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Jan. 22, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
35:58
1262 The Trial and Death of Socrates - Part Three

The Trial Part 3.

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Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio.
I hope that you're doing very well. We continue with this part, the third, of the trial and death of Socrates.
I'm going to put forward a thesis that is, over the next two videos, that is going to be startling and perhaps upsetting, which is that philosophers, well, Socrates is the greatest philosopher who also bestowed upon mankind.
The greatest curse and the vengeance of a philosopher is something that often results in the death of millions, and philosophers really are the one group in society that can do the most harm to society, and I'm going to put forward the case for that, but let's continue on with the trial of Socrates and move on to this question of atheism.
Now, I just wanted to mention as well that when Socrates makes his defense, which is scarcely a defense, but in fact a manifestation, I would say, of a pretty conscious death wish that he talks about the superiority of death over life later on, which by which I assume that he means that he would rather die than live among such vile people as the Athenians.
But he says that when Meletus brings these charges against him of corrupting the young, he asks Meletus, well, who is it who improves the young?
And Meletus says, well, basically everyone except you.
And then Socrates says, well, Then the youth should be fine because everyone's improving them except me.
And isn't it the case that that is quite the opposite of what happens in the realm of, say, the improvement of horses, where most people do them harm but only a few people know how to do them good, which is not a good defense and does not speak to the criminality of the action.
So, for instance, if I were accused of poisoning children, And I were to make, as my defense, the argument that, well, there are lots of people in the world who don't poison children, but in fact raise them well.
And therefore, it's not a big deal for me to poison children.
It does not actually deal with the argument to say that most people are not ex-murderers, and so why would you prosecute me even if I am?
That doesn't really make a strong...
It's not a strong argument at all.
In fact, it's sort of a self-incriminatory argument because it's not rejecting the actual content of the charge.
And Socrates has an interesting challenge when it comes to self-knowledge, right?
Because he says the unexamined life is not worth living.
And like Aristotle, he says, first commandment is to know thyself.
But because he believes in supernatural beings and gods and devils and so on, he has the problem of not being able to discover or to understand the unconscious.
Religion is the great barrier to self-knowledge because you can project All of your unconscious tendencies of love, hatred, fear, obedience, desire for dominance, and a desire to escape the death, a fear of death, and so on.
You can project all of that out into the universe.
So your self-knowledge is that much diminished by the fact that you think that you're praying to something when you're not.
When he says later in the Apology, He says, when someone says, well, how do we know that?
He says that learning is not learning but remembering that we are born with all this knowledge and all we have to do is remember it because he believes along with Plato, or at least we assume, based on what Plato says, that we live in this perfect world of forms, right?
and that you know that there's a plant behind me because before you were born, you floated in this perfect world of forms and saw the perfect plant, and then you vaguely remember that perfect plant after you're born, and that's how you can identify plants in the real world.
This is the opposite of the Aristotelian or Lockean view, which is that we develop concepts from similarly grouped entities that we experience empirically in our life.
And that's also my view, of course, not that that's particularly important.
So when Socrates, one of the arguments that Socrates puts forward as to why learning is merely remembering rather than actually discovering new things, he says, when you ask people questions in the right way, they already know the answer.
And And the only way that he can explain that is to believe that we have this world of perfect forms, we're born with all this knowledge, and all we do is recollect it as we move forward in life.
Whereas if you understand the unconscious, and, you know, I understand that asking somebody 2,500 years ago to understand the unconscious is asking a lot, but he may have gotten there without the distractions of superstition.
But once you understand the unconscious, then you realize that we do have an enormous amount of knowledge within us that resides in the unconscious.
And Socrates, of course, talks a lot about his dreams, which I go with Freud to say that they are the royal road to the unconscious.
And dreams have a huge amount of useful information about our life as it is and where it should go, ideally.
But because Socrates believes that the dreams are given to him by the gods, he does not use these dreams as a way of understanding himself, but rather perusing the minds of these fictitious beings called gods, which is a huge barrier to self-knowledge.
