Callicles 'Virtue In Socrates' Apology

There is more to life than clarifying concepts or trying to avoid contradictions in one’s beliefs, and by devoting one’s life to philosophy, the practical necessities of everyday life, most importantly politics, are neglected in favour of a kind of intellectual self-indulgence that serves no practical function. Philosophy is also dangerous, Callicles argues, because it leaves one open to be to taken advantage of, and may even lead to one’s death. Indeed, in an obvious allusion to the the Apology, Callicles warns Socrates that “…if someone got hold of you or of anyone else like you and took you off to prison on the charge that you’re doing something unjust when in fact you aren’t, be assured that you wouldn’t have any use for yourself. You’d get dizzy, your mouth would hang open and you wouldn’t know what to say. You’d come up for trial and face some no good wretch of an accuser and be put to death, if death is what he’d want to condemn you to” …show more content…
Indeed, by his own admission Socrates’ accomplishments are fairly limited in that he does not seem to lead his interlocutors to virtue (Gorgias, 522b-c). This is something repeated in the Apology, where Socrates is adamant that he has not educated anyone of anything (Apology, 33b). Yet perhaps the purpose of these grand debates surrounded by various spectators is not to lead his interlocutors to virtue, but rather to disabuse them of their certainty. In doing so, he indirectly contributes the moral development of the spectators by shaking their certainty and admiration of these figures. Indeed, this is a point that Socrates seems to suggest himself, when he compares himself to a doctor being judged by a cook in front of children (Gorgias, 521e-522a). The speeches that Socrates makes would thus act as a kind of medicine, one not as concerned with curing the adults, but with curing the youth of the false certainty they have placed in their