Summary
Having claimed that he is not like either the
Presocratics or the sophists, Socrates opens
himself up to the question of what might have led
to these false accusations. He answers that he has
developed a reputation for wisdom--but a kind of
limited, human wisdom, not the kind of super-human
wisdom that would be required to speak
authoritatively about matters such as the
Presocratics and the sophists discuss. This
reputation originated in a prophecy given by the
oracle at Delphi to his friend Chaerephon.
Chaerephon asked the omniscient oracle if there was
anyone wiser than Socrates, and the priestess
replied that there was not.
Socrates recounts how he took this news with great
puzzlement: he knew the oracle could not lie, and
yet he was only too aware that he had no particular
wisdom or specialized knowledge at all. In order
to test the oracle, or to prove it wrong, Socrates
sought out and questioned Athenian men who were
highly esteemed for wisdom. First, he interrogated
the politicians, then the poets, and then the
skilled craftsmen. In questioning the politicians,
he found that though they thought they were very
wise, they did not in fact know much of anything at
all. The poets, though they wrote great works of
genius, seemed incapable of explaining them, and
Socrates concluded that their genius came not from
wisdom but from some sort of instinct or
inspiration which was in no way connected to their
intellect. Furthermore, these poets seemed to
think they could speak intelligently about all
sorts of matters concerning which they were quite
ignorant. In the craftsmen, Socrates found men who
truly did have great wisdom in their craft, but
invariably, they seemed to think that their
expertise in one field allowed them to speak
authoritatively in many other fields, about which
they knew nothing. In each case, Socrates affirmed
that he would rather be as he is, knowing that he
knows nothing, than to be inflated by a false sense
of his own great wisdom. Thus, he concludes, he
truly is wiser than other men because he does not
think he knows what he does not know.
Though many bystanders take Socrates to be an
expert in the fields in which he questions others,
Socrates denies any expertise, and interprets the
oracle as saying that the wisest of men are men
like Socrates who humbly accept that their wisdom
is deficient. He feels it his duty to the God of
the oracle to continue questioning men who think
they are wise in order to show them that they are
not. The result has been to earn him many young
admirers, and to earn the deep resentment of those
whose ignorance he makes evident. These men lack
any substantial reason for disliking Socrates, and
so, Socrates claims, they invent charges against
him, accusing him of being a sophist or a
Presocratic. This they prefer to accepting the
truth: that they are far more pretentious than they
are wise.
Commentary
The oracle of Apollo at Delphi was the most famous
and most revered oracle of the ancient world. That
Chaerephon did in fact visit the oracle is
confirmed by Xenophon, though in his account, the
oracle declared Socrates to be "the most free,
upright, and prudent of all people" (Xenophon,
Socrates' Defense) rather than the most
wise. In either case, it is clear that the oracle
made a positive claim about Socrates. Most of
Plato's early dialogues--those that center more on
Socrates' thought than on Plato's own--are
concerned with ethical questions, and so we can
perhaps reconcile Xenophon's and Plato's accounts
by saying that Socrates' wisdom is a kind of
ethical wisdom, one that would make him supremely
free, upright, and prudent. But the Delphic oracle
sided primarily with Sparta during the
Peloponnesian War, so it is doubtful how much an
Athenian jury would trust or appreciate the
evidence given by the oracle.
Also of relevance is the famous motto inscribed
above the entrance to the oracle at Delphi: "Know
thyself." Socrates is an ardent advocate of self-
knowledge, and his investigations can be seen as an
attempt to come to a better understanding of his
own nature. He is famous for claiming that no one
could ever knowingly and willingly do evil, that
evil is a result of ignorance and deficient self-
knowledge. His investigations generally ask such
questions as what it is to be virtuous, or pious,
or just. In his dogged efforts to understand these
terms himself, and his persistence in showing his
interlocutors to be wrong in assuming they have
such understanding, Socrates reveals himself as a
man intent on gaining the self-knowledge necessary
to lead a virtuous life.
Socrates' account of his conversations with the
supposed wise men of Athens provides us with a
valuable account of his method of elenchus,
or cross-examination. The Apology is a rare
exception in Plato's works, in that only a small
part of it is given over to the elenchus; in
most of the works, it is the principal means by
which Plato lays out Socrates' arguments. The
elenchus begins with Socrates' interlocuter
claiming to have a perfect understanding of some
term, usually an ethical term like "justice,"
"virtue," or "piety," though epistemology and
metaphysics are sometimes discussed in Plato's more
mature work. Socrates then proceeds to question
his interlocutor about his knowledge of that term,
trying to arrive at the essence of the matter.
Usually, the interlocutor will manage to find
several cases that he thinks exemplify that term,
but he will have trouble saying what they all have
in common that make the given term apply to them.
Through careful interrogation, Socrates will show
that his interlocutor does not in fact know
anything more than a few scattered and imprecise
examples.
