The Last Days of Socrates

by Plato

  — (ed.), The Philosophy of Socrates (Garden City, 1971).

  — ‘The Socratic Elenchus’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1 (1983), 27–58.

  Weiss, Roslyn, Socrates Dissatisfied (New York, 1998).

  — ‘Virtue Without Knowledge: Socrates’ Conception of Holiness’, Ancient Philosophy 14 (1994), 263–82.

  West, T. G., Plato’s Apology of Socrates (Ithaca and London, 1979).

  Woozley, A. D., Law and Obedience: The Arguments of Plato’s Crito (London, 1979).

  Zaidman, L. B. and Pantel, P. S., Religion in the Ancient Greek City, trans. P. Cartledge (Cambridge, 1992).

  A Note on the Texts

  The ancient text of these Platonic dialogues has reached us in good shape, and modern editions vary little in the readings used. For his translation, Tredennick would have used the Oxford Classical Text – Platonis Opera, vol. 1, edited by John Burnet (Oxford, 1900) – which is based on three primary manuscripts, the oldest being the Bodleian B dating from the ninth century. I continued that policy for my 1993 revision, and the notes draw attention to intentional deviations from that text. A new Oxford text has since appeared, offering only minor variations. Quotations from the text by ancient authors frequently confirm the accuracy of the manuscripts, and at times also confirm corrections put forward by modern scholars.

  The marginal references are intended to conform, as far as possible, with the page and section numbers of the text published in Paris in 1578 by Henri Estienne (usually referred to by his Latin name of Stephanus), though differences in Greek and English sentence construction do not always allow great precision. This reference system has become standard, and is used by virtually all scholarly texts, translations and secondary literature. Each volume of Stephanus restarts the page numbers, so that page 50, for instance, may refer to Crito, Philebus, or Timaeus. Hence the name of the dialogue must be added to the page and section number to avoid ambiguity.

  The ‘stage directions’ in italic type are my own additions to the text, to help clarify the situation for modern readers. I have divided the translation into segments in order to give the reader ‘signposts’ marking a dialogue’s development. The footnotes and the introductions to the individual dialogues have also been rewritten and to some degree expanded. As for the translation, I have altered chiefly what I thought needed to be altered, and in the Apology, Crito and Phaedo most of the credit must still go to Tredennick. In the Euthyphro, where the tone of the original translation seemed to me less suited to Socrates as there depicted, I have included much more original material.

  Euthyphro – Holiness

  Socrates in Confrontation

  Introduction

  THE EUTHYPHRO AND THE DEATH OF SOCRATES

  Discussing the type of dialogue of the Euthyphro, and the other works with which it is allied, may be more productive than trying to fix upon the date of the work.1 In terms of its dramatic date it belongs to the group set in the days between Socrates’ having learnt of the charges of Meletus and his actual death. The Theaetetus, a discussion on the nature of knowledge, is set before he has gone to meet the charges before the King Archon; the Euthyphro finds him already there.The Sophist and Politicus are set the day after, but their placing seems to be due to their relationship to the Theaetetus only. Then come Apology, Crito and Phaedo. Together with the Euthyphro, but unlike the sequence Theaetetus–Sophist–Politicus, these works have an important role to play in explaining Socrates’ trial and death, and in defending his role throughout.

  Of the two charges against Socrates, one maintained that he was corrupting the young men of the city, the other that he was replacing the city’s gods with ‘gods’ of his own. Plato does not seem to tackle the corruption charge head-on in any one particular work, though several works (notably the Euthydemus, Protagoras and Gorgias) compare favourably the effects which Socrates had on his young friends with the effects of other intellectuals upon their pupils. The Euthyphro examines skilfully the nature of Socrates’ questioning of religion, and compares it critically with a narrow religious ‘fundamentalism’ as propounded by Euthyphro. It does so in such a manner as to leave most readers ready to accept that Socratic doubt is more truthful and more valuable than unreasoned religious dogmatism. This is achieved in the course of a work which sets out to explore possible definitions of holiness, asking precisely the kind of difficult question that Socrates had become unpopular for.

