PHI 254 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Dialectic, Irony, Athenian Democracy
Document Summary
In his defense speech, his apologia, socrates at tempts to establish both his legal innocence and his moral virtue. In doing this, he addresses informal, formal and hypothetical charges. He also offers a counter penalty, after he is found guilty. In this handout, i outline the apology, while focusing on issues that are especially important. I don"t cover the entire text and i obviously leave many unanswered questions. Socrates makes some preliminary comments before he considers the charges against him. He packs a lot into his opening remarks. Let me just pick out two important themes. Socrates says that his accusers have spoken so persuasively that he himself was almost convinced. Their speeches were pithavos, or persuasive, but not alethes, or true. By contrast, socrates" speech will be entirely true or, at least, so he claims. Here, socrates is orienting us toward two crucial distinctions the difference between persuasion and truth; and the difference between philosophy and sophistry.
