The varieties of sceptical thought, Part Five: Overview of the Trial of Socrates

Backwards Timeline for the Trial of Socrates:
~389 BC Plato writes the Apology
399 trial and execution of Socrates
403 General amnesty declared for crimes committed during the Tyranny
403 Overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants
404 The Thirty Tyrants come to power
404 Final surrender of Athens to Sparta ends the Peloponnesian War
405 Obliteration of the Athenian fleet in Battle of Aegospotami
415 Massive Athenian naval expedition to Sicily ends in disaster
415 Desecration of the Herms
~417 Aristophanes' The Clouds
421 Peace of Nicias
422 Battle of Amphipolis
424 Battle of Delium
431 Beginning of Peloponnesian War
432 Battle of Potidaea

The trial and execution of Socrates came during the tumultuous years following the collapse of the Athenian Empire. In 405 BC the Spartans destroyed nearly the entire Athenian fleet and the following year the decades-long Peloponnesian War between the two most powerful Greek city-states came to an end with the surrender of Athens. This was followed by the imposition of a new government in Athens, comprised of men hand-picked by the Spartans, the so-called Thirty Tyrants. Under this regime many Athenians were forced into exile, and hundreds were condemned to death. A state of civil war ensued, and soon the Thirty Tyrants were in turn overthrown in 403 and replaced by a new government controlled by a resurgent "democratic party" made up largely of recent exiles under the leadership of Thrasybulus. Although a general amnesty was declared, Socrates' powerful enemies were able to whip up popular sentiment against their nemesis by making him a scapegoat for Athens' ruinous reversal or fortune. According to Diogenes Laertius Socrates was "the first philosopher who was tried and put to death." After the execution, also according to Diogenes Laertius, "the Athenians immediately repented of their action", and all those who had been behind bringing Socrates to trial were themselves either sent into exile or put to death.

Unfortunately, some people have the mistaken impression that Socrates was some kind of semi-legendary figure who might not have even existed at all. In fact, Socrates is one of the most well-documented persons in all of ancient history. Take his execution, for example. Plato lists 12 people by name who were all present with Socrates when he drank the hemlock in his prison cell (Plato himself was not there). These are all historically attested persons who really were Socrates' students, and at least six of them wrote surviving (if only in fragments) philosophical dialogues recounting Socrates' teachings. In addition we have the far more extensive writings of two of Socrates' more famous students who were not there when he was executed: Xenophon and Plato.

We know the names of Socrates' father and mother (Sophroniscus and Phaenarete) and even their probable professions (stone-cutter and midwife, respectively), the names of his children (Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus), and we also know the name of one of his wives (Xanthippe), and possibly of another one (Myrto), although sources differ on the number and order of Socrates' marriages. We do not know for certain the year of his birth but there is no doubt that he died in the year 399 BC.

Concerning the trial itself, in his The School of History Mark Munn writes that

The indictment of Socrates is well attested in several contemporary paraphrases, and is reliably quoted by Diogenes Laertius, at second hand, from a work by Favorinus of Arelate, a sophist of the early second century CE who consulted the text of the indictment still preserved in the official archives of the Metroon at Athens. It reads as follows:

Meletus son of Meletus of Pitthus has written a sworn indictment against Socrates son of Sophroniscus of Alopece as follows: Socrates commits the offense of not acknowledging the Gods acknowledged by the state and of introducing other new divinities. He commits the further offense of corrupting the young. Penalty proposed: capital punishment.

Plato's Apology, which recounts Socrates' trial, was written within a decade of the trial itself, therefore many of those who read it when it first appeared had been alive at the time or were even present at the trial (as Plato tells us he was). R.E. Allen's assessment of the historicity of Plato's Apology is, in part, as follows:

Plato's Apology purports to represent a historical occurrence, namely, the speech which the historical Socrates made at his trial. It is a natural question, and one often asked, whether Plato's representation of that speech is historically accurate.

A kind of conventional wisdom has grown up as an answer. It claims that the Apology represents sheer idealization of the master's life, that it is a fiction. I believe that within such limits of proof as the subject matter admits, this answer is provably mistaken. As a matter of best evidence, the Apology should be admitted as essentially accurate to historical fact.

By saying that the Apology is essentially accurate I don't mean that it is a word-for-word presentation of Socrates' speech.... [T]here is good reason to suppose that the Apology is not a stenographic report, even though Plato takes pains to indicate that he was present and heard the speech (34a, 38b), something he does nowhere else in the dialogues.... [T]he Apology reproduces the general substance of what Socrates said and the way he said it....

There is no good evidence that the Apology is inaccurate. There is good evidence that the Apology is accurate.... This need hardly occasion surprise. Plato could have had no good reason for presenting an account of Socrates' defense which was at variance with the facts to an audience thoroughly familiar with what Socrates had actually said. This point, indeed, applies in general to the early dialogues. Given that Socrates cared deeply to know what piety and other virtues are, and knew that he did not know, his ignorance would have prevented him from denying the charges brought against him. It follows that Socrates could have made essentially the speech which Plato presents, and perhaps he could have made no other.[Allen 1984, pp. 76-78]

In his defense speech, Socrates states that he must counter two types of enmity against him. First there is the long-standing hatred of him among many of his fellow Athenians, and second there are the specific charges brought against him by three citizens, Anytus, Meletus, and Lycon. Although Socrates does not say so explicitly, the specific charges against him were simply a means to and end, namely, The Elimination of Socrates, as Mark Munn titles the section of his book devoted specifically to the trial and execution of Athens' most famous citizen. Socrates does come pretty close to stating this, though, when he points out that one of the charges against him is that he had "introduced new Gods", while one of his accusers, Meletus, accuses Socrates (during the trial itself) of believing in no Gods whatsoever, with the clear implication being that the specifics of the charges are of little or no concern to the accusers, who simply want to exact vengeance against their enemy, Socrates, by any means necessary.