  THE VIRTUE DIALOGUES

  Holiness or piety was one of five Greek virtues whose close relationship or possible identity was explored in the Protagoras. The others were justice (with which it is closely related here too), prudence (moderation, temperance), courage, and wisdom (or knowledge). Plato explores the difficulties of defining these concepts in Republic, Charmides, Laches and Theaetetus respectively. Possible definitions of ‘the fine’ (a partly ethical, partly aesthetic quality) and ‘the friendly’ are explored in the Hippias Major and Lysis. There is no need to regard all these works as part of the same project, let alone as close in date. But the virtue group in particular seem to have a great deal in common:

  1. Introductions are generally on the long side, setting the scene and bringing before the reader at least one person who might be expected (by less acute observers) to possess the virtue concerned.2

  2. Socrates finds some excuse for demanding an explanation of that virtue, whereupon the interlocutor gives one or more examples which seem to illustrate the concept, thinking first and foremost of the way in which the virtue manifests itself in himself.3 Socrates explains that the explanation of the virtue given cannot cover all instances of the good quality concerned.

  3. The interlocutor then tries to give a universal definition, but in the first instance he generally casts the net too wide; at any rate the definition will fail to capture the essence of the definiendum because it misses its fundamental goodness.4 Often this will result in an attempt to qualify the definition, but the essence will still elude the speakers.

  4. Eventually a position is reached which appears to bear some resemblance to what Socrates is expected to have held: a muddled Socratic position. This may be done by Socrates leading the way, as in the Euthyphro, until the virtue can be seen as some kind of knowledge; through the mediation of some friend of Socrates (Critias in the Charmides, Nicias in the Laches) or of an opponent who perverts the Socratic position (Thrasymachusinthe Republic); or by the interlocutor half-remembering something which Socrates is able to fill out, as in the Theaetetus.

  5. Whatever the true Socratic position may be, the interlocutor is not able to defend this version against the assaults of Socrates himself, and the dialogue (or book, in the case of the Republic) ends without any satisfactory definition or explanation of the good quality being reached.

  Within this group there are various levels of complexity. The argument is simplest in the Laches, probably, followed by Euthyphro, Charmides, Republic and Theaetetus.5 Presentation is simplest in the Euthyphro, which confines itself to two speakers; all other works have three significant contributors.6 Charmides and Republic i differ from the rest in having the dialogue set in a narrative told by Socrates; the others are ‘dramatic’ dialogues, containing nothing but the actual words given to the participating characters. Charmides and Republic 1 (this latter because its ultimate purpose is to introduce a major work on the nature of justice) seem less interested in exploring the correct way to arrive at a definition than the other works, though it is doubtful if any show as much interest in this topic as the Hippias Major or the early part of the Meno.

  Three of this group produce imaginative comparisons between Socrates and other persons: the Euthyphro likens him to Daedalus, the Charmides (156d ff., 175e ff.) to a Thracian healer, and the Theaetetus (149–151, etc.) to a midwife of ideas.7 In each of these dialogues the comparison recurs with dramatic effect.

  WHAT DID SOCRATES THINK?

  One question which the reader inevitably asks on reading these dialogues is: What does Socrat
es himself consider the virtue in question to be? Simple answers to such questions are now no longer in fashion. Undoubtedly the theme that virtue is knowledge was closely associated with Socrates, and we are in a sense approaching a Socratic position in the latter part of Euthyphro, Laches, and Charmides where the word ‘knowledge’ (or ‘understanding’: episteme) features in definitions being discussed. But the lack of a conclusion, I suggest, is not wholly contrived. This may be because, in accordance with another Socratic theme that the virtues are one, no satisfactory division of knowledge can be established which will mark one virtue off from other virtues.8 But it would be foolish to suppose that other definitions in a dialogue, and other features quite apart from the argument,9 are not meant to make the reader or listener think about significant aspects of the virtue. One should not forget that Socrates wanted to make us think out for ourselves what the virtues are after taking all the most relevant material into consideration. These works invite us to use our own minds, not to identify and hence accept the Socratic position.

