The reason Socrates conceals his true beliefs about the gods is because he wishes to avoid persecution by the city. This is the source of his irony. He wants that his hearers believe he believes as they do, while subtly expressing doubt through his questioning, to elicit those of his audience who might rise above the conventional opinion of the citizenry. — Leghorn
Or is your wisdom such that you do not see that your country is more precious and more to be revered and is holier and in higher esteem [51b] among the gods and among men of understanding than your mother and your father and all your ancestors, and that you ought to show to her more reverence and obedience and humility when she is angry than to your father, and ought either to convince her by persuasion or to do whatever she commands, and to suffer, if she commands you to suffer, in silence, and if she orders you to be scourged or imprisoned or if she leads you to war to be wounded or slain, her will is to be done, and this is right, and you must not give way or draw back or leave your post, but in war and in court and everywhere, [51c] you must do whatever the state, your country, commands, or must show her by persuasion what is really right, but that it is impious to use violence against either your father or your mother, and much more impious to use it against your country?” What shall we reply to this, Crito, that the laws speak the truth, or not? — Plato, Crito, 51a, translated by Harold North Fowler
I don't think Socrates is hiding anything or avoiding persecution when he explains why he won't go into exile: — Valentinus
What shall we reply to this, Crito, that the laws speak the truth, or not? — Plato, Crito, 51a, translated by Harold North Fowler
The view of the city during attempts to persuade her of "what is really right" is different from attempts to see the city as itself. — Valentinus
He is certainly not avoiding persecution by not going into exile, which would have been a way of avoiding it. But can we say Socrates is not hiding something? — Leghorn
On the one hand, with justice understood as minding your own business, the just city protects the self-interests of the philosopher. — Fooloso4
On the other, although the city may be hostile to philosophy, the philosopher is not hostile to the city. — Fooloso4
Viewing him as a martyr makes sense of his trial and death sentence.He is certainly not avoiding persecution by not going into exile, which would have been a way of avoiding it. But can we say Socrates is not hiding something?
— Leghorn
That's the big question. If he is hiding something, what exactly is it that he is hiding?
And, if he is not afraid of prosecution, why hide anything? — Apollodorus
Viewing him as a martyr makes sense of his trial and death sentence. — baker
I went down yesterday to the Peiraeus with Glaucon, the son of Ariston, to pay my devotions to the Goddess, and also because I wished to see how they would conduct the festival since this was its inauguration (Rep. 327a)
The problem appears to be the same as with some other religious martyrs.
If someone is so sure that things are exactly as they should be and that nothing happens without God's will -- then what exactly is going on?? — baker
Socrates knows full well that the laws don’t speak the truth! — Leghorn
... We seek light, we seek knowledge; shade, we seek obscurity.
... must be dragged back into the darkness of the cave to rule a merely temporal entity. Does that sound to you like a true philosopher’s business? — Leghorn
The city is hostile to the philosopher precisely because the philosopher is hostile to the city—not in the way of ordinary lawbreakers, but implicitly, by calling the city’s dearest beliefs into question. — Leghorn
He is certainly not avoiding persecution by not going into exile, which would have been a way of avoiding it. But can we say Socrates is not hiding something? — Leghorn
Power is a problem only when it is misused. This is why it is important for all philosophers, beginners and experienced, to place themselves in the proper power context vis-a-vis one another.
This is why, traditionally, the cultivation of virtues is a preparatory stage to philosophy proper. — Apollodorus
I do think Socrates works laterally in many exchanges to question a convention rather than declare something wrong outright. — Valentinus
I am not sure of how cleanly the boundary between the realm of the city from the pursuit of philosophy is drawn. — Valentinus
Therefore every man of worth, when dealing with matters of worth, will be far from exposing them to ill feeling and misunderstanding among men by committing them to writing.