Just how dangerous these times were, and how poisonous the intellectual climate had become, is darkly foreshadowed by these words of Thucydides, writing about the factional conflicts that rocked the city of Corcyra near the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, almost three decades before Socrates drank the hemlock:

Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence, became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. [3.82.4]

Further reading on the trial of Socrates:

The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 1 by R.E. Allen

The School of History: Athens in the Age of Socrates by Mark Munn

Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens by Arlene W. Saxonhouse

Life of Socrates by Diogenes Laertius
Socratic Studies by Gregory Vlastos

Plato and the Socratic Dialogue by Charles Kahn

The Athenian Empire by Russell Mieggs

The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Thucydides: An Introduction for the Common Reader by Perez Zagorin

The Athenians and Their Empire by Malcolm F. McGregor

Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates by Tom Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith

Socrates in the Apology: An Essay on Plato's Apology of Socrates by CDC Reeve

The Unknown Socrates: Translations, With Introductions and Notes, of Four Important Documents in the Late Antique Reception of Socrates the Athenian [this is a realy fascinating book from Bolchazy, also check out the book's listing at Amazon, which let's you "look inside"]


[NOTE: I put a lot of wikipedia links in this post - but I checked them all out and they seem pretty good. There is, however, a specific wikipedia entry on "The Trial of Socrates" which is mind-bogglingly evil (and I am not providing a link to it - but it's easily found for those who have an interest in evil-ology). It sounds like it was written by some people whose only regret is that Socrates isn't alive today so that they could kill him all over again. The wikipedia entry for Socrates, though, is reasonably good, by wikipedia standards.]

The Varieties of Sceptical Thought:
[1] Sceptical Scepticism
[2] Socrates on Death
[3] Socrates' Advice to the Jury
[4] Richard Popkin
[5] Overview of the Trial of Socrates
[6] "Socrates of all mortals is the wisest"

The Varieties of Sceptical Thought, Part Four: Richard Popkin

Richard Popkin's seminal The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle is rare gem of a book for anyone interested in the history of ideas. But don't take my word for it!

From Richard Popkin's obituary in the UK Guardian:

The History Of Scepticism revolutionised the received picture of both the history of philosophy and the history of science, by demonstrating the influence, in the century before Descartes, of ancient Greek sceptical arguments about the impossibility of knowing God and the world.

In making his case for this central contribution to the development of modern science and philosophy, Popkin gave attention to the intellectual context of the time, especially the role of religious disputes in the take-up of philosophical scepticism deriving from the discipline's Greek founder, Pyhrro. Instead of treating the history of science and philosophy as a series of breakthroughs by canonical figures, Popkin sought to view the thought of the past from within its own framework.

His history brought him international recognition and was translated into four languages. He expanded his thesis in later editions of the book (most recently in 2003), and in The High Road To Pyrrhonism (1989), which took the story through to David Hume. His interest in the contribution of non-philosophical strands (especially religion) to the history of philosophy led to pioneering studies of the interaction of Jewish and Christian philosophy and theology, and of topics such as kabbalism and millenarianism.

From Popkin Non-Scepticus by Brian Copenhaver, which in turn is from The Legacies of Richard Popkin, edited by Jeremy D. Popkin:

Part of the force that drove Popkin's monumental achievement was human and social - his dazzling gift for talking to people and convening them for hundreds of projects, conferences and publications of great and enduring influence. But what he achieved intellectually is deeper and wider than that. His range was enormous, of course, centering on French, Dutch, English and Jewish thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but reaching forward to twentieth century politics in this country and back to fifteenth century religion and philosophy - to the Italian Renaissance. In fact, his influence on the historiography of Renaissance philosophy was profound.

Popkins most important book - one of a multitude - is his History of Scepticism.... The first edition, Popkin writes, "was submitted to two major academic presses ... [but] turned ... down on the grounds that it was not sufficiently philosophical"; it appeared nevertheless in 1960, followed by a second edition in 1979 and a third in 2003. Evidently it was sufficiently readable.

Popkin's very compelling story, according to the title of the first edition, goes From Erasmus to Descartes; but the second edition goes From Erasmus to Spinoza; and the third From Savonarola to Bayle. Once the apocalyptic Florentine friar appeared in Popkin's title, the Italian Renaissance of scepticism had finally made the headlines of Anglophone historiography. That alone was newsworthy, given the previous record of oblivion, both for Renaissance philosophy and for scepticism.

If you still need help forgetting the Renaissance, read almost any history of philosophy written in English before Schmitt's Cambridge History became influential. One such work, first published in 1914, was still in print when Popkin was teaching at Iowa and Schmitt was studying at Columbia; this was A History of Philosophy by Frak Thilly, a Kantian who taught at Berkeley. In a book of 677 pages Thilly's Renaissance rates fewer than two dozen, including one whole paragraph on scepticism - mainly on Montaigne.

Otherwise, scepticism was chiefly a Greek affair for Thilly, and thus stuck in antiquity. In the modern period, Berkeley gets just one paragraph to refute it. Pierre Bayle gets twice as many to expose inconsistencies in religion and work his "potent influence on Hume." but Thilly's Hume is the Third Person of the British Empiricist Trinity and thus immaculate against such stains. Hume has his doubts about cause and effect, of course, and about knowledge of the external world and other such items, but we are not told that these worries are "sceptical." the word enters Thilly's main account of Hume only in an affecting digest of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, where "in spite of these skeptical reflections, Hume declares that it hardly seems possible that anyone of good understanding should reject the idea of God .... How seriously these remarks are to be taken .... the reader is left to decide for himself."

That was where scepticism stood in the awareness of Anglophone philosophy when Popkin awoke it from its dogmatic slumber.... [pp. 5-7]

From A Rebours: Richard Popkin's Contributions to Intellectual History by Allison P. Coudert, also from the same volume: The Legacies of Richard Popkin:

I met Dick at the Clark Library in 1984, where I worked up the courage over several days to give him offprints of two articles. At that point I had no reason to think that Dick would be any different from most accomplished academics, someshat loathe to take handouts from unknown scholars, especially ones working on esoteric subjects like Kabbalah and witchcraft. But, as I quickly learned, Dick's skeptical and inquisitive bent inclined him to question prevailing wisdom and Whiggish interpretations when it came to understanding the past. Like two other great scholars of the twentieth century, Gershom Scholem and Frances Yates, he saw himself as something of an archeologist, digging deep in what he has described as the "marvelous and varied intellectual world or swamp which lies beneath our present thinking" to ferret out little known figures, whether they be neglected persons from the past or unrecognized scholars of the present. It was at the margins, in the writings of ignored and neglected figures, that Dick found ideas now seen to be central to our understanding of the transition from the early modern to the modern world....

