Socrates Arguments Against The Apology

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The Apology gives a clear image of a man of a certain type: a self-confident, generous and indifferent to his success man. His name was Socrates and he was not even afraid of the death penalty because, as he stated, his death would be worse for the people that kill him than for himself. Socrates was charged with several things and was able to find strong arguments in his defense, against all of these charges. One of the charges against Socrates was that he corrupted the young. He gives a couple arguments against this and in one of them he compares the young with horses. After Socrates asks Meletus some questions, they come to conclusion that everybody but Socrates improve the young. At that moment, Socrates states that, the same as horses, the young can only be improved by one person whereas “the majority of people, if they have to do with horses and make use …show more content…
In his defense, Socrates states that acknowledging daimonic activities and not acknowledging the existence of daimons, is the same as acknowledging music and not acknowledging the existence of musicians, which is impossible. He continues by saying that daimons are believed to be either gods or the sons of gods and if he belives in daimons, he also believes in gods. With this argument, Socrates showed that Meletus was contradicting himself and his words sounded like “Socrates is guilty of not acknowledging gods, but acknowledging gods”. I believe that this argument was strong and helpful for Socrates. He found a smart way to turn Meletus’s words against himself, therefore making him look foolish. It would have been harder for Socrates to defend himself if Meletus stated which specific gods Socrates didn’t believe in. A lot of lawyers today try to find flaws in logic or contradiction in peoples’ words, if they don’t have enough evidence. This strategy is helpful and often helps to fight against a
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