Hello and welcome to classical stuff you should know we are a podcast all about the classical world We mostly talk about books and philosophy though occasionally will toss some art in there typically unsuccessfully But we like to try I haven't done architecture yet But you know it's on the list for someday at some point when we actually learn something decent about architecture We're just building a foundation before you really want to make sure I just want to die And today Mostly I just want to bring penance to the boys like I get it I talked too much that accent on the last episode was something special and I just want to say I'm sorry Yeah, right appreciate it. Yeah, thanks guys. Well, this has been classical stuff. Yeah, anyway, this one We're gonna learn how to give it a apology.
We're interrupting the youth so Um, well, I was gonna make a joke about how I have to do the apology because I'm Canadian and that's what we do So today we are talking about Plato's apology. So a couple of episodes. So first of all you're like, oh It's a grand episode. Maybe we're gonna do the war of the roses.
Sorry. We're taking a week off or four weeks off however long it's gonna take now because of well, you know, because yeah We're gonna take some time off before the war of the roses So Henry the six still has his best buddy looking for a wife Yeah, it's kind of a hard thing because he's kind of weird in the meantime. So AJ did youth of fro and I thought you know Yeah, youth of fro Bangerang and I thought that we should um follow that up with some apology because in youth of fro Plato is standing in line basically at the courthouse waiting his turn to go see the 500 judges to find out if he will die to find out if he Will die youth of frozen there because he's trying to get his father killed for murder or whatever Yep, and we talked about you know, Plato is looking at questioning youth of fro over the nature of piety Um, and they um with the big question Do the gods love piety because it's good or is it good because the gods love it? And then that was sort of this big question that he posed to see the throat youth rose like You know what just realized I left like something on the stove at home and I gotta go and sogritees It's been great, but I gotta leave doesn't even not give an excuse.
He just says I must leave no So this is sogritees for his last line some other time than sogritees for now I'm in a hurry to go somewhere and it's time for me to go away No, this sogritees is so good sogritees is like you're a coward He's like such things you're doing comrade by leaving you're throwing me down from the great hope I had You could tell me what is piety anyway, so then we're going to the apology now the apology is sogritees's defense speech So let's set the stage sogritees Has been called in and put on he's been accused of a crime And if the crime is sort of twofold one it is that he has been corrupting the Pardon me corrupting the youth of Athens that they have been corrupted by sogritees's teaching and namely His big teaching that he doesn't believe in the gods of Athens He pre he creates other gods and or as they're called Daymonians other other sort of deities and sogritees claims those are the gods and not the gods of Athens and so claiming The eologian, right? Yeah, I guess so then in claiming that he is being put on trial for being impious and for corrupting the generation of tomorrow He's corrupting the youth you know what corrupt you you got live with them. That one's definitely true. He's crafting the youth Yeah, 100% we'll get to it though.
Okay, um with gat with sogritees sogritees claims that like Not that being a gadfly being basically like someone who can stand up and poke the sort of sacred beliefs of a society is a necessary thing so reddit trolls got a Yeah, and sogritee. I mean, so this is the first of all teenagers freaking love sogritees because of this right um, but um But yeah, maybe this is a question we'll get to at the end is like is sogritees a need to think for society or is he Tell me you don't want like is he kind of annoying is he's definitely annoying? He's annoying. He's dangerous and you need like one of him and so you don't need an entire generation of them Which is what he's doing.
He's attracting followers and they're leaving these like could be lucrative careers or political careers Just like play about to ask questions of people right like the gods love piety because it's good change my mind Instead of thinking that's my fingers. Yeah, okay. She's gonna choke it is lozenge. Yeah, they're like those guys, right?
Yes, somebody in the old gods don't exist change from yeah So we've been doing we've been doing played in government class and people are saying that like Socrates is going to college campuses and like owning the libs like you know like that kind of thing like 10 things that sogritees says that blows away You know his interlocutors or something and there definitely is that flavor to sogritees and is that a useful thing in society or not? Anyway, so let's talk a little bit about the apology so um There's been three people who brought sogritees to trial the one person that is sort of the main guy who's brought sogritees to trial Melidis or my lead us um but he seems to be like the puppet of a guy named Anatis or Anatis And that is somebody who shows up in other platonic dialogues who basically says something like you better watch it sogritees You're gonna get some ticked off that you're gonna get in trouble It's artists like leaning alone anatis and it's anatis that seems to be like the guy that's pulled together this trial because Well, I was actually reading this morning just looking into some of the history of this Anatis's child was killed during a political revolution of the Spartans when they took over Athens and the Spartans like Didn't kick sogritees out of Athens at the time because he was like a hobo and everybody kind of concluded that Maybe the Spartans actually liked sogritees and so he's always had this reputation that like he's not for Athens because the Spartans didn't purge him during the purges Anatis's kid was killed by the Spartans. So there's like maybe like a political axe to grind there anyway Yeah, so sogritees is brought on trial for impiety and um, so sogritees gives his defense he when he stands up sogritees Basically says I have two groups of accusers Um and the group the second group of accusers all these men here that are putting me on trial my lead us anatis and another guy I think his name is lycon um and my lead us is mad at sogritees because he has offended the poets So my lead us is like a poet um and anatis is offended because sogritees has insulted the politicians Which is a more dangerous group to insult and then lycon is upset because I think sogritees insulted like the artisans I think his lycon's deal and he's like I just want to make a cabinet. I don't want to think about the form of the cabinet uh anyway Um sogritees says I've got those guys and those guys are accusing me and I'll address their actual on the books Accusation in a minute, but he says you men of Athens and there would have been like 500 judges Who would be casting their bow so it's like a big room 500 dudes and he says I also have an accuser and the other accuser is your Misconception of me that you've gotten from popular sources because sogritees is old He's like seven years old and he said I've been doing this a long time And you especially as young men have grown up always knowing that there was like a wacky dude in the market who was the philosopher asking questions And so he says you kind of have this version of sogritees the wise guy the wise man in your head And then also there was a really really famous play that had been written by a poet named eristophanes called clouds And in it he has sogritees be this like bumbling moron who takes like promising young lawyers And brings them into his school and those promising young lawyers are when they leave his school are like claiming that Up is down and left is right and the clouds are the ground and the ground is god and all this sort of crazy thing This crazy stuff and if I remember clouds I didn't read it since undergrad if I remember in correct clouds like sogritees spends half his time in a basket and Um, yeah, and one of his students wasn't that played incomplete or did they find the complete?
