Socrates knew the answers to the questions that he asked the Athenians during his trial. For instance, the first accusation the Meletus charged against him was that he was a wise man and a student of all things in the sky and below the earth, and that he used it to disgrace the gods, and even taught those things to others for money. When Socrated defended himself against this charge, he asked Meletus and other Athenians to give proofs for this accusation, but they couldn't do it. To prove that he did not charge fees for his students, Socrates gave a list of the men whom he had taught such as Gorgias of Leontini, Prodicus of Ceos, Hippias of Elis, and Evenus. He said that those men, instead, had taken his knowlege to teach others and made people pay money to them. (Apology 19e-20a,b,c)
To prove that he was not the one who studied things beyond the common and therefore were wise, Socrates argued that he had been telling all the wise men whom he met that he was not wise. First of all, Socrates said that the kind of wisdom that was blamed on him was human wisdom and not the other kind of wisdom and that other wise men were wiser than him because they possessed a wisdom that was higher than human wisdom. The first witness that he called upon was the God of Delphi. Socrates then told the story of his friend, Chaerephon, who went to Delphi to ask who was wiser than Socrates, and the Pythian replied that no one was wiser than Socrates, but the reason why the oracle said that was because Socrates had declared before the oracle that he had not been wise at all, and that for him, wisdom was worthless ( Apology, 23a,b). Therefore, the gods knew that Socrates possessed a good personality, modesty, and that Socrates was also wise because he knew there still were more things to learn and his knowledge was not advantageous at all.
To prove that he did not disgrace the gods, Socrates told the stories of his own venture to find men who were wise or not wise in order to know whether what the gods said was true or not, and the result was that no wise men whom he had contacted with were truly wise. Socrates said that for every man he met and talked with, he found out that they were not wise, and when he let them know that they were not wise, they became dislike him. Therefore, instead of becoming famous and popular, Socrates became unpopular and had many enemies. Socrates reasoned that since those wise public men claimed that they knew thing of which they did not really know while Socrates knew what he did not know; that was why Socrates knew they were just foolish and boastful people who loved to adorn and overpraise themselves. The fact that Socrates acknowledged that he himself knew what he did not know showed that he knew something that other wise men did not know, i.e., they thought they knew something when they did not know it. That means that they didn't have any precise knowledge of what they had known or had not known. Socrates also didn't forget to state specifically who were among those wise people; he said they were poets, craftmen, and politicians. For that reason, Socrates claimed that he had helped in proving that what the gods said was correct that no men was wise, and that human wisdom was worth little or nothing. Socrates also proved that because of this service to the gods, he lived in poverty.
2/ Does Socrates prove that he is not guilty of one or both of the official charges against him?
Socrates did prove that he was not guilty of both of the charges against him, but not by the exact truth of the matters but by his cunning reasonsing and intelligent analysis. What I mean is that it was just because of the oracle about his wisdom that made him go around and talk to wise men to try to find out if the oracle was true, and because of this mission, he had to use reasoning and intelligent analysis to analyze about what other wise men knew and whether they were wise. For the first charge, I already explained in the above paragraphs; according to what Socrates said and according to his rationalization, I think he had skiffully proved that he had been partly slandered on the first charge. For the second charge which was his guilty of corrupting the young and for not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, Socrates proved the following:
When Socrates called Meletus to tell the jurors, who were the men of Athens, to acknowledge that he was the one who corrupted them, they were silent and didn't know what to say ( Apology, 24a,b,c). Socrates then argued that if he wanted to corrupt his associates, he also ran the risk of being harmed by them because Socrates thought that the people who were bad would do something bad to others. Therefore, how could he be willing to do such an evil action deliberately, for if he had done that, he would not have done that purposefully but unwillingly. Socrates even took this opportunity to reverse the charge back to Meletus that Meletus was guilty of ignorance and slander, and that Meletus had never been at all concerned with those matters befor accusing Socrates.
For the charge that he did not believe in the gods, Socrates explained the following: He never wrote books with theories against the gods, and one of the wise men did that was Anaxagoras. Socrates then said that Meletus claimed that he believed in spiritual things and taught about them, whether new or old. But Socrates reasoned that if he believed in spiritual things, he must inevitably believed in spirits. So if he believed in spirits, he must also believed in gods because gods were spirits.
3/ Socrates seems to have shown that a significant and influential portion of the Athenian citizen population did not know what they said they knew. Explain what political problems this would cause in Athens, and why it would cause these problems. What was Socrates' "service to the god," and how does Socrates think his "service to the god" will help Athens address these problems?
As I explained in part (1) and (2) above, Socrates twice condemned that Meletus did not know what he should have known before accusing Socrates. First, he claimed that Meletus did not make any investigation before accuising him, that Meletus listened to other people such as Anytus and Lycon, and acted on behalf of the craftmen, the politicians, and the poets. Second, Meletus had given no thought to the subjects about which he broght Socrates to trial. Finally, Socrates attacked the whole justice system for its prejudice manner by the fact that he would run on the risk on the side of law and justice rather than join them when they engaged in an unjust course (32a,b,c). Socrates said that he was a righteous man whom the god ordered to do what he had been doing, teaching the spiritual things to the public; therefore, by prosecuting a good man like him, the justice system would do more harm to themselves and to the public than to him.
For the Athenian citizen population, Socrates said that the same result applied to them if they did not know what they thought they knew. For example, Socrates said people who were to fear death were the same with the people who thought that they knew things when they actually did not know. Because Socrates said that "no one knew whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they know that it is the greatest of evils" (29b). Also he thought that to fear death was to disobey the gods because the gods punished men who committed sin with death. For other matters, since Socrates knew that the gods disliked the people who were arrogant and thought that they themselves were wiser than the gods, if this population, which he mentioned specifically as poets, craftmen, politicians continued acting and teaching their wisdom, they would be impious and disobeyed to the gods. However, the most important disastrous sequence of this ignorance of them was the fact that they did not care for others but only care for themselves. Socrates claimed that those wise men used their knowledge and wisdom to benefit themselves, and not to benefit the public or the gods, and he gave a specefic example that they used their knowledge to earn money.
For question: What was Socrates' service to god? I think, first of all, Socrates said that he served the gods by proving what the god Pythian said was true that no one was wiser than him - this I already listed as an answer in part (1) above. Next, Socrates claimed that by teaching the spiritual things, he proved that he believed in spirits, and therefore believed in the gods. Third, Socrates said that by acting as a good man, without taking into account the risk of death and by only caring whether what he did was right or wrong, he lived the life of a philosopher which the god ordered him to live, and so he obeyed god's command. Therefore, by these services to the god, he taught the public the spiritual things that god wanted him to do, and by doing this, he benefited the public as well as the gods. But the main advantage of his teaching was to improve the public to become better citizens. Thus, by letting the public as well as the justice system knew what they didn't know before, Socrates helped them see their deficiencies that they never thought of until they met and talked with him. Of course, by this condemning and this contemptuous manner Socrates had for the government, he would cause a chaos and untrustworthiness between the public and the government; that was why finally, Socrates' verdict was decided by them as a death sentence. In conclusion, Socrates claimed that what he taught the people he met, including the system justice who brought him to trial so that they would open their eyes and would learn more about what they didn't know - to act right and justly to serve the public and the gods better - because Socrates thought that he was a good man, was superior to a majority of people, was god's gift and that god had ordered him to do what he had been doing.
Refernces
Plato. Five Dialogues - Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. 2nd ed. Trans. Grube, G.M.A. Eds. Cooper, John M. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002.
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