In thinking how to define Popkin's contributions to scholarship I was struck by the family resemblance that exists between his work and that of two other distinguished scholars I referred to earlier, Francis Yates and Gershom Scholem. In significant ways all there were "heretics" inasmuch as they went against the grain of accepted scholarship by emphasizing the centrality of what other scholars had marginalized, denigrated, or ignored. As I mentioned, Dick was fascinated by what he referred to as the "swamp which lies beneath our present thinking." Scholem had a similar penchant for delving into uncharted regions. He was convinced that one had to excavate traditional history to get to the truth hidden below the surface, and he discovered sources of this hidden truth well beyond the borders of orthodoxy....

Yates shared this same conviction that true history was subterranean. Like Popkin and Scholem, she saw herself as an archeologist, whose excavations among the ruins of the past revealed the truth that lay beneath what she described as "superficial history." ... Yates pursued the theme of "lost" history throughout all her work....

When one thinks about the factors that drove Popkin as well as Scholem and Yates to direct their historical investigations to areas beyond the borders of orthodoxy, biography becomes important. In his two autobiographical essays Popkin describes himself as by nature "rebellious." He rebelled against his parents' dogmatic liberalism, anti-religion, and communist world view. This rebelliousness continued at Columbia, where he rejected John Dewey's intrumentalism and Frederick Woodbridge's naturalism. It wasn't until he discovered Sextus Empiricus that things began to fall into place. As he says in a passage that makes both Francis Bacon and Karl Marx jump to mind:

In my own case, I guess that I feel perpetually an outsider and an outcast ready to smash intellectual idols at any time. An intellectual anarchist might describe this view, who feels the common human bond would be revealed if our intellectual chains were broken and our deceptive glasses removed. Theories would be seen as myths with no supra-human dimension. Only the supra-human experience found in religious experience and aesthetic experience transcends this. But any interpretation puts one back in Plato's cave looking at shadows and illusions.

[pp. 15-20]

[P.S. I'm still working on an overview of the trial of Socrates, but it might be a day or two before it's ready.]

The Varieties of Sceptical Thought:
[1] Sceptical Scepticism
[2] Socrates on Death
[3] Socrates' Advice to the Jury
[4] Richard Popkin
[5] Overview of the Trial of Socrates
[6] "Socrates of all mortals is the wisest"  

The varieties of sceptical thought, Part Three: Socrates' advice to the jury

Socrates' advice to the jury
In his speech to the jury, Socrates provides three arguments against fearing death:

(1) Fearing death is cowardly and shameful.
(2) One should always do what is right, whatever the consequences, even if it means facing death. (Plato's Republic is devoted primarily to defending this position.)
(3) We do not know what death really means, but if we fear death that implies we think we know what death is, and to think one knows what one does not know is "the worst kind of ignorance."

These three separate arguments are all intertwined in Socrates' speech: We do not know what death is, in particular we do not know whether it is good or bad, but we do know that acting unjustly and/or cowardly is wrong. Therefore we should always act in accordance with justice, and we should never do what we know to be wrong, even at the risk of death.

While explaining his own lack of fear of death in this way, he encourages the jury to fear for themselves, lest they do harm to themselves by acting unjustly:

I think that what I am going to say will do you good: for I have something more to say, at which you may be inclined to cry out; but 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 Anytus 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, and 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 Anytus is doing - of unjustly taking away 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 will not easily find another like me. For if you kill me you will 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 am 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 Anytus 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 my own concerns, or patiently seen the neglect of them during all these years, and have been doing yours, coming to you individually, like a father or 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 a sufficient witness. [30c-31c]

Nothing could be less "skeptical", in the way that word is so often misused, than Socrates' haughty advice delivered so scornfully to those who in theory stand in judgement over him. Such talk is obviously not intended to "make friends and influence people"!

For over 2400 years now (Socrates was executed in 399 BC) some people have wondered why it was that Socrates chose to antagonize the jury, rather than putting on a more conventional defense. In fact, the jury vote was close enough to strongly suggest that if Socrates had been less confrontational and less condescending, he most likely would have been acquitted.

But Socrates could not be other than Socrates. He conducted himself at his trial just as he had always done, at least since the day he received "the command of the oracle", as he understood it, to examine himself and his fellow Athenians. This cannot be over-emphasized: Socrates could not act differently simply because his life was now at stake. And he explains exactly why that is so in the speech itself.

In fact, Socrates won't even lower himself to explicitly refute the charges against him! Instead of directly countering the charge of impiety, he raises the question (using R.E. Allen's paraphrase): "Does one or does one not acknowledge the Gods of the City ... if one doubts ... certain of the terrible stories told about them?"!! And instead of directly answering the charge that he corrupted the youth of Athens, Socrates poses the question: "Does one corrupt the youth by expressing ... doubts?"!! Socrates' "defense" amounts to his open declaration that he does not genuinely know whether the charges against him are true or not, because we do not know with certainty what piety and virtue are - but Socrates insists that this is just as true for his accusers and judges as it is for him. In fact, Socrates makes a central point of his argument that he is superior to his accusers and judges precisely because he knows that he does know these things - whereas they believe that they do!

As R.E. Allen explains it, Socrates does not present a "defense against the charges" so much as he makes his own "counter-claim". Socrates has, in effect, put his accusers and the members of the jury on trial, and he has convicted them, to their faces, of "villainy and injustice" (as Allen puts it). And just in case there is any doubt about what he really thinks, he tells them all that he has nothing to fear "for it is not in the nature of things that a bad man should injure a better than himself".
The Apology is one of the greatest works in the history of rhetoric. But this is philosophical rhetoric, which is only interested in arriving at the truth, not in winning an argument. And one cannot arrive at the truth unless one begins with the acknowledgment that one does not yet know the truth. In contrast there is what R.E. Allen calls "base rhetoric" which begins with the assumption that one knows the truth already, and such "base" rhetoric is employed only to cajole others to one's own position. Very often base rhetoric is also called simply sophistry, and one of the hallmarks of sophistry, in this negative sense, is that a skilled sophist is able to convince people that a case that is truly weak is really strong, and vice versa:

"Socrates does not state but shows the difference between base rhetoric and philosophical rhetoric and shows also that the difference is not merely a matter of form. The verdict of the Athenians indicates that, just as Meletus and those around him do not know what piety and impiety are, so the Athenians do not know what sophistry is, or what it really means for the stronger argument to be strong. Standing at a distance, they cannot tell the dog from the wolf. What is shown is not said, and cannot be said except to those who have learned to see and need not hear it." [Allen 1984, p. 73]

Whew! I'm really just starting to scratch the surface. In the next installment I will back up a little and give a more general overview of the Trial of Socrates. It occurs to me that I might be assuming more knowledge than most people are likely to have.....

