Γνωθι Σεαυτον, Know Thyself

Socrates was sentenced to death for being accused of: 1) Corrupting the youth; 2) profiting monetarily for his teaching; and 3) not believing in the gods of the State.

In his apo-logos, his defense, he clearly shows that not one of these accusations is true. However, he receives the death penalty, something he does not dispute, but embraces. Why then was he convicted?

Reading the Apology, it is also patently clear why. In short, because he irked people.

Should we then condemn a man to death because he irks us by asking us one seemingly (operative word, seemingly) simple task: Γνωθι Σεαυτον, to Know Thyself.

Socrates claims that his mission began when a friend asked the Oracle at Delphi as to who was the wisest man, to which the answer was that no-one was wiser than Socrates. Socrates then set out to disprove this, not believing the prophecy. He began to question people who claimed to know something that would appear that they did not. He then proceeded to irk people with his goading.

He concluded in his search that he, himself, knew "nothing," but that is what made him wiser, the fact that he knew that the one thing that he did know, was that he knew nothing. 

When my students first read the Apology in the eponymous course that I taught ten years ago, upon which this blog is based, we took a vote as to whether or not to likewise condemn Socrates to death. I believe there was only one “no” in the group. Along with the disgruntled and irked Athenians, Socrates was put to death, on the spot, no questions asked.

I asked them, “was he then guilty of the charges?” To that, there was not a single confident “yes,” though five minutes ago, they were quite certain that, there will be blood.

They just didn’t like him, and that was enough to condemn him to death. They didn’t like the questions he asked, so he must die.

Defenses and apologies are often made because of a reason. Socrates had a reason. He was brought to the high court of Athens to defend his life.

How did he defend it?

Not by weeping. Not by beseeching. Not by suddenly finding God and converting to an established religion.

He defended it because he believed that, to borrow a Sanskrit term, it was his dharma, his duty, to ask these questions. Right or wrong, he had heard a supernatural voice, a daimon, all his life that guided him away from doing certain things. It was literally, the voice of his conscience. Agenbite of inwit.

Was he hallucinating? Was he mad, or manic? Or, was he mantic. In the Phaedrus, that one, seemingly innocent “t” between manic or man(t)ic that is the distinction between a madman or a genius, is the focus.

So, maybe he did ask the “wrong” questions.

The question that thus begins the Curse of Socrates, however, is rather, “Did Athens sentence a man to death because he was guilty of the charges, or because he irked them because he asked the "wrong" questions?”