“Virtue and justice are man’s most precious possessions,” Socrates once stated (Plato 55).
I was present when Socrates gave his compelling argument as to why he could not possibly be guilty of the crimes of corrupting the youth of Athens, and creating his own gods in lieu of the gods already recognized by the city. It is unfortunate, however, that even with his prolific dialogue, he was not able to save himself from his own death. Out of the five hundred and one jurors, including myself, listening to Socrates’ defense, he lost his case by a marginal difference of a mere thirty six votes. Many of the jurors present that day claimed that Socrates did not possess a strong enough argument for his freedom, but to these nay Sayers, I tell them this: Socrates was able to convince a good portion of the jury, a majority of which previously held biases against him and came into his trial with a predetermined vote, to choose innocence for him. Socrates’ plea for innocence was one that was well deserved, and therefore, one of which we wrongly denied him.
There are only two charges Socrates was guilty of, the first being that he would not conform to the norm of society. He was one who constantly contradicted the common belief of the city, not because he did not respect these beliefs, but because they needed to be proven to him. The courts charged him with creating his own gods and trying to institute them instead of recognized gods of the polis. The common misconception is that Socrates created entirely new gods; this idea is wrong. Socrates did not invent new gods, but simply attempted to redefine the existing gods. He challenged people to look away from the standard belief of the gods. I have not yet understood how Socrates was found to be guilty of attempting to institute new gods if during his defense he willingly admitted to believing in divine beings. Socrates proved to the court his belief in the gods during his trial. He questioned Meletus as to what divine beings can be classified as, and they both came to the common conclusion that divine beings are gods or the children of gods. Socrates goes on to state that “since I do believe in divine beings, as you admit, if divine beings are gods… as you state that I do not believe in gods and then again that I do, since I believe in divine beings” (Plato 32).
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Socrates, therefore, has successfully proven that he is a believer in the gods of the polis.
The second area that could possibly house truth in the guilt of Socrates is that he consistently “makes the worse argument the stronger” (Plato 24).
Socrates’ mission in life is a search for wisdom; therefore, he must constantly seek out those who claim they are wise. Socrates plainly states himself “What has caused my reputation is none other than a certain kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom? Human wisdom, perhaps. It may be that I really possess, this, while those whom I mentioned just now are wise with a wisdom more the human; else I cannot explain it, for I certainly do not possess it, and whoever says I do is lying and speaks to slander me” (Plato 26- 27).
During this search for wisdom, Socrates created many enemies. Socrates believes that those who say they are wise are ignorant, and those who believe they are ignorant are wise, for they realize their limited knowledge. He questioned the politicians, poets, the writers of tragedies, and the craftsmen, all the while acquiring much unpopularity. Among all of these men, he found a common fault that none were willing to admit: “each of them, because of his success at his craft, thought himself very wise in other most important pursuits, and this error of theirs overshadowed the wisdom they had” (Plato 28).
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Socrates’ definition of true wisdom, therefore, was the ability to see one’s limitations.
Socrates believed that knowledge lies in the willingness to accept the unknown and learn that unknown. He has consistently made the weaker argument the stronger. He takes what everyone does not accept and proves it correct. Ideas that were thought to be wrong are actually right, and this angered many people of Athens. His thoughts on human nature were correct, too, for he thought that an abundance of men “who believe they have some knowledge but know little or nothing. The result is that those whom they question are angry, not with themselves, but with me. They say: ‘That man Socrates is a pestilential fellow who corrupts the young’” (Plato 29).
Since seemingly ‘wise’ men are proven insolent during normal discourse with Socrates, they mask their insecurities by claiming that Socrates corrupts the minds of the young. Meletus and his associates, thus bring the charge of deliberately corrupting the minds of the youth upon Socrates because they too have experience the insolence felt by many who have been proven unwise by Socrates. This idea of Socrates corrupting the minds of the young is preposterous. Socrates himself believed that if he corrupted the minds of the young, it would not be beneficial to him. If this so called corruption of the minds of the youth occurred willingly, it would inevitably come back to harm him. Socrates, therefore, never truly corrupted the minds of the young, but rather just angered the minds of the polis.
Virtue and justice are man’s most precious possessions. I now ask of you, fellow jurymen, did we truly rule correctly in Socrates’ trial? Did we act justly, or did we let our blind ambition of ridding Athens from any sort of threat to society get in our way of a accurate ruling? Was it right to come into Socrates’ trial with a predetermined vote before we even heard his defense? When we look back on this trial, will we all be able to say with a clear conscious that we ruled virtuously and honorably? The answer is quite clear that we have not.