The Varieties of Sceptical Thought:
[1] Sceptical Scepticism
[2] Socrates on Death
[3] Socrates' Advice to the Jury
[4] Richard Popkin
[5] Overview of the Trial of Socrates
[6] "Socrates of all mortals is the wisest"  

O for a circle of Witches!

The extinct stars look down
over the centuries of the Horned God.
From the dark recesses
of the Caverne des Trois Freres in Ariege,
to the horned Moses of Michaelangelo in Rome,
from the Bull of Minos and his leaping Dancers
poised on the horns of the dilemma...

From Pan laughing and fucking
and making light of all devils,
to the devil himself, the Man in Black,
Conjured by the lusts of Christians...
From Osiris of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms,
To the Minotaur of azure crete and his lost labyrinth...
From Cernunnos to Satan--
God of dark desires--
What a decline in horny gods!

O for a goat to dance with!
O for a circle of Witches
Skyclad under the horned moon!
Outside my window the hunters are shooting deer. Thus has your worship sunk.

O god with horns,
come back.
O unicorn in captivity, come lead us out
of our willful darkness!
Come skewer the sun
with your pointed horns,
And make the cave, the skull, the pelvic arch
once more a place of light.

Erica Jong, from her book Witches

Happy Beltane!!!

What's in a name?

Why "egregores"?

An egregore is almost, but perhaps not quite, a living Being. It is not quite a living being in the full sense because it probably does not have sufficient independence to be called that. Yet it is alive, aware and intelligent (after a fashion), and very active. An egregore comes into existence through the interactions of mortal human beings and divine Beings. This is where the dependency of the egregore comes in. An egregore must be sustained by the ongoing interactions of humans and Spirits, or else the egregore will dissipate and cease to exist.

An egregore is more "real", stable, and powerful than your average "group mind" astral thingy. But it is "lower" than a God-form. God-forms can (thank the Gods) survive for long periods without much (but probably not without any) active participation of human beings. A God-form is not a God, but rather, as the name implies, the "form" of a God that is knowable by humans.

I have read more precise Qabalistic definitions of egregores, especially in the writings of Denning and Phillips (Ogdoadic Magi extraordinaire). Bascically when a sufficient number of people over sufficiently long periods of time share a common set of symbols, ritual acts, etc, with respect to some specific God or group of Gods, a new Being is created: an egregore. The Gods being worshipped already existed, but these Gods have responded to some particular group of humans who have called upon Them. So an egregore is basically a relationship, one might even get all Biblical and say that an egregore is a covenant. But it is not just that - it is a covenant "come to life". And like all that is born, it is mortal.

I like to think of an egregore as a dance in which one partner is human and the other divine. The music is all of the rituals, iconography, etc, that defines a particular "tradition". When the humans and divinities come together, they strike up the music ... and the dance begins.

Gabriel Emerson has put together a compilation of definitions of "egregore":
http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/gegregor.html

And here is an essay written by occultist Walter Ernest Butler of the Servants of the Light Mystery School:
http://www.servantsofthelight.org/knowledge/butler-egregore.html

And here is an essay by Phil Hine:
http://www.philhine.org.uk/writings/ess_egregore.html

My interest in the word comes from the fact that an egregore, to the limited extent that I understand the term, only comes into existence when a given spiritual path is lived. It is not a result of mere "belief", it can only come about as a result of what Gandhi-ji called "a constant heart-churn". When Gandhi said that he was talking specifically about renunciation, but really I think he was describing devotion in the truest, widest, and best sense. One common perspective found in Hinduism is that there are (at least) four kinds of Yoga: bhakti (devotion), jnana (knowledge), raja (meditation), and karma (works). I think this is a useful idea - but only if it realized that (1) we must have all four, and (2) bhakti takes precedence over the other three.

Of course the greatest of care is called for in deciding what to devote oneself to.

[The cool image at the top of this post is the logo for a small publishing house called Egregore Press, with which I have no affiliation. But they do have a catchy name, don't they?]

The varieties of sceptical thought, Part Two: Don't know much about ... death

"A highly peculiar masterpiece"
In his Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius nonchalantly tells us that Socrates was "the first to discourse on the conduct of life, and the first philosopher who was tried and put to death." Diogenes does not offer an opinion as to whether or not these two things are connected, but even if it is not his intention, he certainly raises that question.

In what way did Socrates "discourse on the conduct of life"? Socrates was concerned especially with what he called "the proper care of the soul", but it must be emphasized that for Socrates "caring for the soul" was not some special activity set apart from the rest of one's life, it is something that permeates every aspect of living one's life. In fact, more than anything else, how we care for our souls is synonymous with how we live our lives, at least in Socrates' view.

Socrates dedicated himself to discussing with his fellow Athenians how we should live, that is, how we should care for our souls. And in return they put him on trial and executed him. But "the first philosopher who was tried and put to death" did not go quietly. Socrates used his defense speech to turn the tables and put his accusers on trial. That speech is justifiably considered to be a masterpiece of soaring rhetoric. But the function of rhetoric is to win over one's audience, and this Socrates failed to do: a (narrow) majority of the jury voted to convict him.

Here is how R.E. Allen assesses the speech:

[T]he Apology is a highly peculiar masterpiece. Socrates constructs an engine of rhetoric according to a well-marked plan. But engines have a function, and the function of forensic rhetoric is to win conviction if prosecuting and win acquittal if accused. The engine Socrates constructs does not work this way at all. Far from aiming at acquittal, the speech avowedly aims at telling the truth in accordance with justice even if the truth leads to conviction. [Allen 1984, p.64]

While it is true that the jury sentenced Socrates to die, Diogenes Laertius writes that "not long after" the execution, "the Athenians felt remorse." He even states that those who had brought the accusations against Socrates were banished from the city, except for one, who was himself put to death, and that the city of Athens then erected a bronze statue in Socrates' honor. [DL II.42-44]

Socrates' speech to the jury was a seamless of continuation of how he had lived his life. This is one of the things that seems to evade people who puzzle over why Socrates acted as he did at the end of his life. But all one has to do is to look carefully at what Socrates had said and done leading up to his trial, and to realize that he really meant what he had been saying all along.

