A Defence of Death and Questions

One of the aspects most apparent to me in my past dealings with Plato and especially the Apology has been Socrates' utterly stoic—if not flippant—attitude toward death. Analysing the entire tone of the Apology, one can see that Socrates' defence is not so much an attempt at acquitting himself of charges in a desperate bid to remain free, but rather a sort of final lesson and last lecture of someone resigning himself to his fate. That is not to say that Socrates maintains a sense of solemnity or even somber diction. Much to the contrary, phrases such as the following show the deep sarcasm and apathy toward death that Socrates feels.

If you doubt whether I am really the sort of person who would have been sent to this city as a gift from God, you can convince yourselves by looking at it in this way. Does it seem natural that I should have neglected my own affairs and endured the humiliation of allowing my family to be neglected for all these years, while I busied myself all the time on your behalf, going like a father or an elder brother to see each one of you privately, and urging you to set your thoughts on goodness? If I had got any enjoyment from it, or if I had been paid for my good advice, there would have been some explanation for my conduct, but as it is you can see for yourselves that although my accusers unblushingly charge me with all sorts of other crimes, there is one thing that they have not had the impudence to pretend on any testimony, and that is that I have ever exacted or asked a fee from anyone. The witness that I can offer to prove the truth of my statement is, I think, a convincing one--my poverty.

Words such as that certainly seem not to be devoted to Socrates’ saving himself, but rather to justifying his life and actions with a kind of sarcastic disregard for the consequences, and the consequences very well could be (and are) death. The significance of this attitude cannot be understated in the grand scheme of philosophy. Between the Apology and the Phaedo, Plato—through Socrates—establishes philosophy not as a study or a discipline, but a way of life to be lived straight to the grave. 

          The materialist fears death because all of his wealth remains in the corporeal world after death—a place in which Socrates is sure the soul will not dwell. The average person lives and dies as a plaything of the gods with no real consequent of his or her life. Achilles even is humbled by death. Socrates however, sees death as the release of the philosopher to a higher wisdom. That human wisdom to which we are limited only applies so long as we are humans in the material world. While Socrates will further explain these concepts in the Phaedo, the groundwork is laid through his life. That is not to mean over the course of his life, but rather by the very nature of his life, and that poverty stricken life of the philosopher culminates in a death into wisdom.

          Not only does the fiscal poverty of Socrates denote him as a philosopher beyond the world, but also his poverty of spirit is what truly paves the path for philosophy. When discussing the politician and shipwrights and poets, Socrates always finds himself the wiser for knowing the limits of his knowledge. His acknowledgement of the human condition as imperfect and limited in scope and ability are what led him to this wisdom: not his ability to answer questions, but to ask them. Through all of his defence, Socrates does not seem so much concerned with answering the accusers’ questions, but rather asking questions of them. Here he departs one more lesson. Philosophy is not so much about having the answers, but the art of asking question well.