Plato

1
Platos Apology

• The Apology is the first of three dialogues on
  trial death of Socrates
• Apology - an account of the trial
• Crito - the day before Socrates execution
• Phaedo - the day of the execution
• These three dialogues were probably written in
  the 390s B.C.

2
Platos Apology

• Most of the dialogue is Socrates long speech to
  the jury at his trial
• 1. A special kind of wisdom
• Socrates survey
• His conclusion (21d)
• Knowing the limits of ones genuine knowledge
• Being able to distinguish between opinion and
  genuine knowledge
• sense of word apology

3
Platos Apology

• 2. The formal indictment (24 b-c)
• Not the real reason that Socrates was brought to
  trial
• What was the real reason?
• Some debate but probably his hostility to the
  leaders of the government and to the democratic
  form of government - see 31e.

4
Platos Apology

• Some secondary factors
• By their persistent questioning, Socrates and his
  students annoyed many prominent Athenians
• Socrates refusal to lend his support to the
  governments prosecution of 10 generals after the
  Peloponnesian War (32b). See Tarrants note 55
  on p. 220.

5
Platos Apology

• 3. Socrates apology
• The sense of the word apology here
• Are two apologies (closely related)
• (1) Care for the soul (30b)

6
Platos Apology

• (2) The classic passage . . . The unexamined
  life is not worth living . . . (Grube trans.
  38a) Tredennick Tarrant . . . Life without
  this sort of examination is not worth living . .
  .
• Cf. The analogy to a fly buzzing around a
  lethargic horse (30e-31a)

7
Platos Apology

• 4. The conviction sentencing
• Convicted initially by a vote of 281 to 220
  sentenced to death
• Socrates is invited to propose an alternative
  penalty
• His response
• The second vote for the death penalty

8
Platos Apology

• 5. Closing comments on death
• Death is one of two things annihilation or
  change Socrates does not argue for one or the
  other here
• The latter is a form of immortality
• In either case, it is nothing to fear

9
Platos Crito

• Platos Crito
• An account of the day before Socrates execution
• 1. Socrates Plato on the opinions of the
  masses (44d)
• Socrates Plato's elitism

10
Platos Crito

• 2. Socrates reasons for refusing to escape
• Some secondary reasons
• fate
• old age
• is immoral to do wrong in response to wrong (49b
  49d)

11
Platos Crito

• The primary reason The social contract theory
• main elements
• an agreement (49e, 51e)
• analogy of state to parents (51b-d)
• tacit
• when made? (51d)
• emigrate (51d)
• no violence (51c)

12
Platos Crito

• What if one disagrees with the laws and rules of
  ones state? (51c)
• Only 2 options (51b-c, 52a)
• A secondary reason for refusing to escape
• A consequentialist argument (50b 53b)

13
Platos Crito

• A critique of Socrates arguments in the Crito
• If one disagrees with the laws of ones state,
  are there only 2 options?
• Difficulties with the right to emigrate
• The scope of the contract - how does it include
  non-participants?
• Joseph Tussmans surrogate theory

14
Platos Crito

• Critique (contd)
• What if one makes an agreement to an evil
  government? Socrates tries to cover (49e). Does
  he succeed?
• The paradox
• Hanna Pitkins theory of hypothetical consent

15
Platos Crito

• Critique (contd)
• In his death, was Socrates a martyr for free
  speech? Was he the first martyr of free
  speech? (I.F. Stone)
• A brief history of the social contract theory
  after Plato
• Platos Crito is the locus classicus
• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

16
Platos Crito

• John Locke (English, 1632-1704) - Two Treatises
  of Government (1679-83)
• Jean Jacques Rousseau (French, 1712-1778) - Du
  Contrat Social (1762)
• Thomas Jefferson (United States, 1743-1826) -
  Declaration of Independence (1776)

17
Platos Crito

• John Rawls (United States, b. 1921) - A Theory
  of Justice (1971)