"Not knowing very much about the other world, I do not think I know."
At a pivotal point in Socrates' speech he says "But perhaps someone might say: 'Are you then not ashamed, Socrates, of having followed such a pursuit, that you are now in danger of being put to death as a result?'" This is an important question to answer: if Socrates' conduct has been lawful and even admirable, why does he now find himself so widely hated? But Socrates insists that anyone who poses such an objection does not "speak well":

You are wrong if you think a man in whom there is even a little merit ought to consider danger of life or death, and not rather regard this only, when he does things, whether the things he does are right or wrong and the acts of a good or a bad man. For according to your argument all the demigods would be bad who died at Troy, including the son of Thetis, who so despised danger, in comparison with enduring any disgrace, that when his mother (and she was a goddess) said to him, as he was eager to slay Hector, something like this, I believe, “My son, if you avenge the death of your friend Patroclus and kill Hector, you yourself shall die; for straightway, after Hector, is death appointed unto you; he, when he heard this, made light of death and danger, and feared much more to live as a coward and not to avenge his friends, and said, “Straightway may I die, after doing vengeance upon the wrongdoer, that I may not stay here, jeered at beside the curved ships, a burden of the earth.”. Do you think he considered death and danger?

For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth; wherever a man stations himself, thinking it is best to be there, or is stationed by his commander, there he must, as it seems to me, remain and run his risks, considering neither death nor any other thing more than disgrace.

So I should have done a terrible thing, if, when the commanders whom you chose to command me stationed me, both at Potidaea and at Amphipolis and at Delium, I remained where they stationed me, like anybody else, and ran the risk of death, but when the god gave me a station, as I believed and understood, with orders to spend my life in philosophy and in examining myself and others, then I were to desert my post through fear of death or anything else whatsoever. It would be a terrible thing, and truly one might then justly hale me into court, on the charge that I do not believe that there are gods, since I disobey the oracle and fear death and think I am wise when I am not.

For to fear death, gentlemen, is nothing else than to think one is wise when one is not; for it is thinking one knows what one does not know. For no one knows whether death be not even the greatest of all blessings to man, but they fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And is not this the most reprehensible form of ignorance, that of thinking one knows what one does not know? Perhaps, gentlemen, in this matter also I differ from other men in this way, and if I were to say that I am wiser in anything, it would be in this, that not knowing very much about the other world, I do not think I know. But I do know that it is evil and disgraceful to do wrong and to disobey him who is better than I, whether he be god or man. So I shall never fear or avoid those things concerning which I do not know whether they are good or bad rather than those which I know are bad.

And therefore, even if you acquit me now and are not convinced by Anytus, who said that either I ought not to have been brought to trial at all, or since was brought to trial, I must certainly be put to death, adding that if I were acquitted your sons would all be utterly ruined by practicing what I teach—if you should say to me in reply to this: “Socrates, this time we will not do as Anytus says, but we will let you go, on this condition, however, that you no longer spend your time in this investigation or in philosophy, and if you are caught doing so again you shall die”; if you should let me go on this condition which I have mentioned, I should say to you, “Men of Athens, I respect and love you, but I shall obey the God rather than you, and while I live and am able to continue, I shall never give up philosophy or stop exhorting you and pointing out the truth to any one of you whom I may meet, saying in my accustomed way: “Most excellent man, are you who are a citizen of Athens, the greatest of cities and the most famous for wisdom and power, not ashamed to care for the acquisition of wealth and for reputation and honor, when you neither care nor take thought for wisdom and truth and the perfection of your soul?” And if any of you argues the point, and says he does care, I shall not let him go at once, nor shall I go away, but I shall question and examine and cross-examine him, and if I find that he does not possess virtue, but says he does, I shall rebuke him for scorning the things that are of most importance and caring more for what is of less worth.

This I shall do to whomever I meet, young and old, foreigner and citizen, but most to the citizens, inasmuch as you are more nearly related to me. For know that the god commands me to do this, and I believe that no greater good ever came to pass in the city than my service to the god. For I go about doing nothing else than urging you, young and old, not to care for your persons or your property more than for the perfection of your souls, or even so much; and I tell you that virtue does not come from money, but from virtue comes money and all other good things to man, both to the individual and to the state. If by saying these things I corrupt the youth, these things must be injurious; but if anyone asserts that I say other things than these, he says what is untrue. Therefore I say to you, men of Athens, either do as Anytus tells you, or not, and either acquit me, or not, knowing that I shall not change my conduct even if I am to die many times over."[28b-30c, Harold North Fowler translation]

Here is my own summary of the above:
(1) Socrates uses Homer's Iliad (modestly comparing himself to Achilles!) to remind his audience that courage is a basic virture of the Hellenes, and that anyone who fails to do what is right out of fear of death is a coward and a "burden of the earth".
(2) Then Socrates recounts his own military service ("at Potidaea and at Amphipolis and at Delium"), not to boast, but simply to once again remind his audience that not "remaining at one's station" even "at the risk of death" is "a terrible thing", and that if Socrates had failed to "obey the oracle" out of fear of the consequences then his fellow Athenians would be right and justified in hating him.
(3) But then Socrates subtly switches his argument. Fearing death is not only cowardly, it is presuming to know what one does not know, unless one knows what death really is (that is, what awaits us in "the other world").
(4) And now Socrates states (once again) that there is, perhaps, one way in which he truly is wiser than others: "that not knowing very much about the other world, I do not think I know."
(5) But no sooner has Socrates proclaimed that he does not know "very much" about the other world, he unconditionally asserts that the does know "that it is evil and disgraceful to do wrong and to disobey him who is better than I, whether he be God or man."
(6) At this point Socrates then renounces what we might today call "plea bargaining". He states that he does not wish to be acquitted if this entails the condition that he refrain from carrying on as he has always done. He assures the jury that if he is freed he will continue to do "as the God commands me to do", and that he would do so even if it were possible to kill him "many times over"!

[The entire text of the Apology is available online here. That is Benjamin Jowett's translation - the translation used above is by Fowler, which can be found at the Perseus website.]

