The Apology by Plato

    Wow, talk about a book. This book is completely filled with the sarcasm and irony that I so enjoy in a conversational piece. I had a bit of a hard time wit the word organization, but the translators of this edition have done their best to make the words make sense in our language.

    The book is written by Plato, but its a documentary type deal with him recounting the ordeal of Socrates' defense against the Athenian court. Socrates is one stubborn guy, but I think he is where we get our goal of critical thinking from, since his two favorite things to do are t ask the question "why?" and point out the unspoken assumptions needed to make certain statements that his opponents make. He is always claiming that he knows nothing, but is quite adept at pointing out the ways that everyone else knows less than he does.

    Apparently there was an Oracle in the city of Delphi that told Socrates he was the "wisest of all men". When Socrates heard this, he tried to figure out what he knew a lot about. Unfortunately, the only conclusion he arrived at was that he knew very little, and from this he decided that knowing how little he knew was what made him wise. After this epiphany he went around questioning all the leaders of Athens, ostensibly in an effort to see how much they knew and if their knowledge justified their place as leaders, but I think he just liked a good argument and knew how to win one.

    So after awhile, the leaders he was pissing off (namely a guy by the name of Meletus) decided they had had enough and brought him to trial on some trumped up charge of not respecting Athens' gods. They said he also corrupted the youth of Athens and a bunch of other stuff, but the main thing he was there for was because he had apparently pissed of Apollo or some other god.  So instead of playing it cool and sitting through this in order to show what a stupid thing he has been brought in for, Socrates can't resist the urge to have a go at these guys in an official setting. Now he is embarrassing these guys and its on the record, and they are even more pissed at him. He says he's the guy that hits the bees nest, so as to keep people from becoming complacent, and that without him Athens would become stagnant in its intellectual pursuits.

    In the end they find him guilty and they ask him to think up an appropriate punishment. Here they are, offering him another chance to get off easy and he has to open his mouth and embarrass them one last time. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. He says he should have a great feast held in his honor for his crime. They obviously don't go with his suggestion, and they offer him exile or jail time, both of which he refuses. He says he could pay a fine, which is really just another insult to the Athenians, since he has been found guilty of what they would consider a heinous crime. They don't go with that either, and they decide to put him to death. Socrates accepts it and has his speech time, saying all sorts of things like he isn't afraid, because only the gods know about the afterlife, and since he is no god he has no idea, and it would be stupid to be afraid of something which he had no idea about.  He also says that they look even worse in the eyes f the Athenians since they are getting rid of the person who criticized them.

    So I guess what I'm taking away from this one is the hammering home of the importance of critical thinking. Socrates hated these robot people, who did what they were told because they were told. I think he hated the robot people far more than the people leading the robots, and he had no problem saying so. It was weird, because he didn't really have any of the sort of deep philosophical truths that we have come to expect from philosophy, instead he spent his entire time questioning the things the Athenians took for granted. He constantly reiterated how little he actually knew, which I think made it even more obvious that the people he was questioning didn't know anything, since even he, this guy who knew nothing, could see the obvious holes in their reasoning. I really enjoyed this book, and if you ever need a reason why critical thinking is good, this guy is the champion of the cause, so give him a look.

Bibliography:

THE APOLOGY, BY PLATO. If you haven't figured that much out by now then maybe you should start somewhere a little less engaging. I hear Sesame Street has a couple books out. I'm not telling you the version I read because you need to read it for yourself and make your own decisions, not just take mine for granted. I'm pretty sure Plato's family isn't getting the royalties from this book so I'm not telling you the publisher. I don't see why it matters so I'm not telling you where it was published.