Plato’s Apology: Socrates’ Critique of Rhetoric

Josephine Chiang

Rhetoric 103a

GSI: Kwan Hua

Plato’s Apology: Socrates’ Critique of Rhetoric

This passage is from the Apology by Plato, which is Plato’s reiteration of Socrates’ trial. In the book’s original language, Greek, “Apology” aligns itself to mean “explanation” or “defense”. In this specific passage, Socrates executes an ironic critique of rhetoric that reveals the fault in the charges brought against him. He tactfully builds his ethos not through boasting his credibility as a scholar, but instead, through presenting himself as a common man in order to appear authentic. This passage picks up at the very start of the work and ends right before Socrates dives into defending himself against his old and young accusers.

Socrates doesn’t beat around the bush; he immediately attacks the rhetoric of his accusers, playfully saying “their persuasive words almost made me forget who I was”. However, his opening sentence seeks to do more than crack a joke: Socrates contrasts the man he actually is with the man they are branding him to be. In other words, he explains he was so lost in his accusers’ portrayal of him that he forgot himself.

After blatantly stating the accusations are “falsehoods”, Socrates decides to zero in on one particular argument of his accusers—that the jury should be wary of being deceived by the “force of [Socrates’] eloquence.” First off, Socrates makes evident the hypocrisy and irony in his accusers’ claim. He demonstrates it is not he who will use rhetoric to persuade, but his accusers themselves, who have executed an “oration duly ornamented with words and phrases”. The accusers are the ones who have been trained in speaking, and are using rhetoric to disguise the truth. Then, Socrates describes just how candid and ineloquent his own speech will be, comparing it to that of “money-changers.” He explains that his speech is plain because the current trial he is undergoing is the first time he has ever appeared in court. In this statement, Socrates is not claiming his innocence, but denouncing the crafty culture of the courts of law, with which he seeks to differentiate himself. By calling himself a “stranger” to the court, he is furthering his claim that he is foreign to the deceitful rhetoric of his accusers. This condemnation of rhetoric becomes ironic when readers realize that Socrates himself has executed a cunning introduction, asserting his innocence through appearing common, yet tainting the credibility of his accusers.

After his introduction, Socrates leaps into defending himself against his older charges. Again, Socrates reiterates the narrative that his accusers have denounced him for propelling falsehoods when the accusers themselves are the ones fabricating facts and impressing these lies into the minds of the young. He explains that he fears his older charges more because they have been instilled in people’s minds since childhood. He was depicted as being a Physicalist who “speculated about the heaven above and searched into the earth beneath”, and a Sophist, who “made the worse appear the better cause”.

Similar to his introduction, Socrates paints himself as the one at a disadvantage. He explains that these older accusations are difficult to fight because 1) these lies have been propelled for a long time during which he could not answer to all of his accusers, and 2) these “slanderers” are not alive and in court to answer to Socrates’ objections, preventing him from effectively proving himself innocent. With this, he launches into his detailed defense.

 It is important to remember that the Apology is not a transcript of Socrates’ trial, but a documentation of the trial written by Plato. While the text shows wise compositional elements from Socrates’ speech, these elements could have very well been stylized by Plato. This could explain why Socrates’ rhetoric appears ironic as Socrates himself uses rhetoric to execute his defense.