Socrates Speech In The Apology Analysis

Although Socrates prepared his speech in the Apology to be used in his defense trial, it seems as if Socrates also subtly promoted a manifesto of values that are quite comparable to the values listed in Connecticut College’s Mission Statement and Values. It may be argued that this is purely coincidental, however, Socrates’ speech in the Apology has been and still is a tremendous philosophical influence, thus, it appears more so that Socrates’ speech influenced the Connecticut College’s Mission Statement and Values. However, it is worth mentioning that the College’s Mission Statement was constructed for a unique purpose, thus, certain aspects of the College’s values are uniquely different from that of Socrates. Connecticut College wrote their …show more content…
Immediately after Socrates begins his defense speech, he starts to create his manifesto of values with the first value being faith. From pages 26 to 27, sections 17c1-5 and 18a1-5, Socrates explains to the jurors that he has faith that they will overlook his style of speaking so that they may only focus on judging Socrates’ message. Socrates includes the value of faith in his manifesto because he sees the ability of placing trust within one another without having to fear unnecessary consequences of doing so as a fundamental part of forming meaningful and important relationships not only between citizens but also between citizen and state. Socrates then explains that obedience and respect, albeit to religion or to the laws of men, are other values that people should uphold. First, in section 19a6-7, Socrates states that he has to the follow the law, which is presumably the law established by men, while in section 29d2-4, Socrates explicitly states that he’d rather obey the gods than the jurors. Socrates places the values of respect and obedience in the manifesto because a proper sense of respect and obedience not only establishes a sensible societal hierarchy with the two governing bodies, which are the gods, followed by the laws of men, at the top but also ensures that people will obey, or at least will respect, the communications that may flow between the different classes of the …show more content…
In section 17b8, Socrates states to the jury before he starts his speech that will give a truthful response to Meletus’ arguments, which allows for the jury to give a truthful verdict in response. Although, this may seem as a minute detail as part of a court proceeding, Socrates implies that truth is an important value for citizens to uphold in a society because it allows for the values of obedience and respect to be able to fully function in society. Without truth in society, no one would be able to effectively communicate to one another because everything would be filled with lies, thus, obedience, respect and faith would not be able to function. Socrates then went on to include shamelessness as another value in the manifesto. Beginning with an example in section 38d6-381, Socrates defines shamelessness as having the confidence to remain undeterred from performing actions that are just and correct by the temptations of desire to fill one’s needs and by the temptations of appeasement to unnecessarily please someone else. Another example of this can be found in 32b-32e where Socrates recollects his experiences when the government wanted him to perform illegal activities but he refused to do so even though he faced punishments. With this, Socrates implies that the importance of shamelessness allows for citizens to continue having faith, obedience, respect and the trust that everyone will continue to do what is right