Socrates brings the visionary up in order not to flaunt his experience but to refute the charges against him, to show, in fact that a manufacture interpretation of the visionary will reveal that Socrates is special not for what he knows but because he seems to be alone in knowing that he knows nothing. His initial interpretation is that the Oracle moldiness be right, that there is no wiser man than Socrates, and this interpretation left(p) Socrates baffled, because his own view was that he was not wise at all, and certainly no wiser than new(prenominal)s.
Going out to essay for a wiser man, to prove the Oracle wrong, Socrates found---as he had found throughout his life---that there were many pretenders to wisdom but no truly wise man: "I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others little esteemed were really wiser and better" (71).
Socrates concludes that " divinity fudge only is wise," and that the Oracle, public speaking for God, meant that "the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing." The Oracle means that "He . . . is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in law worth nothing" (72).
Socrates defends himself, his life's work, and the role of his dialogue-based philosophical inquiries in a number of ways, but his most simple, clear, succinct and effe
I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one . . . who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in refutation of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and my occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no eon to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my faithfulness to the god (72).
Plato. Apology. In The Trial and Death of Socrates. New York: Heritage, 1963. 63-101.
Socrates portrays himself, then, as the very uncanny lifeblood of Athens, arguing in effect that if he is removed from the urban center through prison or death, the metropolis and its people will suffer greatly.
It will lose its spiritual gadfly, its moral compass, its conscience, and will pursue its superficial social and substantial rewards unhindered by his daily, humble, patient reminders.
Socrates sees himself as the conscience of the city and the people, keeping them honest, exposing their dishonesty, self-deception and hypocrisy. His job as philosopher, inquirer, questioner, is carried out for the occasion of "arousing and persuading and reproaching you" (85).
ctive defense, and refutation of the legal, social, political, ethical and religious charges against him, is the following:
Socrates, however, is not barely carrying out a social or rational mission, precondition to him by God. It is finally a spiritual mission which drives him, which drives school of thought as he defines and lives it. The city and people of Athens gather up Socrates, he says, not to keep them rational, not to exercise their minds for the interest of mental exercise, but to help them remember to nurture their souls.
Socrates declares that he loves the city and the people, but his duty is to follow the Oracle and God and the voice within, which tell him to obey "God" rather than the leading who accuse him, which tell him that the soul is the important factor, and not other factors:
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