So this argument that, well, most people improve the young, and if I'm the only corrupter, then the young are doing well, it doesn't fly, it doesn't wash, and Socrates knows far better than this, but as we will talk in a while, he is preparing for the greatest curse he has put on mankind, which he is preparing for the greatest curse he has put on mankind, which is the greatest curse mankind has ever been put under, But let us continue with...
He actually starts to talk about, after not dealing very well with this question of corrupting the young, he starts to talk about the content.
And again, when I first read this, I was like, great, you know, he botched it, but now he's going to fix it, and unfortunately he doesn't.
So Socrates continues.
He says, I have shown Athenians, as I was saying, that Meletus has no care at all, great or small, about the matter.
But still, I should like to know, Meletus, in what I am affirmed to corrupt the young.
I suppose you mean, as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges, but some other new divinities or spiritual agencies in their stead.
These are the lessons which corrupt the youth, as you say.
Meletus. Yes, I say that emphatically.
Socrates. Then by the gods...
Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell me and the court, in somewhat plainer terms, what you mean.
For I do not as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach others to acknowledge some gods, and therefore do believe in gods, and am not an entire atheist.
This you do not lay to my charge.
But only that they are not the same gods which the city recognizes.
The charge is that they are different gods.
Or do you mean to say that I am an atheist simply and a teacher of atheism?
Meletus, I mean the latter, that you are a complete atheist.
Socrates, that is an extraordinary statement, Meletus.
Why do you say that?
Do you mean that I do not believe in the Godhead of the sun or moon, which is the common creed of all men?
Meletus. I assure you, judges, that he does not believe in them, for he says the sun is stone and the moon earth.
Socrates, friend Meletus, you think that you are accusing Anaxagoras, and you have but a bad opinion of the judges if you fancy them ignorant to such a degree as to not know that these doctrines are found in the books of Anaxagoras, the Clasimenian, who is full of them.
And these are the doctrines which the youth were said to learn of Socrates, when there are not unfrequently exhibitions of them at the theatre, price of admission one drachma at the most.
And they might cheaply purchase them and laugh at Socrates if he pretends to father such eccentricities.
And so, Meletus, do you really think that I do not believe in any god?
Meletus, I swear by Zeus that you believe absolutely in none at all.
Socrates, you are a liar, Miletus, not even believed by yourself.
For I cannot help thinking, O men of Athens, that Miletus is reckless and impudent, and that he has written this indictment in a spirit of mere wantonness and youthful bravado.
Has he not compounded a riddle, thinking to try me?
He said to himself,"'I shall see whether this wise Socrates will discover my ingenious contradiction, or whether I shall be able to deceive him and the rest of them.
For he certainly does appear to me to contradict himself in the indictment, as much as if he said that Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods, and yet of believing in them.
For surely this is a piece of fun!
I should like you, O men of Athens, to join me in examining.' What I conceive to be his inconsistency.
And do you, Miletus, answer?
And I must remind you that you are not to interrupt me if I speak in my accustomed manner.
Did ever man, Miletus, believe in the existence of human things and not human beings?
I wish men of Athens that he would answer, and not always be trying to get up an interruption.
Did ever any man believe in horsemanship and not in horses?
Or in flute-playing and not in flute-players?
No, my friend.
I will answer to you and the court as you refuse to answer for yourself.
There is no man who ever did.
But now please to answer the next question.
Can a man believe in spiritual and divine agencies and not in spirits or demigods?
Meletus. He cannot.
Socrates. I am glad that I have extracted that answer by the assistance of the court.
Nevertheless, you swear in the indictment that I teach and believe in divine or spiritual agencies, new or old, no matter for that.
At any rate, I believe in spiritual agencies, as you say, and swear in the affidavit.
But if I believe in divine beings, I must believe in spirits or demigods.
Is that not true? Yes, that is true.
For I may assume that your silence gives assent to that.
Now, what are spirits or demigods?
Are they not either gods or the sons of gods?
Is that true?
Melitus. Yes, that is true.
Socrates. But this is just the kind of ingenious riddle of which I was speaking.
