Defence of Socrates 36a-42a

After receiving the verdict Socrates echoes some of his previous comments

36 c: “I have neglected the things that concerns most people-making money, managing an estate,
gaining military or civic honour, or other positions of power, or joining political clubs and parties which
have formed in our city”

36d: “I tried to persuade each of you not to care for any of his possessions rather than care for himself,
striving for the utmost excellence and understanding: and not to care for our city’s possessions rather
than for the city itself; and to care about other things in the same way”

39 c: “I have been convicted, not for lack arguments, but for lack of brazen impudence and willingness to
address you in such terms as you would most like to be addressed in—that is to say, by weeping and
wailing, and doing and saying much else that I claim to be unworthy of me”

40 a-b: “the usual prophetic voice from my spiritual sign was continually active, and frequently opposed
me even on trivial matters, if I was about to do anything amiss… Yet, the sign from God did not oppose
me”

Two new arguments:

38a: “Un unexamined life is no life for a human being to live”

POINT: Each individual must come to wisdom by grappling themselves with important ideas such as
justice, goodness or courage. The pursuit of wisdom requires questioning convention, refusing to do or
believe things merely because they are expected or traditional. The point of examining one’s
presuppositions is not merely to come to possess more correct beliefs, but it is to learn how one should
act in life.

40c: “…how god a reason there is to hope that death is a good thing”

POINT: To be dead means either to be non-existent or a transition to another world in which all dead
exist. If the first option is true, then there is nothing to be worried about since there is “no awareness in
death”.

If the second option applies, death is a good thing because:

-one is going to find true judges, demigods

-questioning and probing them and other people, one can compare their own experience with theirs

-doing so, one can find out who among them is truly wise

-one may converse and mingle with them