conclusion Socrates wishes to draw, viz., that Meletus has "never
bothered his head about the young". For as noted above, his concern for
the young can be said to be evident by his effort to rid the streets of
Socrates. Whether one agrees with this or not, we can't forget that Meletus'
bothering or not bothering his head about the young is irrelevant, not only
because it is Socrates that is on trial but also because Socrates' corrupting
influence may be so obvious that it is capable of being detected even by
someone who has "never taken the slightest interest in the welfare of the
young".
The fallacious character of Socrates' next
maneuver against Meletus is perhaps the most difficult to spot but once seen,
cannot be denied. After setting out some preliminary truisms (everyone prefers
to be benefited by others rather than harmed, and it's better live in a good
rather than a bad community, etc.), Socrates gets Meletus to say that Socrates
corrupts the youth "intentionally" rather than unintentionally.
Socrates then goes on to bellow that he would never intentionally corrupt the
young and so it must be that he either does not corrupt the young or he does so
unintentionally. Socrates then adds that the proper procedure for unintentional
wrongdoing "is not to summon the culprit before the court, but to take him
aside privately for instruction and reproof, because obviously if my eyes are
opened, I shall stop doing what I do not intend to do." (26a). Clearly
Socrates is being disingenuous here, for nothing will convince him that his
mission corrupts the youth and nothing will deter him from his mission.
But the truth is that Socrates deliberately performs his elenchus. Meletus
regards this as youth-corrupting and so contends,
rightly, that Socrates deliberately corrupts the youth. That is, Meletus is
claiming here that Socrates intentionally performs the actions
which Meletus deems corrupting, i.e., the elenchus. The point in dispute
then is whether Socrates' elenchic activities corrupt the young. No one cares
that Socrates does not intentionally perform actions he himself regards as
corrupting. Indeed, as Socrates himself says, only a fool would do such a
thing. Meletus is not then, claiming that Socrates is deliberately doing something which he, Socrates, regards as youth-corrupting.
As such, this entire episode about deliberateness is little more than a red
herring to try to make Meletus look silly. Not exactly the sort of behavior one
expects from someone on a mission from God (but then again, it depends on one's
notion of God; some there are who regard their God as a trickster).
The bottom line however is that since
Socrates would readily allow that he performs his elenchic activities
intentionally, deliberately, the only way for Socrates to convince the jurors
that he does not corrupt the youth intentionally is to show that his elenchic
activities do not, Meletus' contentions notwithstanding, corrupt the young. At
the very least, it ought to be agreed that the whole "either I do not
corrupt or I do so unintentionally" maneuver smacks of sophistry, not to
mention hypocrisy, and ought not be a part of any honest attempt to meet the
charges before Socrates.
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Last modified September 17. 2011
JAH,
Professor
Dept. of Philosophy