WhySocrates Does Not Request Exile in theApology

Abstract

If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come -the readiness is all'.-Hamlet V, ii, 220-222Plato's work is replete with logical mistakes that can be spotted by a fairly intelligent freshman, and yet Plato writes in such an engaging way that it is clear he is a very intelligent person. Thus it seems obvious that he is making these mistakes on purpose. I will defend this idea by discussing some of the mistakes that are made in the Apology, arguing that they constitute riddles that Plato is challenging us to solve. When we articulate what is wrong with his arguments, we come across the true points that he is trying to convey. In particular, we shall see that the real reason Socrates does not request exile is that he is so committed to responding justly to his present situation that he would never turn his back on it and allow himself to be concerned with making some future situation be the way he thinks it ought to be. He believes that he is stationed in situations by the god, and will not turn from where he has been stationed in the ignorant belief that he knows better than the god what his next situation should be. I AN INVALID PROOF THAT SOCRATES HAS NOT CORRUPTED HIS FOLLOWERS: 33C8-34B5Socrates offers an invalid argument attempting to prove that he has never corrupted any young men. He imagines two possibilities.(1) The young men whom he has supposedly corrupted would come forward against him, now that they are older and realize that Socrates has given them bad advice. He acknowledges though, that they might have some reason for not doing so. (Perhaps he is thinking of the possibility that they might still be under his sway.) In that case, he claims the other possibility would occur: (2) their relatives would come forward against the person who has corrupted them. Neither the young men nor their relatives have come forward against Socrates; therefore it is supposedly proven that Socrates has never corrupted any young men. (Socrates is clearly trying to offer a proof, for he begins by saying that what he is saying is 'easily tested' [33c8].) His argument assumes that there can be no other explanation for why the relatives of each one of his followers have not come forward other than that he has not corrupted their young people, for, if there were one relative who had some other reason for not coming forward, then that relative's young person could have been the one whom Socrates has corrupted. Socrates then spends time naming some of the relatives who are there in the courtroom and are not coming forward against him. In the course of naming these people he observes that, since his follower, Theodotus, is dead, Theodotus could not use entreaties to stop his brother, HeyJ •• (2011), pp. ••-••