I don't know and one of his and there's like you know sort of some crude scenes of like what his students do on our blankets by themselves and anyway There's all sorts of things basically sogritees are saying listen you've got this Memified version of me in your minds of who sogritees is like you've got this cartoon version of Socrates Someone's taken all the all these like Socrates like sayings stitched them together in this hit piece And it like went viral like like you have this cartoon version of Socrates in your head and you're putting that man on trial and sogritees That's not fair or they'll just I want you to know that that that's not That man in that play claims to know have special knowledge about the gods I do not sogritees says I do not claim to know anything um, and so Socrates says let me tell you about why I'm doing what I'm doing He says um back when I finished my military career fighting for Athens All right, um I went home and my best friend whose name I can't remember Um, he went he was a bit he was a bit impestuous and he always wanted to you know Just sort of you know ask questions and he went to the oracle of delphi And he said hey oracle of delphi who is the wisest man or he said is anybody? He's like my buddy Socrates is pretty smart Is there anybody wiser than sogritees in this world? And so then the uh flagria or whatever the priestess name of the oracle of delphi went in there Asked the oracle of that question the oracle said no Socrates is the wisest He came back and told his buddy and his buddy came home until sogritees and sogritees says whoa The oracles don't usually lie, but I can't be wise because I don't know anything I don't claim to know anything so sogritees says then he decided that he was going to Go um ask everybody uh he was he was gonna go and find um Well, let me read the passage So sogritees says okay I need to go and find everybody who has who claims to know things Who claims to be able to give me a working definition of something? Um because surely that person is wiser than I am so like he did this with euthafro Hey euthafro you seem to know what pide is can you tell me what pide is and pide is and euthafro is like well pide is exactly what i'm doing right now It's art he's like okay cool How do you know that euthafro is like well because the because Zeus also put his dad on trial duh And i'm putting my dad on trial therefore pide and sogritees is like well, okay Don't give me examples give me the thing itself.
I don't want any examples I want to know the nature of pide he says give not everyone can put their dad on trial for murder So that can't be pide what pide is available to guy like me So he says if you give me the things that I know so I can see pide in the wild to euthafro and euthafro is like I can I can do this sogritees, but it's gonna take some time sogritees like hey man if you can do this I will give you everything I will follow you to the ends of the earth because sogritees wants to know the and this is the big platonic word He wants to know the form of things. He doesn't just want to know the examples So he doesn't just want the tokens the token examples in the world He wants to know the type the essence the essence like if the tokens are stamps He wants to know what the stamp is made out of or what the stamp is so he can he can know it And so he says I'm gonna go to all these people who claimed to know things and get and question them To see if they can tell me the good if they can tell me what the thing is So here's part of his speech where he addresses that this was the way he was going to live his life in service of the gods By the way if you're looking for the name it was chayaraphon. Oh, chayaraphon. Yeah, okay I went to one of those reputed to be wise on the ground that if anywhere I would refute the divination and show the oracle this man is wiser than I but you declare the nine wisest So I considered him thoroughly I need not speak of him by name But he was one of the politicians and when I considered him and converse with him in of Athens I was affected something like this It seemed to me that this man seemed to be wise both to many other human beings and most of all to himself But he was not and then I tried to show him that he supposed he was wise but was not So from this I became hateful both to him and to many of these present For my part as I went away I reasoned with regards to myself I'm wiser than this human being for probably neither of us knows anything noble and good But he supposes he knows something when he does not know while I just as I do not know do not even suppose that I do I am likely to be a little bit wiser than he is in this very thing That whenever I do not know I do not even suppose that I know so Socrates after the end of it Yeah, he thinks he knows and doesn't know I know I don't know So that must be the plus one in my column that I have towards wisdom because I am at least not mistaken about my own position I don't know anything this guy claims to know anything But when he's given a little bit of pushback when he's given a little bit of questioning some dialectic to sort of chisel down to the real Heart of the matter he doesn't he doesn't know it that's cards fold He's just running on received wisdom or some kind of like faith in the old ways or or something like that right He doesn't really he doesn't have the essence the form the real thing itself And Socrates says I did this to the politicians He has this really funny phrase where he says The men that were reported to know the most and who were the most respected seem to know the least And those who seem to not be really respected actually kind of had some prudence about them So it's like yeah, I took a taxi to you know the mall in in uh in uh DC and the taxi cabber Tax cab driver seemed to have some prudence whereas like the guy I stopped going into the into congress didn't know anything Well, he checked with the politicians and he said they did nothing and he didn't know how to talk about it At least the poets knew how to talk about the things they didn't know But they still thought they knew it and the best people were the artisans because Look, it's hard to think you know how to make a cabinet when you don't know how to make a cabinet And so at least they had like practical wisdom about how to build stuff Yeah, he said the artists seem to know something because they're telling stories about virtue But when you sort of press them on that they don't know the essence of virtue And he said yes, he said the artisans at least knew how to make cabinets But he said but when you pressed them for the higher things they also didn't know Um and he said but they often thought they did because of the knowledge they had of their craft So he'd be like um to the bread baker who makes really amazing bread He'd be like hey, so what do you can you tell me about in virtue of the bread baker be like well Virtues kind of like bread baking like all right, that's not very helpful I'm the best baker in the island.
