The Trials of Socrates

            Throughout my reading of The Trials of Socrates I have scaled the spectrum of emotions all the way from a state of irritation, to sympathetic, to understanding and appreciative.  This text, although a smooth and easy read, has challenged my mind to pay close attention to the smallest of details in making sense of the philosophes messages while still trying to uncover its relevance to our current unit of community.  The most striking portion of the text to me was certainly Plato’s descriptions of Socrates’ apology to the jury and assembled Athenians.  At first glance of the title of the story I was surprised to see that Socrates, who in our prior readings had so staunchly denied any accountability and showed no guilt for any of the crimes he had been accused of, would be making a public apology for such things.  It soon became clear that the word apology did not have the same meaning during these times in ancient Greece, and that Socrates in fact would be presenting a personal defense of himself to the people assembled in the court.  Much as I did when I read the discourse between Socrates and Euthyphro at the beginning of the book, I started out with an intense sense of annoyance with Socrates’ words and his inability to take any responsibility for even the slightest of charges that were brought against him.  There is no doubt that he is in fact very wise, but the reality that he attempts to use his cunning and often condescending words in his own defense against that very thing was bothersome to read and left me initially frustrated at Socrates.  Quite frankly, at the beginning of this reading his word games and puzzles made me wish for the maximum punishment for him.  I was especially taken aback by his ideas that the youth of Athens were attempting to embody him by trying to question the wisdom of other individuals as Socrates had once done.  I viewed this as an extremely self centered and ridiculous concept for him to say because I thought this only spoke to the accusers’ convictions that Socrates viewed his own wisdom as much greater than that of any other and that he was trying to dominate society with his blasphemous views.  As I fought to get through this portion of the reading, my opinions finally began to change when Socrates began to attack the integrity of Meletus and the rest of the accusers.  I was so focused on the extremely self-righteous manner in which Socrates presented his defense that I never took the time to truly evaluate the case that the Athenians had brought against him.  I think this speaks to a general bias of character that is present in any individual when reading a text, and in hindsight I am glad that I fought through my distaste of the text log enough to get to this point of Socrates actually speaking ideas that appealed and made sense to me.  Ultimately, I believe that although the thoughts and ideas presented in this text were sometimes frustrating to me, they do represent a very eloquent and important philosophical account of human ethics and the pursuit of them that is used even in modern times.  These thoughts and accounts have helped to shape the structure of many important practices and institutions in the educational, social, and even governmental spheres, and they have contributed immensely to the vast intellectual community that shapes our world today.