The demigods, or spirits, are gods, and you first say that I don't believe in gods, and then again that I do believe in gods.
That is, if I believe in demigods.
For if the demigods are the illegitimate sons of gods, whether by the nymphs or by any other mothers, as is thought, that, as all men will allow, necessarily implies the existence of their parents.
You might as well affirm the existence of mules and deny that of horses and asses.
Such nonsense, Meletus, could only have been intended by you as a trial of me.
You have put this into the indictment because you had nothing real of which to accuse me.
But no one who has a particle of understanding will ever be convinced by you that the same man can believe in divine and superhuman things and yet not believe that there are gods and demigods and heroes.
I've said enough to answer to the charge of Meletus.
Any elaborate defense is unnecessary, but as I was saying before, I certainly have my enemies.
And this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed.
Of that I am certain. Not Miletus, nor yet Antaeus, but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more.
There is no danger of my being the last of them.
Someone will say, Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end?
To him I may fairly answer.
There you are mistaken.
A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying.
He ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong, acting the part of a good man or of a bad.
Whereas, according to your view, the heroes who fell at Troy were not good for much, and the sons of Thetis above all, who altogether despised danger in comparison with disgrace.
And when his goddess mother said to him in his eagerness to slay Hector, that if he avenged his companion Petroclus and slew Hector, he would die himself, Fate, as she said, waits upon you next after Hector.
He, hearing this, utterly despised danger and death, and instead of fearing them, feared rather to live in dishonor, and to not avenge his friend.
"'Let me die next,' he replies,"'and be avenged of my enemy, rather than abide here by the beaked ships, a scorn and a burden of the earth.'" Had Achilles any thought of death and danger?
For wherever a man's place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger.
He should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace.
And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying.
Strange indeed would be my conduct, O men of Athens.
problems.
If I, who, when I was ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at Podeteia and Amphipolis and Delium, remained where they placed me like any other man facing death, if, I say now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfill the philosopher's missions of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death or any other fear, That would indeed be strange.
And I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death.
Then I should be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise.
For this fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, not real wisdom.
Being the appearance of knowing the unknown, since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good?
Is there not here conceit of knowledge which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance?
And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men.
That whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know.
But I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable.
And I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.
And therefore, if you let me go now and reject the counsels of Anittas, who said that if I were not put to death, I ought not to have been prosecuted, and that if I escape now, your sons will all be utterly ruined by listening to my words,
Socrates, this time we will not mind, Anittas, and we will let you off, but on one condition, that you are not to inquire and speculate in this way anymore, and that if you are caught doing this again, you shall die...
If this was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply, men of Athens, I honour and love you, but I shall obey God rather than you.
And while I have life and strength, I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting any one whom I meet, after my manner, and convincing him, saying, O my friend!
Why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?
Are you not ashamed of this?
And if the person with whom I am arguing says, yes, but I do care, I do not depart or let him go at once, I interrogate and cross-examine, and cross-examine him again.
And if I think that he has no virtue but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater and overvaluing the less.
And this I should say to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens inasmuch as they are my brethren.
For this is the command to God, as I would have you know, and I believe that to this day no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to God.
For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.
I tell you that virtue is not given by money.
But that from virtue comes money, and every other good of man, public as well as private.
This is my teaching.
And if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed.
But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth.
Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anita's bids, or not as Anita's bids, and either acquit me or not.
But whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, even if I have to die many times.
Man of Athens, do not interrupt, but hear me.
Okay.
There was an agreement between us that you should hear me out.
And I think that what I'm going to say will do you good.
For I have something more to say at which you may be inclined to cry out, and I beg that you will not do this.
I would have you know that if you kill such a one as I am, You will injure yourselves more than you will injure me.
Meletus and Aenetus will not injure me, they cannot, for it is not in the nature of things that a bad man should injure a better than himself.
I do not deny that he may perhaps kill him or drive him into exile or deprive him of civil rights, and he may imagine, as others may imagine, that he is doing him a great injury.
But in that I do not agree with him, for the evil of doing as Anita is doing, of unjustly taking another man's life, is greater far.