The Varieties of Sceptical Thought:
[1] Sceptical Scepticism
[2] Socrates on Death
[3] Socrates' Advice to the Jury
[4] Richard Popkin
[5] Overview of the Trial of Socrates
[6] "Socrates of all mortals is the wisest"  

"The Zendo is not a mental hospital"

Once during a retreat led by the late Deshimaru Roshi one of the retreatants started acting in a very bizarre manner. She was screaming and running around - when she was supposed to be, like everyone else, sitting perfectly still and silently. Or maybe I'm not remembering the story right - it might have been during a question and answer session, not a silent zazen session. In any case her behavior was extremely disruptive, and Roshi insisted that she leave the retreat, and he explained that "the Zendo is not a mental hospital."*

First of all let's be very clear: a Zen meditation retreat is not a time or place where "anything goes". All participants are assumed to be capable of making the kinds of commitments necessary for such a reteat. In particular, retreats are conducted mostly in silence, and there are many rules governing everyone's behavior throughout the entire retreat. These rules are an integral part of a Zen retreat, and everyone knows what they are going into it (or at least they should, and as adults they are expected to prepare themselves properly before a retreat). A person who cannot remain quiet and still or in any other way can't follow the rules simply has no business at a retreat in the first place.

One reason I am bringing this up is that the issue of Zen and mental illness seems to be making the rounds these days. Brad Warner has recently written an article on the question of whether or not Zazen might be dangerous for some people, in particular for trauma survivors (clicking this link will take you directly to the article at Suicide Girls, but as Brad sometime mentions on his website: "You don't need to be a member to view this article and you will not be able to see any naked pictures on this page. So don't worry!"). Even before Warner's article came out, an online Buddhist discussion list I've belonged to off and on since the mid-90's, Buddha-l, also had a discussion lasting several days on basically the same subject. And now just today the NYT has an article about a 63 year old Zen teacher who had a severe psychological crisis which led him into psychotherapy (click on this link to go to the article - unfortunately it does require membership but you still won't see any nekid pictures). And that article, in turn, is now being discussed on another online Buddhism discussion group, the Zen Forum International.

But really the main thing prompting me to write on this subject is the recent suicide of JW Harrington, longtime Executive Director of the Kwan Um School of Zen, which I used to be a member of. I didn't know JW closely. I had probably only met him in person once or twice, and had exchanged emails with him on several other occasions when I was still a member of the KUSZ. But he was such a presence in the KUSZ, really and truly a "fixture" in the best possible sense. A grounded, serene, friendly, and incredibly competent and hard-working guy. He always gave me the impression of being "above it all", while at the same time still knowing exactly what was going on all around him. I know next to nothing about the circumstances, but I read on one blog that he had jumped off a bridge and that he had been sick for several months.

One of my closest friends of my youth, Steve Millen, also committed suicide. But that was almost 20 years ago now. He had attempted suicide by taking a drug overdoes on the night of Thanksgiving, 1990. At the last minute he called 911. But then on Christmas night he jumped from the top of Ballantine Hall on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, and died. Steve made a big impression on lots of people throughout his life. There's even a discussion group dedicated to his memory: "Rebel Without a Cough". The name is inspired by Steve's life-long love-affair with recreational drugs in general and Robitussin-DM in particular. Steve's friends and fans have also created a web archive of the 'zine that Steve put out irregularly during the last 5 or so years of his life: Tussin Up.

Anyway, I bring up Steve, well, because I can't help but think of him whenever the subject of suicide comes up. But not just that. From a very early age Steve was a political activist and all around troublemaker and provocateur. His friends were revolutionaries, punk-rockers, college students, college professors, Bloomington "townies" (like himself) and so forth. He had talents, friends, ideals, and a full and exciting life. But he was plagued with inner demons. I know it sounds cliche - but I don't know how else to put it. He was severely manic-depressive, and suffered periods of intense depression. He had already been in therapy for years by the time I met him (when he was still in his early 20's).

And here is my point: people view mental illness and/or suicide as some kind of failure. Steve Millen was an idealist and an activist, but his idealism and activism "failed" to alleviate his manic-depression. JW Harrington and Louis Nordstrom practiced Zen Buddhism for decades, and all that meditation "failed" to make them better.

I think Deshimaru Roshi was absolutely right, "the Zendo is not a mental hospital". That doesn't mean, fortunately for me, that maladjusted people are not welcome. It just means that everyone is expected to "sit down and shut up" as Brad Warner said in the title of one of his books. And that applies to everyone equally: there is no discrimination for or against anyone on the basis of their supposed mental health or lack thereof. In fact, precisely because the Zendo is not a place to come to "get better" it is the place to come "as you are".

I'll even go one better than Deshimaru Roshi: this world is not a mental hospital, and our lives are not "therapy". How we live our lives is of great importance. But going through life trying to get better can be a lousy way to live - if it means constantly trying to be or wanting to be what you are not. But it's also not as if we don't need to get better - a lot better. BUT in trying to get better we cannot afford to disregard the assistance of our loving friends and teachers - just because they happen to be basket cases just like we are.

*[Note added later: The incident is described in Deshimaru Roshi's book "Sit: Zen teachings of Master Taisen Deshimaru", on pages 22-26. I wrote the above post from memory without consulting the book, which I hadn't read for quite a while. Deshimaru actually did not say "The Zendo is not a mental hospital" - he said "The Dojo is a holy place, not a hospital." But I think "The Zendo is not a mental hospital" has a much better ring to it. It's what he should have said. Besides, why can't a hospital be a "holy place"??]

Amma is coming to DC

Sri Karunamayi, revered in India as an embodiment of divine love, is currently touring the United States. Sri Karunamayi will be in the Washington DC area for three days in May: Wednesday May 20 - Friday May 22.

Amma, as her devotees call her, is an extremely accessible teacher, although she is at the same time also a very traditional "Hindu Guru". She emanates pure joy everywhere she goes, and she is also a great scholar of the ancient Sanatana Dharma ("Hinduism"). At the age of 21 Amma traveled on foot to the sacred Penusila Forest and spent the next 10 years meditating in seclusion. Her parents are both devout Hindus, and she had always been deeply spiritual even as a young girl, so her intense period of practice from the age of 21 to 31 was a continuation of a path she had already been on her entire life. Even while her mother had been pregnant both of her parents had dreams and visions predicting that their child would dedicate her life to serving humanity as a spiritual teacher.

Wherever she goes, Sri Karunamayi teaches people how to make use of powerful Sanskrit mantras such as the Saraswati mantra, Gayatri mantra, and Mrutyunjaya mantra, as well as longer traditional chants such as the Samputita Sri Suktam and the Sri Lalita Sahasranama Stotram. But she also places great emphasis on the practice of silent meditation, and she will be leading a day-long meditation retreat as part of her DC visit.

