In the Apology, Socrates is brought to trial by the city. To Socrates, the ‘unexamined life is not worth living’, as living life awake, rather than in a dreamless sleep, is preferable. When finding them lacking, Socrates questions them to the point of confusion or anger. The city of Athens believes it will be good if it rids itself of a pesky gadfly, while Socrates believes his project is ultimately improving the city and its citizens.įor Socrates, much of his later life is spent conducting a trial of his own testing politicians, poets, and craftsmen by confronting them and testing their virtues. What is at stake in the premise of the dialogue is the possibility of political philosophy, or the quest for the good society. He is brought to trial on serious charges that are of concern for the city. In the Apology of Socrates, the only dialogue in which Plato uses the name of Socrates in the title, the city seeks to change what is bad, by eliminating Socrates, the political philosopher. The virtues and the practice of the virtues are the highest aspirations of man par excellence, and therefore since a political community, or a regime, is a community of men, the highest task of a political community is concern for, and cultivation of, the virtues. At any rate, health of the soul was understood as the being in possession of, and practicing with, the virtues. This period we call Classical Political Philosophy, as distinct from Modern Political Philosophy. There are, however, other ends of man, such as the nourishment of the soul, which was well understood by Plato, Aristotle, and others up through the Middle Ages. The city, therefore, also has natural ends.
Now, because man, by nature, has particular needs to live, such as food, shelter, water and so on, we can safely assume that man has natural ends. Therefore, our quest is to strive for knowledge of good and evil, and this happens within the form of the totality of the political regime. Knowledge ( episteme) is superior to opinion ( doxa). We have opinions about what is good and bad, and whenever we have an opinion, we are aware of the fact that it is merely an opinion, and not knowledge. This awareness formulates itself in the character of opinion.
Therefore, we must have some awareness of what is good and bad. So all action is based on beliefs about what is good and bad. Humans seek to preserve what is good, and change what is bad. Politics is a kind of action, and every political action has to do with either preservation or change.
First, we must explore the nature of politics in order to better understand the significance of the death of Socrates. The Death of Socrates by Jacques Louis David (1787)
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