Let me tell you To let like the virtue rise for 20 minutes on the counter and you're like, okay, this isn't really all that You I get the metaphor, but this isn't really the essence They're just well respected in the town. So they take that respect as then yes Um, yep, it's like you know the football coach where everything's a football analogy Yeah, let's get in inches. Okay. My wonder is what what analogies they use when they're talking about football.
Yeah football is like football Um, it's like life Okay, football is life Moving on so then he says he talked all these and he didn't get anything Um, and then he said listen young people follow me and love listening to me talk to the wise man Because one these young people are really rich and they don't anything to do all day and they're bored and two It is kind of pleasant to see uh, know what all is like get, you know, have to eat it He does say it's like it is quite pleasant to see people who claim to know something be shown They don't know something they youth love that it's great to burn snowflakes. Yeah, yeah, you'd love it. Um sis Socrates And he's like, okay, um, that's the reason I'm doing what I'm doing that is what I go about doing every day I'm not like the guy in the play who claims to know something I in fact don't claim to know anything so those accusers are wrong Don't buy the cartoon meme version that you have of Socrates This is my testimony of how I have lived my life and people can attest to that fact And like the sarktys has his own students in the courtroom or they've come and you can just imagine playdoh and Uh credo and like a paffer dias or a result there just standing in there's not paffer dias I think that's actually a guy from the bible. Um standing in the background being like sarktys don't say anything stupid Like just don't get in trouble.
They're like so nervous and sarktys is gonna say wonderful things to get some trouble later But just bow down exactly exactly just shut up and to the line and say fine I'll stop corrupting the youth and like then you can go on with your corrupting way and go back into the good They're just wanting you to kiss the ring and you know just to not be a punk or they just want to like they just want to grind you They didn't know they can own you exactly. Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry He's a sony dankton sark. He's like no not having then he goes any questions melidas And he and he says all right melidas what is your charge melidas says you don't believe in the gods and he's like okay cool I believe but I just told you that I am on a mission from god like the blues brothers do Um go about and question people because the oracle said so and melidas says no you don't believe in gods Um and he says okay does any so that he refutes that one very easily by saying do you know Does anybody believe in human affairs but not humans?
Does anybody believe in horse affairs but not horses? Does anybody believe in because yeah one of the charges was he's creating his own gods He's creating demons and he's like does anybody believe in demons but not damen or do you believe in demon affairs but not demons? And melidas is like no of course not and he's like all right what are demons and at least it's like they're the sons of gods He's like okay So would anybody believe in the sons of gods but not gods and melidas doesn't answer and then sarktys is like I'm gonna take that as uh I'm gonna take that as that you know you're on that you realize you're an idiot right um and so he easily refutes that one And then so he's he's being accused of not believing in the gods but he but Inventing the sons of gods? Yes, that's the dumbest thing ever and then in corrupting the youth sarkatys has an argument Which isn't that great but he says does anybody want to live willingly live among evil men and um melidas says no And sarkatys says if you live among evil men will evil be done to you and melidas says yes And sarkatys says so either um and you say I'm corrupting the youth and he's like yes You are corrupting you he's like am I doing on purpose?