The charge against Socrates was (1) politically motivated and (2) it was not that he was an atheist but that he disrespected the Athenian Gods and introduced "new deities". — Apollodorus
I reread the Apology not long ago, and if I remember correctly, during his trial, Socrates WAS charged with atheism...some of you who can retrieve the passage more quickly than I can at this late hour might help me out here. — Leghorn
From among them Meletus attacked me, and Anytus and Lycon, Meletus angered on account of the poets, and Anytus on account of the artisans and the public men (23e)
For he says I am a maker of gods; and because I make new gods and do not believe in the old ones, he indicted me for the sake of these old ones, as he says (3b)
Let us take up in turn their sworn statement. It is about as follows: it states that Socrates is a wrongdoer because he corrupts the youth and does not believe in the gods the state believes in, but in other new spiritual beings (24b-c)
However, my comment referred to Socrates being taken to court for "making new Gods" and "not believing in the old ones" which seems different from "atheism" in the sense of "believing that there is no God" — Apollodorus
The issue is how do we reconcile Socrates' "making new Gods", "believing in new spiritual beings", and the various instances in the dialogues where he appears to be praying and/or worshiping some deity, with the view that he was an "atheist"? — Apollodorus
When reading Plato the problem of concealment stands together with the problem of interpretation. Someone lacking the ability to interpret is not even aware that there is anything concealed. They are content with what they see and may even vehemently deny that there is another [way of seeing these things] other than the plainly stated claims that they accept as true. — Fooloso4
It would be easy for a modern educated liberal student of him to be unable to believe that Socrates actually believed in gods— and it would be difficult for a theist not to be heartened by Socrates’ prayers and worship. To the former I would point out all these signs of Socrates’ piety; to the latter, I would point out that we cannot know what is really going on in the mind of a man who prays silently. — Leghorn
all these signs of Socrates’ piety — Leghorn
But we have no signs of Socrates' piety. We have the stories of Plato and Xenophon who wrote in light of the trial and prosecution of Socrates.. — Fooloso4
There was good reason to portray Socrates as pious in both the conventional and an unconventional way. — Fooloso4
It is not without significance that Plato brings Anaxagoras into the trial. It is not just Socrates but philosophy that is on trial. — Fooloso4
What signs of Socrates’ piety would you accept as proof then of his belief or disbelief in god? — Leghorn
Socrates in that passage attempts to distance himself from that natural philosopher — Leghorn
But this passage is fraught with irony. — Leghorn
if I recall correctly, Socrates in that passage attempts to distance himself from that natural philosopher, saying that Anaxagoras’ works can be so cheaply bought that the young can purchase them and learn these ideas without having to bother Socrates to learn them, “especially since they are so strange” that he would never espouse them. — Leghorn
in the Phaedo (98b) Socrates relates how he started his true philosophical career by renouncing Anaxagoras' materialism. — Apollodorus
Socrates in that passage [Apology, 26d-e] attempts to distance himself from that natural philosopher
— Leghorn
He correctly points to Anaxagoras as the source of that claim, but he does not distance himself from it. He neither confirms nor denies. — Fooloso4
Both Plato and Xenophon defend Socrates in a way that he does not defend himself in their accounts of the trial. — Fooloso4
In any case, I don't see Socrates taking a huge interest in Anaxagorean materialism, and unlike Anaxagoras, he did not deny the divinity of Sun and Moon. — Apollodorus
I suspect Socrates and Plato wanted it to be that way: ambiguous and open to interpretation. — Leghorn
We must declare that this Cosmos has verily come into existence as a Living Creature endowed with soul and reason owing to the providence of God (Tim. 30b)
I wonder: did he ever exclaim, as did his many interlocutors, in any of the dialogues, “by Zeus!”, or, “by Hera!”, or any of the other stock exclamatory theistic formulae? That would be an interesting topic of research. — Leghorn
do you assert that distancing yourself from something is the same thing as denying it? — Leghorn
I believe this fact indicates he may have believed something similar to what Anaxagoras taught. — Leghorn
This statement leaves me very perplexed, since we only know Socrates’ defense of himself from Plato’s and Xenophon’s accounts of it. — Leghorn
I suspect Socrates and Plato wanted it to be that way: ambiguous and open to interpretation. — Leghorn
We must declare that this Cosmos has verily come into existence as a Living Creature endowed with soul and reason owing to the providence of God (Tim. 30b)
Could it be that Plato became so popular precisely because he was not an atheist and that his views resonated with those of the majority of philosophy students? — Apollodorus
As it happens, Socrates does use theistic expressions like "by Zeus" (Cratylus 423c; Rep. 345b) and "if God wills" (Phaedo 69d) quite frequently. — Apollodorus
Both Plato and Xenophon defend Socrates in a way that he does not defend himself in their accounts of the trial. — Fooloso4
This statement leaves me very perplexed, since we only know Socrates’ defense of himself from Plato’s and Xenophon’s accounts of it.
— Leghorn
Right. That is why I said, in their accounts of the trial. We do not know what he actually said, but we do know that both Plato and Xenophon defended him in their works after their Apologies. — Fooloso4
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