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15 2. On Rereading the Apology of Socrates Yet, I have often seen them [men thought to be virtuous] do this sort of thing when standing trial, men who are thought to be somebody, doing amazing things as if they thought it a terrible thing to die, and as if they were to be immortal if you did not execute them. Plato In my usual way [I will] point out to anyone of you whom I happen to meet: “Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?” Plato I • Each semester, with a class, I reread the Apology of Socrates. It is something to which I always look forward. Nothing alerts us to greatness and truth quite like this small tractate does. When they read it, I encourage (order!) students to shut off their cell phones, TVs, cool music, and expel roommates. Read it in silence. Learn, with Cicero, what being “less” alone when you are alone means. Each semester the Apology is both a familiar and a new text. The written dialogue, the text, exists almost in spite of us. At least someone in every age and in some place has known of it. It is already there before our time. It has survived the ages. It was not lost. It has been present to at least some readers since the century in which it was written, when Plato was a young man wondering how it was that his city in a legal trial killed its best man. To put it mildly, Plato’s soul was moved by this civic act. Moreover, he has made it possible that each of An earlier version of this chapter was published online in First Principles Journal, May 10, 2010. Epigraphs are from Plato, The Apology of Socrates 35a and 29e, respectively. 16  All Reality our own souls can be moved in the same way, if we will, if we read carefully . The Apology is addressed to our souls, not to our polity. It practically calls us by name. On reading it, each of us instinctively condemns the jury that convicted Socrates, just as he said we would. Yet, if we are honest, we suspect that, had we been there, we too would have been among those who voted to kill the philosopher. This Socratic defense is more contemporary and pertinent than anything in the daily Le Monde or the New York Times. It is also truer. It asks us, as these do not, to examine our souls, daily, if we want to pursue lives that are worthwhile. On further thought, many of us do not so want to reflect on what we are, even though we hate to admit it. We might have to change our ways of living because of our minds. Thinking and being are intimately related. We need to know this relationship if we want to be free. It is, I say, ever a new text. I cited the passage in the beginning of this chapter that comes just before the first vote of the trial. It concerned whether Socrates, as charged, was guilty of not believing in the gods of the city and of corrupting the youth. The jury of the city decided that he was guilty. The vote was 281 to 220. The passage that I cited above comes just before this vote. Socrates is speaking of those who have high principles but, in the face of death, begin to grovel and plead as if they had no principles at all, as if death is the only evil. They just want to stay alive at any cost, even that of truth. What interests me here is the rather witty remark of Socrates about what happens to those who by such pathetic wheedling and denial of principles do manage to stay alive. Did they not know that they would soon enough die anyhow? Thus, when they came to die the second time, they would have their cowardice and denial of principle on their souls. Our chosen deeds remain with us. We remember. On these denials , they would be judged. Plato never leaves aside the issue of the judgment of our acts, even after death, to be doubted...

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