The Last Days of Socrates

Introduction

The trial of Socrates was brought forth by the principal accuser Meletus, who was a poet. He accused Plato of corrupting the minds of youth and by being a traitor to the state through his philosophical teachings.

Socrates reads the text of the indictment written by Meletus. It accuses him of corrupting the youth and not accepting the worship of God. It then develops the most important parts of his dialogue with Meleto. The center of the charge of Meletus is to corrupt the youth, the second part of it specifies how Socrates corrupts the youth: teaching them not to believe in the gods recognized by the city but in other demonic things. Socrates asks Meletus if he is accused of denying the divinity of the stars (atheism). The charges were, on the one hand that Socrates did not believe in the gods that he believed the city and want to introduce new divinities. Moreover, Socrates is accused also of corrupting the youth (Rowe, pp. 5).

Discussion and Analysis

The Apology of Socrates is Plato's testimony which leaves the trial and conviction of Socrates. Socrates is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating figures in the history of philosophy, to the point of being considered at times as the personification of it. In the first indictment of Meletus, Socrates says that this is not that kind of belittling and brings knowledge to present witnesses to talk if you ever have seen little or a lot of talk about such issues.

Socrates claimed that no harm could be brought to a person who was good and fair and that, accordingly, he would be safe and secure and free from any harm. Although this appears true, but the fact cannot be gainsaid, that even the truthful person is required to defend himself in order to escape fatal harm, which Socrates completely failed to do. Socrates claimed that Meletus had brought the accusation against him of promoting the wrong argument in philosophy. However, Socrates rebuffed these claims and vouched that he had no knowledge of any such thing. Furthermore, Socrates argued that he was not doing that for the sake of making money, unlike others. Further, he pointed out that the politician Anytus and others were his enemy due to sheer envy.

Socrates further argued that he was being accused of atheism and that those jealous souls would continue to blame him anyway. He further argued that he was free from the malice of those envious people and that death was inevitable and not to be worried about. And that it was even possible that those same accusers freed him and found no accusation against him. Further, he claimed that he was independent of those false accusations (Linder, 2002).

Finally, he believed that no harm could be brought to him even if he was killed or liberated. Further, he avers that there was no replacement for him if he was killed as he had been bestowed to the city by the god. His poverty was ...