He's like yeah, you know exactly what you're doing sarkatys you're doing on purpose And sarkatys then says does anybody want to live among evil? And he says no that sarkatys says well at best I am doing this Because I'm wrong not because I'm wicked and if I'm wrong take me aside and teach me how to raise virtuous men And I'll do that because he but no one but I so far you can't and so I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing So sarkatys you know that one of like who the argument could be well sarkatys you're just a punk and you want to burn Athens down But that's his argument sarkatys response is if I'm corrupting the youth I gotta live amongst them just like you guys and that's not good that's not good for me Also and that because they're following him that's a sign that he is not cruel to them and misleading Yes, and he says yeah do people um do people you know who know that even if they're being corrupted like want to have it done on purpose Why would they follow me if he were not actually showing them something or not being Evil to them. Yeah, I agree with you I think he's side stepping the issue the question is like what's the impact of that influence he's having but the clearly the youth think it's a positive thing and it's sarkatys thinks that he is helping Athens and Athens thinks that he's hurting Athens and that's that's sort of the issue here But at least he's not doing it maliciousness. Yes.
I like the whole like look man if I'm doing it wrong correct me Do it right on that way. Yeah, and then they said then he says he basically says Melidas who does raise the youth into nobility and Melidas says the laws And he says okay, but who made the laws in the first place? I don't care about laws I want to know but which men are raising men into honorable manhood and he says basically he gets melidas to admit that everybody in Athens is raising Men into virtue except Socrates. So he's like That's wild.
Yeah, he says but I'm not asking about the laws. I want to know But rather what human being is to know first of all this very thing the laws and then really says the judges Sartis says these men here able to educate the young and do they make them better? But he says yes all of them are some of them and some not all of them and he's like what about council man? He's like well the assembly all the assembly and then he says then all the Athenians as it appears make them noble and good except me and I Alone corrupt them.
Is that what you're saying? I do say this most vehemently so he says everybody can make people everyone is making people good except you Socrates and this arty says if you're making a horse good is it the learneded horse master that corrupts the horse or everybody who doesn't know about horses And I don't like where this is going. Um, and so Sartis basically says it's the it's those who are skilled in the ways of horsemanship that make horses noble It should be those who are skilled in the ways of nobility that make youth noble Sartis isn't claiming that he's one of those people but he's claiming that it can't be all of Athens that doesn't or if it is like Please tell me what no, yes, and if it's and if it is one person who yes improves the youth find me the guy that's making the noble youths And teach me how he doesn't I'll do that don't just tell me that like he's New York City is raising a baby, right? Like Okay So and then he's like but then the start he's got this point.
I mean this doesn't really care about the youth of Athens He's just wanting to he's just wanting to get me. Um, okay, and then um Then Sartis moves into a defense of this way of life that he says He says I basically he gets a point where he says I'm not going to stop this way of philosophizing this life of dialectic where I'm talking to people and asking them questions He says you would find it Wrong and ignoble if someone who was stationed by the commanding officer left the army and like went home because he was scared and cowardly and didn't want to die I've been put on a mission by god to find virtue in the city to Um and later on he says to basically be like a fly that wakes up people up He says Athens is like a noble horse that has fallen asleep And I'm like the gadfly that comes and stings it and sort of sharpens its wits and gets it running again And without me you guys would all fall asleep and so he says um, so I don't fear death because of this God has put me on this mission and I'm going to do it. Um, um, and so he says, uh, yeah, so he um For to fear death men is oh no, no, we'll get to his defensive death later. Um, so he says I'm never going to stop philosophizing God has ordered me to do this.
Uh, and he says so when you really think about it No greater good has arisen for you in this city than my service to the god so in reality like there's nothing greater That's happened to you than me being um faithful to god's mission in being someone who is Reminding you that you were supposed to be Um in pursuit of the higher things as opposed to the lower things like status and money and honors when you should be in pursuit of Um, real piety real virtue real prudence temperance all those sorts of things. Um, so his defense is almost like the pity I made him do it. He wasn't going to do this off the bat. Yeah, he was told to be the wisest of men Therefore, he kind of has to do this so it's like what I find interesting is he's not answering the question of whether what he's doing is good Necessarily it's that he has to do it because it was giving him yes, it was given him by the gods and it's the way to disprove their whole you don't believe in the gods He's like i'm doing this because of the gods and you guys don't think I think the invite is the weakest of the arguments I still think he hasn't really addressed the corrupting the years before.