  In the Euthyphro the notion that holiness is a division of justice concerned with a man’s relation to the gods is not incompatible with its being some kind of knowledge, science or understanding (assuming that justice is thought to be also). The idea that holiness can be defined in terms of what the gods approve of, however, is never likely to have attracted Socrates or Plato; it is a bit like defining justice in terms of what a ruler or ruling class approves, and this would have worried Plato immensely. Plato’s Timaeus has God himself acting in accordance with what he recognizes as good, not decreeing goodness to be whatever he approves. The question which excites the Socratic mind is how anybody, man or god, can recognize any action as an instance of goodness. What is the standard, and in what terms can we express it?10

  On this question it must be said that the Euthyphro fails: the standard is not divine approval, apparently, but it will not help to say that holiness is part of justice unless we understand how to recognize an instance of justice.11 Nor is it of much practical use to reduce holiness (in persons) to some kind of knowledge, and holy actions as those which result from such knowledge. What one must aim at is discovering the primary object of that knowledge: the standard which it must keep in mind when calculating how to act piously in any given situation. To accept that holiness is knowledge is to accept only that the would-be holy person must continue his search for the basis of the knowledge concerned. And it is this very search that Socratic philosophy is all about.

  Notes

  1. On this question, see the general introduction, p. xviii.

  2. Euthyphro, Cephalus, Charmides, Laches and Theaetetus. The reader may in each case find himself thinking that Socrates is a better example of that quality.

  3. Cephalus sees justice as truthfulness and paying debts (Republic 331b–d); Charmides sees prudence as orderly and peaceable conduct (Charmides 159b, getting closest to giving a universal definition), Laches sees courage as staying in line and facing the enemy (Laches 190e), Theaetetus sees knowledge as the mathematical sciences and also demiurgic arts, while Euthyphro sees prosecuting religious offenders as being piety.

  4. Euthyphro’s ‘approved by the gods’ is not much help unless what is approved is necessarily good; Laches’ ‘endurance’ does not at first exclude rash endurance; Charmides’ ‘sense of shame’ misses the point that shame is sometimes bad; Polemarchus’s ‘helping friends and harming enemies’ allows justice to be a source of harm; Theaetetus’s ‘perception’ fails to capture the rightness of knowledge.

  5. The level of irony follows a similar pattern: sharpest in Laches and Euthyphro, less so in Charmides and Republic 1, mild indeed in Theaetetus. Note that the ‘narrative’ works provide an additional level of irony; Socrates can tell the story ironically as well as speaking ironically to the interlocutor.

  6. Besides the three, the Laches has also the two old men, and Republic 1 has Cephalus, Glaucon and Cleitophon.

  7. Note that the well-known comparisons in the Meno (80a–b) and the Apology (30e) are with animals, the sting-ray and gadfly respectively.

  8. This is pretty obvious in the Laches, where Socrates actually complains that Nicias’s definition really applies to the whole of virtue (199e).

  9. Again, the Laches presents as interlocutors two generals whose very natures incline them to the two sides of courage that constantly shine through in the dialogue: simply soldiering on and carefully planning one’s campaign.

  10. Compare Euthyphro 5d, 6d–e.

  11. Compare Meno 75c–d for the need to define anything in terms which the other person will understand.

  EUTHYPHRO

  In 399 BC a meeting takes place before the court of the King Archon.1 Two litigants discuss their respective cases.2(a)

  EUTHYPHRO:2 What’s come over you, Socrates, that you’ve deserted your usual pastimes in the Lyceum,3 and are now lurking here by the King’s Porch? It surely can’t be that you too have a suit before the King as I have?

  SOCRATES: No indeed, the Athenians don’t call it ‘suit’, Euthyphro, but ‘prosecution’.4

  EUTHYPHRO: What? Somebody’s prosecuting you, I gather; I’ll (b) hardly accuse you of prosecuting somebody else.

  SOCRATES: No indeed.

  EUTHYPHRO: Somebody’s doing it to you?

  SOCRATES: Quite.

  EUTHYPHRO: Who is he?

  SOCRATES: I don’t even know the man at all well myself, Euthyphro; he’s obviously some young unknown; but they call him Meletus,5 I believe. He’s from the deme of Pitthus – you might recall a Meletus from Pitthus with straight hair and not much of a beard, but a rather hooked nose.

