Skip to main content

How (and about what) does Socrates speak at the start of his trial?

At the start of his trial, Socrates compares his speech to the speech of his accusers. Socrates is responding to the charges brought forward by Meletus and Anytus. Socrates claims that unlike his accusers, who "have hardly spoken a word of truth," he will speak the truth. He also claims that he is not eloquent and will speak plainly, unlike his accusers, who have dressed up their lies with "oration duly ornamented with words and phrases." Socrates has also not carefully planned out his speech. Instead, he claims to speak "the words and arguments which occur to [him] at the moment." One could argue that this is a dangerous thing to do since his accusers want him to receive the death penalty, and most people would carefully plan out their argument before the trial so that it would be most convincing. Thus Socrates claims to be speaking truthfully, plainly, and extemporaneously.


Before going into the current charges for which he is on trial, Socrates then discusses the "older charges," which have given him a bad reputation. Socrates explains that after an oracle declared that "there was no man wiser" than Socrates, he went to disprove the oracle by finding someone wiser than himself. In doing so he offended politicians, poets, and artisans (craftsmen) because he shows that they are not wise (though they think they are).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more