Yeah, sure. So um, so then sarkty says listen I've been making this defense speech, but i'm not really making it for me He says so I'm an of Athens and now far from making a defense speech on my own behalf as someone might suppose I do it rather on your behalf so that you do not do something wrong concerning the gift of the god to you by voting For if you kill me you will not easily discover another of my sort Who even if it is rather ridiculous to say has simply been set upon the city by the god as though upon a great and well-born horse Who is rather sluggish because of his great size and needs to be awakened by some gadfly just so in fact The god seems to me to have set me upon the city as someone of this sort I awaken and persuade and reproach each one of you and I do not stop settling down everywhere upon you the whole day Someone else of this sort will certainly not easy arise for you men Well, if you obey me you will spare me But perhaps you may be vexed like the drowsy when they are awakened and if you obey any test and slap me You would easily kill me then you would spend the rest of your lives asleep unless the god sends you someone else in his concern for you So he's basically setting himself up was almost on this divine mission to keep Athens moral to keep Athens virtuous to um, I Awaken persuade and reproach Why do I feel like this is a bad date that but with someone who you will break up with me you're gonna regret So bad the whole making philosophy like look I'm god's gift to you and and your hair looks greasy like that's and it is me telling you that your hair looks Greasy that means that I'm god's gift to you like you're gonna become better because I can tell you you're ugly except Then you need to but then you really need to go and look at the quality of what he's offering to Athens and whether or not You think that what he's offering to Athens is for Athens good or if it is kind of like annoying right? Or if it's not if it's not if it's not to Athens good Yeah, and so I think this is maybe one of the only times when he's kind of making a good argument like I'm here for you or good Please don't kill me like but almost every other time this has happened the super annoying right? The don't kill me because I'm literally god's gift to you is not always the best argument to rely on and I feel like this is this might actually be the one that sinks him and he's he's just uh, he says um He continues on that speech that I always do your business going to each of you privately as a father or an older brother might do Persuading you to care for virtue so Socrates sees it as his mission to um That those who think they know something to realize that they don't and they should be sort of like earnestly Almost like Rethinking their presuppositions about their about virtue and their own behavior in the city so that they can be better Politicians and better better members of the city sarkty says I tried to be a politician I was really low ranking politician in my early days And he said there was this one case where a bunch of generals lost the battle and then on the way home There was a storm so they got separated from some of their troops and they couldn't go save their troops So we're dying in the storm so they left and they came home and we put those generals on trial for banning their soldiers But literally there's nothing to do about it and really the council was upset that they lost the battle So they sort of used the generals they use this trial for banning the troops as like punishment and sarkty's is like yeah I voted against that and everyone else voted for it and everyone got real mad at me for standing up and pointing this out in the courtroom and sarkty said I realized that in there that um politics was not gonna work politics is not gonna work Rather if someone who really fights for the just is going to preserve himself even for a short time It is necessary for him to lead a private rather than a public life.
Now that is an interesting question That's definitely just for my own government class. That's definitely question. We're gonna be asking and talking about a little bit later That's just a fascinating question right then and there is can the good man serve their nation? Can the good man Um, uh hold on to justice and have a long career in politics or do you have to have a little bit of Machiavelli?
You do you have to be a little bit moral bendy if you're going to be able to do A greater good of like staying in the game long enough right like it's that pragmatic question anyway, but so sarkty says that and he's like yeah I realize that I'm not gonna be a very good politician. I'm gonna get killed fast So I retreat to the private life of persuading everybody to care about virtue and not getting paid for it I'm poor my wife's kind of ticked at me because I'm poor apparently sarkty's and swifed and not getting along. I mean, duh Like this is the guy um Uh, he was also notoriously ugly. Um, oh other fun fact about sarkty's he was apparently immune to cold I'm so like during the army people were like oh it's so cold out and sarkty's was just like walking around cargo shorts in like in the winter and be like Let's talk about virtue or whatever.
Um, no a lot of philosophers have their reputation Was the odd needs the same way? I think so maybe they just conflated a lot with all these famous philosophy Sarkty's was also reputed as being someone who could drink anybody under the table and and still be able to philosophize and ask questions So I think the well I guess it would be ignorant What's the uh, the symposium is a drinking game our drinking party dialogue where they're discussing the nature of beauty and at the end Everyone's like sarsie's were too drunk and sarkty's is like fine And he gets up and he goes and talks to people in the marketplace after spending all night drinking very funny. Anyway, sarkty says I'm not gonna be a politician I wouldn't have survived if I stayed amongst your ranks Um, okay, and he says this is my defense And I'm not gonna bring my wife to beg for my to my release I'm not gonna bring my three sons to be like don't kill daddy to like turn your heart He's like that seems based and not noble to me you have my defense and I think dudes go off and they Count the votes and Socrates's kids found guilty, but only by 30 votes out of 500 and so Now they come back and they do some speeches as to what should be the penalty My lead is comes back and he gives a speech and a soccer tee should be put to death And so they basically give sarkty's a choice to to do a counterproposal and this is where probably They wanted this is probably where they wanted the court to go all along They probably didn't really want to kill sarkty's they just wanted him to like pay a giant fine and like be put in his place or better yet Just banish them like you like free go to series. Yeah.