A brief biography of Sri Karunamayi is here:
http://www.karunamayi.org/Biography.html

More information on the DC part of her tour is here:
http://www.karunamayi.org/tour/2009WashingtonDC.html

The following is taken from her website:

Amma’s Mission

In this modern world, countless indigenous peoples have lost their cultural bearings and their connection to the Earth due to the forces of modernization and commercialization. This has nearly always been disastrous for their health, happiness and well-being. For the sake of preserving India’s spiritual culture and safeguarding it against these forces, and of restrictive interpretations, Amma has dedicated her life to giving discourses, holding sacred ceremonies, and creating numerous audio and video recordings so that future generations will not have to mourn the loss of the unique and precious culture based in Sanatana Dharma.

Keeping the Flame Alive

In Sanatana Dharma, all the elements within Nature are held to be sacred and inherently pure. However, it is believed that physical pollution as well as the subtle pollution of humanity’s violence and selfishness creates stress within the natural environment. For the purification and release of all forms of negativity, India’s ancient sages recommended the holy yajna, or homa ceremony, above all others.

A homa is a fire ceremony that seeks to honor all forms of the Divine through the sacred medium of the element of fire. In this ceremony, many items are offered to God, along with prayers for universal peace. It is believed that one’s prayers and positive thoughts rise with the homa smoke into the atmosphere, where they then spread through the entire world to promote universal peace and happiness.

To preserve and elucidate the ancient culture of India and highlight the need for peace, purification and positive thoughts, Amma arranges for fire ceremonies to be conducted during many of her programs and tours. In this way, people come together to acknowledge the goal of world peace in an atmosphere rendered sacred by the combination of ancient peace prayers and the purifying element of fire.

Empowering Women

In the tradition of Sanatana Dharma, sound itself is considered to contain powerful divine energy. There are countless mantras, verses, and divine poems containing mystical insights, yogic advice, and spiritual precepts. Due to some unfortunate cultural developments, some have come to believe that common people cannot understand or use mantras properly. In some cases, women have been barred from reciting certain mantras, like the famous and holy Gayatri Mantra. As a result, many sincere and devout people have been prevented from accessing India’s profound mystical traditions.

To correct this unfortunate development, Amma has made special recordings of sacred Sanskrit chants, with the specific intention that all sincere seekers be able to learn and benefit from these priceless practices. So that all may understand the spiritual value of these ancient chants, Amma has also published a number of books elucidating the inner spiritual meaning of these mantras and hymns. In this way, countless people have gained new respect for the spiritual and cultural traditions of ancient India.

The varieties of sceptical thought, Part One: Sceptical Scepticism

"We are not the type of philosophers who think that nothing is true."
The first thing you need to know about philosophical scepticism is that Plato and Pyrrho were the fathers of all of the ancient schools of scepticism. Plato wrote a book, titled the Timaeus, in which he explained that the entire universe is a single, living, intelligent, immortal, ensouled, blessedly happy, and divine being. Pyrrho, on the other hand, learned everything he knew about scepticism by traveling to India and studying with mystical philosophers there, and also traveling to Persia and studying with the Magi, the very people who gave us the word "magic".

The second thing you need to know about philosophical scepticism is that it was revived during the Renaissance by, among others, folks like Girolamo Savonarola and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. The first was a fanatical, book-burning, Christian fundamentalist; while the second was one of the greatest occultists of all time.

What do these two things tell us? Only that we must apply scepticism to scepticism itself. That is, scepticism is not necessarily what you have been led to believe it is. In particular, scepticism has nothing whatsoever to do with the crude philistinism and hamfisted debunkery of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and that lot. The so-called "New Atheists" have nothing to offer other than a slightly updated (and significantly dumbed-down) version of iconoclastic Calvinism deprived of it's (always thin an unconvincing) religious veneer.

Among our most important primary sources for ancient scepticism is Cicero's Academica. Cicero was an adherent of the school of so-called "Academic" sceptics, who traced their intellectual lineage back to Plato. During the same year that he wrote his Academica, Cicero also produced his De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) in which he informs us:

As for those who express surprise that I have adopted the Academic system in preference to all others, I think that the four books of my 'Academica' offer them a clear enough answer.... I stress, however, that it cannot be the case that those who follow this line of philosophy have no guiding principles. Mark you, I have discussed this matter more rigorously elsewhere [Ac. II], but certain people are such slow learners that they clearly need to be instructed more than once. We Academics are not the type of philosophers who think that nothing is true. Our claim is that certain falsehoods impinge on all true statements, and that these bear so close a resemblance to the truth that they contain no criterion by which to judge them or to lend assent to them. The outcome of this is our view that many things are probable, and that though these are not demonstrably true [that is, not provable with absolute certainty] they guide the life of the wise man, because they are so significant and clear cut.
[Cicero De Natura Deorum I.11-12, P.G. Walsh translation]

What did Socrates know, and how did he know it?
Socrates, the teacher of Plato, believed that all wrongdoing results only from ignorance, that is, that no one ever does wrong knowingly. This Socratic teaching was echoed by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, who was born over 450 years after Socrates was executed:

"They are free who live as they will; who are not subject to compulsion, to restraint, or to violence; whose pursuits are unhindered, their desires successful, their aversions unincurred. Who, then, would wish to lead a wrong course of life? No one. Who would live deceived, erring, unjust, dissolute, discontented, dejected? No one. Wicked persons, then, do not live according to their own wills; therefore no such person is free."
[Discourse IV.1]

Ignorance leads to true slavery, the slavery of the soul/psyche. Through our own ignorance our pursuits are hindered, but through knowledge we can attain true freedom. Epictetus had himself been born a slave, and he reveled in taunting his aristocratic students that they were the real slaves because they were not true masters of themselves.

Epictetus was a Stoic, not a Platonist. But he was a true-blue Socratic. Socrates and Epictetus were agreed that ignorance enslaves us, while knowledge leads to true freedom. Socrates never claimed that knowledge was impossible or unattainable, nor did he ever claim that he himself lacked all knowlede whatsoever. But he did emphasize that there was one thing above all others that he did understand: his own ignorance.