  EUTHYPHRO: I can’t recall him, Socrates; but what’s the prosecution he’s brought against you?(c)

  SOCRATES: What is it? No trivial one, in my view. To have discovered, as a young man, a matter of such magnitude is no mean thing. For he knows, as he claims, how the young men are being corrupted and who it is that’s corrupting them. The chances are that he’s a clever sort of fellow, who has noticed how – in my ignorance – I’m corrupting his contemporaries,6 and goes to the city, as if to his mother, to tell on me. He (d) seems to me to be the only one in politics to approach the subject correctly, because it’s quite right to make young men and their future excellence your first concern7 – just as a good farmer is likely to concern himself first with the young plants, and only then with the others. And so Meletus too, perhaps, 3(a) is first weeding out people like me who corrupt the young shoots of youth, as he puts it; then he’ll evidently move on to looking after older persons and be responsible for countless great benefits to the city – the logical outcome for one who has made so promising a start.

  EUTHYPHRO: I should like to think so, Socrates, but I’m very fearful of the opposite outcome. In my view he is beginning by striking at the very heart of the city in trying to harm you. So tell me, what is it he says you are doing to corrupt the youth?

  (b) SOCRATES: Heavens! Strange things, my man – if we take him literally at least. He claims I’m a manufacturer of gods, and he says this is why he’s prosecuted me, that I create new gods and don’t recognize the old ones.8

  EUTHYPHRO: I see, Socrates; it’s because you claim that the divine sign keeps visiting you.9 He’s launched this prosecution on the grounds that you improvise on the subject of the gods, and so he’s off to the lawcourts to present you in a bad light, knowing that such things are easily misrepresented before (c) the general public. They ridicule me too, whenever I say something in the Assembly about matters divine and predict the future for them, saying that I’m crazy! Yet in all my predictions I’ve spoken the truth; they just have a grudge against all of us who are inclined that way. One shouldn’t be bothered about them – just meet them head on.

  SOCRATES: You may be right, Euthyphro, that it’s no matter to be ridiculed; you see, I don’t think the Athenians are particularly concerned if they believe somebody to be clever,10 as long as he’s not inclined to teach these skills of
his. But if they think anybody makes others as well just as clever, they (d) get angry with him, perhaps because of a grudge, as you say, perhaps for some other reason.

  EUTHYPHRO: I’ve no appetite for testing how they feel about me in this matter.

  SOCRATES: Perhaps it’s because you appear to make yourself scarce, and refuse to teach your skills; but I fear that I, because of my generosity, appear to them to communicate whatever I’ve got indiscriminately to anybody – not just without a fee,11 for I’d even be glad to tip anybody willing to listen to me. So, as I said just now, if they were just going to ridicule me as you say they do you, it would be pleasant enough to pass the (e) time in court jesting and laughing. Whereas now, if they are going to take things seriously, where it will all end is clear to no one but you soothsayers.

  EUTHYPHRO: Oh well, perhaps it won’t be such an ordeal, Socrates, and you’ll contest your suit according to plan,12 as I think I’ll contest mine.

  SOCRATES: And what is your suit then, Euthyphro? Are you prosecuting or defending?

  EUTHYPHRO: Prosecuting.

  SOCRATES: Whom?

  EUTHYPHRO: Once again, it’s somebody I’m supposed to be 4(a) crazy to be prosecuting.

  SOCRATES: What? Are you after a wild goose in flight?13

  EUTHYPHRO: He’s very far from flying – in fact he’s really quite elderly.

  SOCRATES: Who is this person?

  EUTHYPHRO: My father.

  SOCRATES: Your own father, Euthyphro?

  EUTHYPHRO: Exactly.

  SOCRATES: What’s the charge? What’s the suit for?

  EUTHYPHRO: For homicide, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Heavens above! It’s certainly beyond the masses to know the right course, Euthyphro. I mean, I really don’t think it’s an action to be taken by the man in the street, but only by somebody already far advanced along the path of wisdom.(b)