Um and sarkty's comes out with a counterproposal and he says And his counterproposal is this um, he says um, let's see where it is Um I attempted to persuade each of you not to care for any of his own things until he cares for himself How he will be the best and most prudent possible not to care for the things of the city until he cares for the city itself And so to care for the other things in the same way what then am I worthy to suffer being such as this? Something good men of Athens at least if you give me what I deserve according to my worth in truth Um, and he says I deserve something according to my worth to the city He's like when somebody wins a gold medal in the olympics when then brings honor to the city We give him free meals for life in the pritanium and we honor him he gets to go have like his Yeah, he gets to go like orange julius in the mall and get a free one for the rest of his life Like chipotle of that one chipotle meal a day for life It's in about a day and he's like um, he's like that person made you seem to have made you happy While I actually make you happy right so my punishment should be free food and pritanium for the rest of my life So soft forties and he says this is fitting because I need the leisure to be able to continue my work right of Of goading you into virtue of annoying all of you yes Yes, he says this should be my punishment He's like I but some of you are going to be not be persuaded you're gonna say banishment He's like here's why I don't want to get banished I'm old and if you send me out, I'm just gonna keep philosophizing I'm gonna go to another town and I'm gonna I'm not from there and they're not gonna feel bad about kicking me I'm just gonna kick me out like the first day and he's like I don't want to wander from town to town I'd rather you might as well just kill me at that point or give me free food here in town um, and then he says my students say I should ask for um, I should ask to pay a fine And so I don't have any money So I can't pay a fine Unless you want me to pay the fine that I can pay which is nothing Um, because I'll do that right or he's like, oh, I could probably find like 20 bucks So that's my propose 20 bucks And then he says but my students say that they will scroung up 30 minay Which the footnote says is a vast sum of money And so he's like playdough and credo and christobellis and apolodorus They will They'll pay like eight grand, but that's not what I want He can then that speech apparently ticked off the judges and he sent us to death Um, the free meals for a year the free meals for a year did not persuade them I'm god's gift to you to annoy you and you should give me free meals for a year that didn't sway the work Then so soggyt he says um He says maybe you think that I was convicted because I didn't have the rhetorical ability to move you To pity or I didn't have the rhetorical ability to move your emotions And he says no I do I just don't have the rhetorical ability to be daring and shameless and willingness to say the sorts of things to you that you would have been most pleasing to hear Me wailing and lamenting and doing and saying many other things unworthy of me as I affirm Um, so he's like so I couldn't have done that and I wasn't going to And then I just want to read some of these lines because they're so great For neither in a court case nor in war should I or anyone else devise a way to escape death by doing anything at all In battles it often becomes clear that one might escape death at least by letting go of his arms and turning around to supplicate his pursuers And there are many other devices to escape death in each of the dangers if one dares to do and say anything at all Or say anything at all, but I suspect it is not hard men to escape death But it is much harder to escape villainy for it runs faster than death and now I since I am slow mowled I'm caught by the slower death While my accusers since they are clever and sharp are caught by the faster by evil And now I go away condemned by you to pay the penalty of death Well, they have been convicted by the truth of wretchedness and injustice and died by by my penalty And so did they perhaps these things even had to be so and I suppose there was a due measure to them And then he says listen, I'm about to die and when men are about to die They bring oracles of God so I'm going to bring an oracle of God to you men of the court for truth bomb. Yes, and he says um He says basically if you kill me you think that like you're just gonna get rid of me You can go back to like not caring about virtue, but he says they're going to arise from this Scores of others who are going to do the very same thing to you that I have been doing and I've been holding them back up until now So he's basically there's an army of me. There are many And he says But he basically says that there's like a whole bunch of fired-up kids who know how to do this dialectic thing that are gonna come after me And they're gonna press you on virtue and it's gonna you know, it's not gonna be fun For if you suppose that by killing human beings you will prevent someone from reproaching you for not living correctly You do not think nobly for that kind of release is not at all possible or noble rather The kind that is both nobleist and easiest is not to restrain others But to equip oneself to be the best possible So he says you think that just by like squashing me you're gonna like get back to normal and be able to like get back to Athens And he says no the best thing you can do is to equip yourself to be virtuous Um so that you don't have to be annoyed by Socrates Um so you don't have to be annoyed by those who are gonna come and ask you to prove it Yeah, you gotta be squashing cockroaches all day long or you can just clean up your sink Yes, you can you can just be virtuous and you're not gonna have the gadflies coming and being like you're full of it And you're in charge?
No, right? So so he says just be the best possible And then uh and then he goes to the people he's like hey listen you guys that didn't condemn me to death I got like I know five hours before they're gonna take me to jail who wants to talk about virtue? Come on down. He's like let's tell tales He says let's tell tales and um please stay with me man for this much time Nothing prevents our tailing tails to one another as long as it is possible For I'm willing to display to you as to friends whatever this thing means which has just occurred to me just now He's like come on down.
Let's talk about this. Uh and let's try nothing to stop us now. Okay. Nothing gonna stop us now And then um and then he has a very famous speech where he says let's think about death for a moment Because some of you may be you know thinking that what you've done is that you've harmed me by putting me to death He says death from what we know is either one of two things He says it's either like sleeping or it's like the soul going from one place to another place And he says if it's like sleeping who wouldn't who hasn't thought about the deepest most wonderful sleep that they've ever had where they had No dreams and had no cares who would not um hold that up as a good compared to all of the things that one can experience in life He says yes, pardon me.