In Plato's famous Apology, which recounts Socrates' defense speech before a jury of 500 (or perhaps 510) of his fellow Athenian citizens, we read of how it was that Socrates came to have so many enemies, including enemies who wished to see him tried, convicted, and executed. (But the number of Socrates' enemies should not be exaggerated. When the jury finally voted, almost, but not quite, half of them voted to acquit.) Socrates himself acknowledges that he would not be on trial for his life unless he had been "doing something rather different from most folk." [20c, R.E. Allen translation]

Socrates tells the jury that his present situation came about "through nothing but a kind of wisdom. What kind? The kind which is perhaps peculiarly human."[20d-e] Although Socrates was at pains to insist that whatever wisdom he possessed was of a decidedly human variety, he nevertheless insisted that he had divine backing for his claim to possess this human wisdom. In one of the more incredible passages ever written down in any human language, Socrates, according to Plato, tells the jury the following (and he tells this as if the story were perhaps already known at least to some of them):

For as witness to you of my own wisdom--whether it is wisdom of a kind, and what kind of wisdom it is--I shall call the God at Delphi.

You surely knew Chaerephon, I fancy. He was my friend from youth and a friend of your democratic majority. He went into exile with you and with you he returned. And you know what kind of man he was, how eager and impetuous in whatever he rushed into. Well, once he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle--as I say gentlemen, please do not make a disturbance--he asked whether anyone is wiser than I [that is, wiser than Socrates]. Now the Pythia replied that no one is wiser. And to this his brother here will bear you witness, since Chaerephon is dead.

Why do I mention this? I mention it because I intend to inform you whence the slander against me has arisen. For when I heard it, I reflected: "What does the God mean? What is the sense of this riddling utterance? I know that I am not wise at all: what then does the God mean, by saying I am wisest. Surely he does not speak falsehood; it is not permitted him." So I puzzled for a long time over what he meant, and then, with great reluctance, I turned to inquire into the matter in some such way as this.... [20e-21b]

And with that preamble, Socrates then proceeds to describe how he went about Athens "examining" his fellow citizens. He started off with leading Athenians who were widely regarded as exceedingly wise, and who also believed themselves to be wise. For each such leader of Athenian society that he examined, Socrates found that "though he seemed wise to many other men, and most especially to himself, he was not."

Socrates' told the jury that, as a result, he found himself

thinking to myself, '"I am wiser than that man. Probably neither of us knows anything worthwhile; but he thinks he does and does not, and I do not and do not think I do. So it seems at any rate that I am wiser in this one small respect: I do not think I know what I do not." [21d]

After dealing like this with Athens' political elites, Socrates then started in on the poets, but:

presently I came to realize that the poets, too, do not make what they make by wisdom, but by a kind of native disposition or divine inspiration, exactly like seers and prophets. For the latter also utter many fine things, but know nothing of the things they speak. That is how the poets appeared to me, while at the same time I realized that because of their poetry they thought themselves the wisest of men in other matters--and were not. Once again I left thinking myself superior to them in just the way I was to the politicians. [22c]

And from the poets Socrates went to the artisans and all those who worked with their hands, and there Socrates found people who "knew many fine things", but, alas,

it seemed to me that the poets and our capable craftsmen had exactly the same failing: because they practiced their own arts well, each deemed himself wise in other things, things of great importance. This mistake quite obscured their wisdom. [22d]

Socrates' general procedure was quite simple: he would elucit from people claims as to what they believed they knew. Socrates would then proceed to question them closely about the knowledge they claimed to have. He found that once confronted with a clear demonstration that they did not know what they claimed to know, rather than accepting this knowledge (that is, knowledge of their own ignorance) many (although not all) people continued cling to their previous claims to knowledge, and, in the process, came to hate Socrates for exposing this ignorance (which they nevertheless denied).

Many Athenians, especially among the young, became admirers of Socrates during this process. And this only added to Socrates' troubles, as his admirers emulated, or attempted to emulate, Socrates and began going around challenging people about their knowledge. It turned out that even these youthful "amateur" Socrates wannabes could easily (and publicly) expose many prominent citizens as frauds and hypocrites, for claiming to know what they did not.

Throughout his speech, Socrates minimizes his own wisdom, but he never claims to know nothing. While avoiding explicit claims of his own knowledge, Socrates nevertheless clearly believes that he does possess superior judgement with respect to distinguishing truth from falsehood. Without making positive knowledge claims, therefore, he does make a de facto claim to possess an ability (what we might today call "critical thinking") which certainly gives the impression of having the potential to lead us to knowledge.

And not only that, but there is (and this is almost too obvious to point out, but it is perhaps so obvious as to be easily overlooked) an air of supreme confidence in Socrates as he stands before those who hold the power of life and death over him. There is nothing to suggest that Socrates wishes to die, or that he misunderstands the gravity of the situation. It might be tempting to simply attribute Socrates' bearing to courage and leave it at that, but in one of his many conversations with his fellow Athenians (recounted in Plato's Laches) Socrates has already objected to defining courage merely as "perseverance", for, Socrates insisted, there are many times in battle where prudence dictates withdrawal, and since prudence and courage are both virtues they cannot be in conflict with each other. Therefore, Socrates' performance before the jury, even if we attribute it to courage, must also be consistent with prudence.

And here we come to clear evidence of Socrates' knowledge (whether he claims this knowledge openly or not - and there is nothing new in suspecting that Socrates may have known more than he claimed to know). Socrates goes so far as to give advice to the jury (which will be discussed in a future post), advice that strongly implies some certain (or very close to certain) knowledge on Socrates' part, even though he continues to couch his language carefully. It would be tempting to focus on Socrates' attitude toward death. But that would be jumping over the crucial issue on which his whole case rests: that it is never right to do wrong, and that one who acts correctly, that is, justly, will always benefit from acting so, whereas all those who act wrongly, that is unjustly, will always suffer as a consequence.

Nothing could be further removed from the colloquial usage of the word "sceptical" than Socrates' attitude toward ethics. And yet despite (or, rather, if you think about it, precisely because of) Socrates' certainty with regards to ethics, he eagerly welcomes a thorough investigation of his own ethical principles in Plato's Gorgias and also in the monumental Republic. But in the Apology there is no investigation of ethics, rather, what was merely investigated in the Gorgias and the Republic is put into action in the Apology. Socrates demonstrates, with every word, how a just human being acts.

[to be continued.....]

The Varieties of Sceptical Thought:
[1] Sceptical Scepticism
[2] Socrates on Death
[3] Socrates' Advice to the Jury
[4] Richard Popkin
[5] Overview of the Trial of Socrates
[6] "Socrates of all mortals is the wisest"