(Page 1 of 16) - Socratic Ignorance in Plato's Apology: Defending Conversion to the Philosophic Way of Life authored by L'Arrivee, Elizabeth.

Socratic Ignorance in Plato’s Apology:

Defending Conversion to the Philosophic Way of Life

Elizabeth L’Arrivee
Presented for MPSA, April 14, 2007
*Please do not cite*

In Plato’s Apology of Socrates, Socrates in his only public defence speech does

his best to show that his way of life is fundamentally distinct from, and in irreconcilable

conflict with, politics. Since we are told in the Crito that Socrates need never have gone

to trial (45e), we must conclude that Socrates’ antagonism of his jurors in court was

intentional. Many scholars have provided compelling arguments explaining why Socrates

chose to pit himself against the city in this way.

There has also been much debate over

which side was more justified; Socrates or the city.

I will contend that Socrates, and

Plato, defend philosophy in the Apology by publicly defending education as preparation

for philosophy.

Specifically, they defend the education required to attain the first stage

of philosophic conversion: Socrates’ “human wisdom”, i.e., knowledge of his ignorance

of the “greatest things”.

I have found Jamie Muir’s characterization of the history of educational thought

useful to this end.

Muir identifies two fundamental and conflicting views of education

which have dominated the entire history of educational thought: the view originating with

E.g., Douglas D. Feaver and John E. Hare, “The Apology as an Inverted Parody of Rhetoric,” Arethusa 14

(1981), 205-216; Michael Zuckert, “Rationalism and Political Responsibility: Just Speech and Just Deeds
in the Clouds and Apology of Socrates,” Polity 17 (1984), 271-297; David Lewis Schaefer, “Was Socrates a
Corrupter? A Study of Plato’s Apology of Socrates” in Law and Philosophy: The Practice of Theory:
Essays in Honor of George Anastaplo, Vol. I, Ed. John Murley et al. (Athens: Ohio University Press,
1992); and Thomas West’s “Introduction” in Four Texts on Socrates, trans. Thomas G. West and Grace
Starry West, revised edition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 9-37.

E.g., Stewart Umphrey, “Eros and Thumos,” Interpretation 10 (1982), 353-422; Thomas G. West,

“Defending Socrates and Defending Politics,” Interpretation 11 (1983), 383-397; R.E. Allen, “The Trial of
Socrates: A Study in the Morality of the Criminal Process,” in Socrates: Critical Assessments, vol. 2, ed.
William J. Prior (New York: Routledge, 1996), 1-17; and Eva Brann, “The Offense of Socrates: A Re-
Reading of Plato’s Apology,” in The Past-Present (Annapolis, Md.: St. John’s College Press, 1997), 81-98.

I am thus not suggesting that the defense presented in the Apology constitutes Plato’s defense of

philosophy in its entirety.

“Political Doctrine, Philosophy, and the Value of Education: The Legacy of Isocrates and the Socratic

Alternative,” Journal of Educational Thought 33 (1999), 255-78.