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A Brief Comment On The Query: "Is Socrates Guilty As Charged?"

A Brief Comment on the Query: "Is Socrates Guilty As Charged?"


In any case of law, when one is considering truth and justice, one must
first look at the validity of the court and of the entity of authority itself.
In Socrates case, the situation is no different. One may be said to be guilty or
not of any said crime, but the true measure of guilt or innocence is only as
valid as the court structure to which it is subject to. Therefore, in
considering whether Socrates is 'guilty or not', we must keep in mind the
societal norms and standards of Athens at the time, and the legitimacy of his
accusers and the validity of the crimes that he allegedly committed. Having said
this, we must first look at the affidavit of the trial, what exactly Socrates
was being accused with: "Socrates does injustice and is meddlesome, by
investigating the things under the earth and the heavenly things, and by
making the weaker speech the stronger, and by teaching others these same
things."1 In breaking this charge down, we see that it is two-fold.
Firstly, Socrates is charges with impiety, a person who does not believe in the
state gods of Athens and, not only that, but by its literal meaning, does not
believe in the authority of gods at all. To this, Socrates seems baffled. He
states that the reason behind the 'criminal meddling', the questioning of
people's wisdom, was commissioned to him by the gods through the Oracle of
Delphi. As Socrates said, "...but when god stationed me, as I supposed and
assumed, ordering me to live philosophizing and examining myself and
others...that my whole care is to commit no unjust or impious deed."2He even
seems to win a victory over one of his accusers, Meletus, in questioning this
point. As Socrates points out, it is impossible for him to be both atheistic and
to believe in demons, or false gods, for if he believes in the latter, then that
would contradict his not believing in gods at all (since even demons are
considered to be at least demi-gods)....