And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours.
That you may not sin against the God, or lightly reject his boon by condemning me.
For if you kill me, you shall not easily find another like me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by the God.
And the state is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size and requires to be stirred into life.
I am that gadfly which God has given the state.
And all day long and in all places I'm always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.
And as you will not easily find another like me, I would advise you To spare me.
I dare say that you may feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are caught napping, and you may think that if you were to strike me dead, as Anita's advises, which you easily might, then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you gives you another gadfly.
And that I am given to you by God is proved by this.
That if I had been like other men, I should not have neglected all of my own concerns and patiently seen the neglect of them during all these years, and have been doing yours, coming to you individually, like a father or an elder brother, exhorting you to regard virtue.
This, I say, would not be like human nature.
And had I gained anything, or if my exhortations had been paid, there would have been some sense in that, But now, as you will perceive, not even the impudence of my accusers dares to say that I have ever exacted or sought pay of anyone.
They have no witness of that.
And I have a witness of the truth of what I say.
My poverty is sufficient witness.
Someone... May wonder why I go about in private, giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the State.
I will tell you the reason of this.
You have often heard me speak of an oracle or a sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Miletus ridicules in the indictment.
This sigil I have had ever since I was a child...
The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.
And rightly as I think.
For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics I should have perished long ago and done no good either to you or to myself.
And don't be offended by me telling you the truth, for the truth is that no man who goes to war with you or any other multitude honestly struggling against the commission of unrighteousness and wrong in the state will save his life.
He who will really fight for the right, if he would live even for a little while, must have a private station and not a public one.
I can give you proofs of this, not words only, but deeds, which you value more than words.
Let me tell you a passage of my own life, which will prove to you that I should never have yielded to injustice from any fear of death, and that if I had not yielded I should have died at once.
I will tell you a story, tasteless, perhaps, and commonplace, but nevertheless true.
The only office of state that I ever had, O men of Athens, was that of Senator.
The tribe Antiochus, which is my tribe, had the presidency at the trial of the generals, who had not taken up the bodies of the slain after the battle of Argenuse, and you proposed to try them all together, which was illegal, as you all thought afterwards.
I, but at the time, I was the only one of the Prytanes who was opposed to the illegality, and I gave in vote against you.
And when the orators threatened to impeach and arrest me and have me taken away, and you called and shouted, I made up my mind that I would run the risk, having law and justice with me, rather than take part in your injustice because I feared imprisonment and death.
This happened in the days of the democracy.
But when the oligarchy of the Thirty was in power, they sent for me and four others into the rotunda and bade us bring Leon the Salaminian from Salamis, as they wanted to execute him.
This was a specimen of the sort of commands which they were always giving, with the view of implicating as many as possible in their crimes.
And then I showed, not in word only, but in deed, that, if I may be allowed to use such an expression, I cared not a straw for death, and that my only fear was the fear of doing an unrighteous or unholy thing.
For the strong arm of that oppressive power did not frighten me into doing wrong, and when we came out of the rotunda the other four went to Salamis and fetched Leon, but I went quietly home, for which I might have lost my life, had not the power of the thirty shortly afterwards come to an end.
And to this, many will witness.
Now, do you really imagine that I could have survived all these years if I had led a public life?
Supposing that like a good man, I had always supported the right and had made justice as I ought, the first thing?
No, indeed, men of Athens, neither I nor any other.
But I have always been the same in all my actions, public as well as private.
And I have never yielded to any base compliance to those who are slanderously termed my disciples, or to any other.
For the truth is, I have no regular disciples.
But if anyone likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young or old, he may freely come.
Nor do I converse with those who pay only, and not with those who do not pay.
But anyone, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my words.
And whether he turns out to be a bad man or a good one, that cannot be justly laid to my charge, as I never taught him anything.
And if anyone says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all the world has not heard, I should like you to know that he is speaking an untruth.
But I shall be asked, why do people delight in continually conversing with you?
Thank you.
Thank you.
I've told you already, Athenians, the whole truth about this.
They like to hear the cross-examination of the pretenders to wisdom.
