CosmosStag ·
We now look at Plato's earlier work the Apology, which purports to be Socrates's speech delivered in his defense at his trial for the crime of impiety to a jury of Athenian democrats, and show how the theory of Plato as a covert narcissist helps to make all of Plato's work internally consistent with all the rest. An apparent contradiction in Plato is that his mentor Socrates who he seems to idolize and exonerate in the Apology, would be executed in the society of the Republic and Laws. In Popper's important work The Open Society and its Enemies, which correctly identifies Plato as an intellectual founder of modern totalitarianism, Popper proposes that Plato went through a development, starting out as someone more like a modern liberal who favored toleration and openness to new ideas over repressiveness and closed-minded traditionalism, as personified in the Athenian democrats in Apology. This, I would argue, is wishful thinking on the part of Popper, who has allowed himself to be manipulated by Plato even with his awareness of Plato's maliciousness. Instead, the Apology is another noble lie, one that further positions philosophers to dominate covertly. First off, it is unlikely that Plato's version was an honest attempt to depict Socrates's thought because we have another quite different version of the speech given by Xenophon which is much better suited to the real situation. In Xenophon's version of the speech, Socrates acts like a man in fear of his life who is trying to appear harmless to people who have his life in their hands, and to ingratiate himself with them and convince them of his virtue. In Plato's version, Socrates antagonizes his jury and frankly states that he deserves to rule over them, as if he is daring the Jury to kill him. He challenges them to prove that he is impius and makes them come off foolish, as in the Euthyphro. His demonstrations of contradictions in the accusations against him make the jury look unjust. He comes off as a brave hero who faces death without flinching. The account in Plato's Apology makes much more sense as a piece of propaganda intended for future generations than a truthful account. Just as Nietzsche said that Christianity is Platonism for the masses, the Apology could be a passion play for intellectuals. The Apology can be understood as an early victimhood narrative that paints philosophers as the oppressed group. Oppressed groups deserve to be protected and treated gently. Thus, it could be used to whip up sympathy for for any future philosophers who get persecuted by the government from people who don't understand what philosophers are really talking about. Reading Socrates as a harbinger of the enlightenment does not necessarily make sense because although he does not affirm the traditional gods, he does not deny them either. Thus, he may have unconventional views but he does not advocate for free-thinking; thus the point may be that he was treated unjustly, not that it is ok to question the gods. In light of Plato's political philosophy, the Apology may also function as a warning to philosophers not to question the gods openly. This can be done at the nocturnal council, and if the king ever complains about it, the people will see him as an unjust anti-intellectual philistine who likes to persecute poor harmless philosophers who aren't hurting anybody!