The Life & Thought Of Socrates, The Fourth Part!

Hi,

Friends, Let's read about our continue topic next!

Although a patriot and a man of deep religious conviction,

Socrates was nonetheless regarded with suspicion by many of his

contemporaries, who disliked his attitude toward the Athenian state

and the established religion. He was charged in 399BC with

neglecting the gods of the state and introducing new divinities,

a reference to the daemon, or mystical inner voice, to which

Socrates often referred. He was also charged with corrupting

the morals of the young, leading them away from the principles

of democracy; and he was wrongly identified with the Sophists.

This was possible because he had been ridiculed by the comic

poet Aristophanes in his play The Clouds as the master of

a "thinking-shop" where young men were taught to make the

worse reason appears the better reason.

Plato's Apology gives the substance of the defence made by

Socrates at his trial; it was a bold vindication of his whole life,

He was condemned to die even though only a small majority

carried the vote. When according to Athenian legal practice,

Socrates made an ironic counter-proposition to the court's death

a sentence, proposing only to pay a small five because of his

value to the state as a man with a philosophic mission, the jury

was so angered by this offer that it voted by an increased majority

for the death penalty. Socrates' friends planned his escape from

prison, but he calmly fulfilled his sentence by drinking a cup of

hemlock according to a customary procedure of execution.

Plato described the trial and death of Socrates in the Apology,

the Crito, and the Phaedo.

Because of his political associations with an earlier regime, the

Athenian democracy put Socrates on trial, charging him with

undermining state religion and corrupting young people.

The speech he offered in his own defence, as reported in Plato's

provides us with many reminders of the central features of

Socrates' approach to philosophy and its relation to practical life.

Continue...