CMS150 - Winter 2001

Trials of Conscience: Litigation

and the Rhetoric of Identity

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Lecture Topics:

• Stone, The Trial and Death of Socrates (p. 181 -248)
• arguments analysis

 Xenophon as a source

why does he write &endash; to explain something other's haven't &endash; how he came to decide to die

-> others have written

Was Xenophon present for the events he describes? No.

• he's only as good as his source
• his account is second hand [Plato's is first]

Who was his source? Hermogenes, the son of Hipponicus

What do we know about him? - Very little

How will we evaluate him?

• Internal consistency
• Comparison with Plato

Xenophon's Socrates

Definition

Are Socrates accounts for not doing his homework logically consistent?

a) led a guiltless life &endash; that is the best defense

b) I know that's irrelevant to cts, but my daemon won't let me write

c) Concludes that gods want him to die now, when his life is in great shape [physically and morally]

d) I'm being offered an easy death

e) I'd rather that than grovel to the jury

Socrates refutation of charge of impiety

a) Meletus has seen me participate in public sacrifice

b) Meletus objects to my "voice" but accepts many manifestations of gods via voice

1. omens

2. Pythia

c) Folks who use omens are indirect; ascribe god's power to bird's voice. I'm direct &endash; my voice speaks to me. -> I show more respect for gods

d) I have often told my friend's about the counsel of my voice and it has never proven me wrong

Thorobus; because Socrates => private communication with god

e) Delphic Oracle told Chaerophon "that no man was more free than I, or more just, or more prudent."

Soc says that he's telling them this "so that those of you who feel so inclined may have still greater disbelief in my being honoured of Heaven"

Thorobus

• arrogance
• prompts false modesty [at least Apollo didn't call me a god]

f) proof that Delphi is right

• 1. no one is less a slave to his bodily appetites than I am
• 2. no one in the world is more free [doesn't take gifts/fees]
• 3. wise because he's spent his life seeking/learning every good thing
• 4. people who strive for virtue in Athens and from abroad choose to associate with me
• 5. no young man under my influence has
  • a. fallen from piety into impiety, or
  • b. from sober into wanton conduct, or
  • c. from moderation in living into extravagance, or
  • d. from temperate drinking into sottishness, or
  • e. from strenuousness into effeminacy, or
  • f. has been overcome of any other base pleasure.

Socrates concedes that he educates

1. it's ok for him to influence young men as a teacher because

• a. he's an expert
• b. people go to experts not family on important matters
• c. city goes to experts not family on important matters

Suicide

• 1. rather I am satisfied to make it clear that while Socrates' whole concern was to keep free from any act of impiety toward the gods or any appearance of wrong-doing toward man, he did not think it meet to beseech the jury to let him escape death; instead, he believed that the time had now come for him to die.
• 2. he refused personally [to name a penalty] and forbade his friends to name one, but said that naming the penalty in itself implied an acknowledgment of guilt.
• 3. Then, when his companions wished to remove him clandestinely from prison, he would not accompany them
• 4. Waits until after penalty phase to give best defense
  • a. you haven't proven the case
  • b. your penalty isn't appropriate
• 5. And as for Socrates, by exalting himself before the court, he brought ill-will upon himself and made his conviction by the jury more certain.

Democracy

1. scorn for Anytus

Xenophon vs. Plato

1. Delphic Oracle told Chaerophon "that no man was more free than I, or more just, or more prudent."

2. he refused personally [to name a penalty] and forbade his friends to name one, but said that naming the penalty in itself implied an acknowledgment of guilt.