They're good things in life But he says there are heart things in life and when you think of a deep beautiful sleep that doesn't seem bad to me men of Athens and he says and if it's the other if it is the soul going from one place to another Well, if I do get to go and be around those heroes he says um for one who arrives in Hades released from those here who claim to be judges Will find those who are judges in truth the very ones who are said to give judgment there Minos and rama danthes and achias and trip to lamus and those are the other demigods He's like man I get to go talk to telemonian ajax and palimides and adesius and sisophus he's like that is inconceivable happiness Because I'm gonna go ask them if they can tell you what virtue is and if they can I'm gonna be happy if they can't they're gonna know about Odysseus is not gonna have a good time. Yes, so some one should write that poem. Yeah, the distance Argyse is actually rolls over there rolling like Odysseus I'm telling you have some questions for you. Um and he's like and that is going to be inconceivable happiness I certainly there those there surely do not kill on this account He's like and we also have the benefit of being immortal as the sarkites Um and then I was one of the last couple of paragraphs for their because they're very touching this is this is the end But you two judges should be of good hope towards death and you should think he's talking to the ones that didn't that didn't condemn him Right should be of good hope towards death and you should think this one thing to be true That there is nothing bad for a good man whether living or dead and that the gods are not without care for his troubles Nor have my present troubles arisen of their own accord But it is clear to me that it is now better after all for me to be dead and to have been released from troubles This is also why the sign did not turn me away anywhere And I at least am not at all angry at those who voted to condemn me at my as and at my accusers And yet it was not with this thought in mind that they voted to condemn me and accuse me Rather they suppose they were they would harm me, but this for this they are worthy of blame This much however, I beg of them when my sons grow up Punish them men and pain them in the very same way I pained you If they seem to you to care for money or anything else before virtue And if they are reputed to be something when they are nothing Reproach them just as I did you tell them that they do not care for the things They should and that they suppose they are something when they are worth nothing And if you do these things we will have been treated justly by you both I myself and my sons But now it is time to go away I to die and you to live which of us goes to a better thing is unclear to everyone except to god Damn that's an ending.
So isn't there another dialogue? It's him actually taking the poison There's tumor dialogues. There's credo where credo's like dude. I can get you out of this Right and he gives a defense as to why he shall obey the laws even on just ones And then there's Phaedrus I think where he takes the poison and dies And Phaedrus is the discussion of the immortality of the soul Right so the part of him leaving a money for a sacrifice that's a later dialogue That's a fact that's Phaedrus.
Yeah. Yeah where he says I'll talk to a sleepiest is that maybe it is Yeah, and so that's that's I think that's in Phaedrus where that's when he dies at the end Yeah, this is just like pop top of sheep. He's like oh the poison's working But I forgot I owe chicken to this god and then like even in his death disproves the whole you are being impaled Yes, that's all right. Yeah, um so there's there's there's archetysis apology in his defense He holds that being a private citizen who keeps the who sort of inspires or annoys the town towards virtue is a divine calling or is is a mission is sort of the mission and um even to push this further with other platonic Understand what sort of later played on our minds Socrates holds up that The the sort of the end of human beings or if you wanted to say the that which makes human beings happy or that what human beings are for Or the form of human is to be Seeking after the good is to be trying to understand the form of the higher things This is life worth living but we didn't even read the lot the famous line the young examine life is not worth living That's in the apology the life worth living is one in pursuit of knowing the form of the good And that is what human beings should be and every town should have one Every town should have a Socrates who is there to basically provoke the powers that be into realizing that they Either don't know the good if they pretend to or to sort of keep modest and um and in that sense So he was put on trial for sort like corrupting the youth and in that sense, it's like He kind of was not corrupting the youth but he was at least grinding the momentum of the city to a halt by By keep having the politicians have to go always be returning to first principles to make sure that they're doing things correctly And play a lot of Socrates seems to hold that up as a great and noble thing and I mean my sympathies are towards that I mean seems great noble but in their hand like you wouldn't want Socrates running your company or running your city And you don't you probably don't want more than one of these in a town.
Yeah, and that's the problem here is that he's Sharing this view with all the youth. He's reading. We said it's already a generation of people like that So maybe like a sign of The corruption of a city is you be none other you just have Socrates's but you begin to like have to deal with them Like you feel like you have to get rid of them Because like a healthy city can endure somebody questioning the motivations of the city An unhealthy city one that's corrupt and one that's full of like, you know, self-grandizement like Athens was That's the squash that they passed the sort of squash than they say or so Maybe there's it's almost like you know the killing of Socrates precludes the the downfall of or they'll at least precludes the Corruption being a lot more obvious and sorry. There's more of me out here.
So that's an angle to think about it there I've heard like I've heard this sort of very cringy like Socrates was the first to get canceled People said that yeah, they say that's like my class I've seen that online was like, you know, who else got canceled Socrates You know, and then or also it's like that you know, it's got canceled Jesus. Um, so who was the first to get canceled? Soccer team. No, like was there anybody earlier than soccer?
Oh, oh, I don't mean any political Right like anybody's like what you mean by someone that Cyrus agreed didn't like I do want to say anyone in Gilgamesh Got canceled. Yeah, the stakes are also different here because when we say canceled, that's like you can't use Twitter and kick off These people are being killed or something. So yeah, in some sense, it's much more modern because the stakes are so much lower Don't see a difference. Okay.
I can't use Twitter. Yeah, that's you're basically dead. Yeah, that's exactly right. Great point.