There is amusement in this.
And this is a duty which the God has imposed upon me, as I am assured by oracles, visions, and in every sort of way, in which the will of divine power was ever signified to anyone.
This is true, O Athenians, or, if not true, would soon be refuted.
For if I am really corrupting the youth, and have corrupted some of them already, Those of them who have grown up and have become sensible that I gave them bad advice in the days of their youth should come forward as accusers and take their revenge.
And if they do not like to come themselves, some of their relatives, fathers, brothers or other kinsmen should say what evil their families suffered at my hands.
Now is their time.
Many of them I see here in this court.
There is Crito, who is of the same age and of the same deem with myself.
There is Cretobolus, his son, whom I also see.
Then again, there is Licinius of Svechus, who is the father of Escheynes.
he is present and also there is Antiphon and lots and lots of other people if any have any testimony of the sort which can produce evidence of my corruption let him speak Thank you.
Thank you.
For all these are ready to witness on behalf of the corruptor, of the destroyer of their kindred, as Meletus and Aeneas call me, not the corrupted youth only.
There might have been a motive for that.
But their uncorrupted elder relatives?
Why should they too support me with their testimony?
why indeed except for the sake of truth and justice and because they know that I am speaking the truth and that Meletus is lying well Athenians this and the like of this is nearly all the defense which I have to offer Bye.
Yet, a word more.
Perhaps there may be someone who is offended at me, when he calls to mind how he himself, on a similar, or even a less serious occasion, had recourse to prayers and supplications with many tears, and how he produced his children in court, which was a moving spectacle, together with a posse of his relations and friends.
Whereas I, who am...
Probably in danger of my life, will do none of these things.
Perhaps this may come into his mind, and he may set against me and vote in anger because he is displeased at this.
Now, if there be such a person among you, which I am far from affirming, I may fairly reply to him, My friend, I am a man.
And like other men, a creature of flesh and blood, and not of wood and stone, as Homer says.
And I have a family, yes, and sons, O Athenians, three in number, one of whom is growing up and the other two are still young.
And yet I will not bring any of them hither in order to petition you for an acquittal.
And why not? Not from any self-will or disregard for you.
Whether I am or am not afraid of death is another question of which I will not now speak.
But my reason is simply this, that I feel such conduct to be discreditable to myself, and you, and the whole state.
One who has reached my years, and who has a name for wisdom, whether deserved or not, ought not to demean himself.
At any rate, the world has decided that Socrates is in some way superior to other men, and if those among you who are said to be superior in wisdom and courage and any other virtue demean themselves in this way, how shameful is their conduct!
I have seen men of reputation when they have been condemned behaving in the strangest manner.
They seem to fancy that they were going to suffer something dreadful if they died, and that any stranger coming in would say of them that the most eminent men of Athens, to whom the Athenians themselves give honor and command, are no better than women.
And I say that these things ought not to be done by those of us who are of reputation.
And if they are done, you ought not to permit them.
You ought rather to show that you are more inclined to condemn, not the man who is quiet, but the man who gets up a doleful scene and makes the city ridiculous.
But, setting aside the question of dishonour, there seems to be something wrong in petitioning a judge, and thus procuring an acquittal, instead of informing and convincing him.
For his duty is not to make a present of injustice, but to give judgment, and he has sworn that he will judge according to the laws, and not according to his own good pleasure.
And neither he nor we should get into the habit of perjuring ourselves.
There can be no piety in that.
Do not then require me to do what I consider dishonorable and impious and wrong, especially now when I'm being tried for impiety on the indictment of Miletus.
For if, O men of Athens, by force of persuasion and entreaty I could overpower your oaths, then I should be teaching you to believe that there are no gods and convict myself in my own defense of not believing in them.
But that is not the case, for I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them.
And to you, and to God, I commit my cause to be determined by you as is best for you and me.
That is the sum total of his defense.
The verdict is returned after a deliberation.
I will, to keep this relatively short, we will talk about that in the next video.
Thank you so much for watching. I look forward to doing your donations and please subscribe to this channel on YouTube.
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