Meletus's Argument In Socrates Apology

Socrates in Apology In the Apology, Socrates presents an argument for his belief in the Greek gods to invalidate Meletus’ assertion that Socrates is an atheist, which therefore means his teachings corrupt the youth (26b). Socrates’ argument is valid through philosophical logic yet as we will find, his argument is not sound. There are also revisions to Meletus’ claims which will be presented as it will display a stronger argument in favor of Socrates’ atheism. Lastly, some of Socrates’ premises within his argument will be discussed on their controversial nature. The first premise: Socrates does not believe in any gods, corresponds to Meletus’ original claim of atheism and corruption of the youth. He asks clarification on what Meletus’ indictment that Socrates is teaching the young “not to …show more content…
Socrates then proceeds to prove he cannot be both an atheist and a theist. The major problem with Socrates argument is that he is answering the wrong question. The original claim is not a contradiction as Socrates makes it out to be because it never says, “Socrates is an atheist who believes in daimonic activities and teaches this to the youth”. Socrates changes the original charge when he says, “Well then, you say that I acknowledge (believe) daimonic activities, whether new or familiar, and teach about them” (27d). This proves to be an inconsistency since Meletus’ calls daimonic activities, “believing in no gods at all.” The third premise is controversial in that it does not use Meletus’ definition of daimonic activities, but the definition that is colloquially synonymous with daimons. What is unclear is if Meletus knew the correct definition of daimonic activities at the start of the argument. Regardless, Socrates’ third premise uses a definition of daimonic activities that is not given by Meletus and should have asked him if he was allowed to insert this