It's a form of violence. Yeah wild so Anyway, so it's I don't know what what sort of big questions are to think about this because there's a lot can the virtuous man do politics Is it is the voice of Socrates is the gadfly necessary for society? Like if you if you sort of like overweight the amount of Socrates is you haven't society you're never gonna get anything done At some point you have to sort of if you can't get to first principles through dialectic So like if sargoty's his mission can't work just asking questions just chipping away Just because he's trying to like chip away chip away chip away now Not give away He's trying to chip away until he gets to Until he gets to something solid that he can build like a definition on right Yeah, but if he can't but if he's dialectic doesn't actually if you can't if you can only say Nick what isn't true You can't say what is true with dialectic well Then sargoty's is never going to get to a fixed point that he can build an idea off of or society off of Um, so at some point you need to pause it to some kind of a priori thing Right and build your society off of that whether it's human rights or whether it's Uh natural law or whether it's some sort of objective right and wrong But I think he sargoty's does a decent job and this I think plays out another play to as well that I think it's a bad rep for doing only the question thing Because he doesn't right he also offers okay even the example of death he says no death is one of two things Yes, something to build it doesn't so he does like yes just pulling it threads You'll never have a sweater. Yeah, but he does a pretty good job of building a sweater and then pulling the threads off Whoa Yeah You're writing that and it's actually the thing that sarkoty's does seem to hold on to as The thing that doesn't change that he builds off of is often a very Piusing it's god or the god or the god as he sometimes says Um or you know these higher moral things that are noble to follow Um at the end the good man has nothing to fear and god's often smiles on him health is valuable in and of itself Yes, so sarkoty's yeah sarkoty's does have Um like a priori things that he will build his views off of and oftentimes it is well early christians read sarkoty's are like holy crap This guy got as close as possible to Something that we would recognize from revealed scripture just from his dialectical thinking he posits that there is a there is a supreme thing Called the good from which all good flows and probably even created the world out of its goodness And it's probably a divine and it's probably divine this sounds super familiar and that the gods can't be what we like the silliness that we ascribe The gods all their pettiness and their inferences to be an ability to god can't be true Yes, God's must be better than us otherwise that silly like he came up with all that stuff Sarkoty's doesn't come he doesn't get as far as like some sort of concept of holiness or some sort of concept of sinlessness He definitely doesn't get far as god became man and died for us.
Yeah, but but they read Plato and they were like early church was like dang Um he he maybe the most virtuous pagan of them all He may be the one that got closest to god simply through natural revealed theology And didn't he say that the transcendental's truth good and beauty and unity must all be fully present in the godhead? I think didn't he get there? I don't know enough sarkoty's You know if you're out there and you're like no, then you're probably right But I thought that he was one of the guys who said those things must all come to fruition in something that is the perfection Deified perfection we're looking for now. There's a lot of parallels between Socrates who is living a life for the higher thing and in the pursuit of the good and you know Again, people in the early church saw this almost also as like a type of cry of like what Jesus has done The person who is living in pursuit the higher things the world will reject him and kill him Sarkoty's doesn't get raised from the dead, but he is Frankly on on a holy mission and when he says sarkoty says listen one of the big reasons when doing this is because I actually hear the voice of the gods The voice of god telling me to do this.
I don't know how to tell you. I don't know what to say about that I'm sure there was gotta be some early church fathers that were like oh boy And what you know does the voice of god speak to the pagans or not? That's a big theological question in the early church like How much of this should only come from the bible and reveal scripture and the Jewish tradition and how much came to the pagans? And how much of the Greeks can we enjoy reading and actually use or how much of it has to be foolishness, right?
And you know one side said you know what does Jerusalem have? What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? And another side said Socrates is the closest we've ever got and anything uttered that is right about the world. Yes, that's right.
Yeah, I talked about that at the So, yeah, there's lots lots of fascinating things to sort of spin off from there I may we'll continue some of these conversations in the overtime, but Sorry, there's two more we don't think we're gonna do these dialects But there are further dialogues one credo and then the last dialogue where sarkoty's actually takes the poison with all of his like His sad brethren around him and there's a bunch of other ones do that we haven't done We did youth the flow of the topology. There's krito. That's one where he's like I get you out of his buddy Mino, Fato and symposium. Mino is what there's more than that, but he was like what can we know?
symposium is what is beauty and Mino is can you teach virtue? Yes, and his answer is nah. Mm-hmm. I don't know the other ones.
What is beauty and um, yeah, anyway So that's uh, that's all I got for apology. Okay, cool. Well, this has been classical stuff You should know as always you can reach us at the guys at classical stuff.net if you want to use emails and if you want to use the Twits you can find us at clsscal stuff on the twitter you can find our website at classical stuff.net And if you want you can always become a patron of ours on patreon.com slash classical stuff We offer a few things there one of which we've already mentioned earlier in this podcast that we have afterward conversations and sometimes continue our dialogues Sometimes we just talk about cats or crypto or whatever else and we also have an AMA that you can get and ask us any questions And we'll respond and as always with the email will respond to what we can but we also have you know We have supporters that we have to respond to and we have students we have to teach and so we can't always get to the emails But rest assured we do read them we do see the guys you the stuff you guys send to us and we love reading what you have to say Even if we're wrong and we are wrong a lot so we we do see it when you point out we're wrong and we are duly humbled Anyway, that's it for us. You are the gadflies.
Yeah, exactly. You make us virtuous. Yes So that's it for us and we will see you next time classical stuff out. Bye