25d). Socrates forms a powerful argument with these two questions. If all Athenians besides Socrates improve the youth and people do not associate with those that harm them, then the youth wouldn’t associate with Socrates. However, they do. Therefore, Socrates must not harm the children.
Euthyphro – Plato In Euthyphro, there was dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro about the meaning of piety. Socrates has a particular interest in the subject of piety due to his recent charge of impiety. Socrates is about to be tried before Athenian court to determine whether he is guilty or innocent of the charges against him. The charges are for corrupting the youth, inventing new charges, and not believing in the old ones. He does not feel that the people understand the real meaning of piety and impiety.
Socrates was genuinely worried about why the young men were so disappointing. Socrates' young students had been a particular disappointment to him. If Socrates could figure out exactly how the fathers had failed to properly educate their sons, he could save the city and restore Athens to its former glory. Socrates’ interesting idea was that human excellence was really a kind of knowledge. Sophists were skilled in elaborate argumentation; were they would try and make the argument they were focusing on the stronger side, even if it was wrong or weaker.
However, Socrates is unable to find the meaning because the definition of piety changes. Piety is impossible to define for at least three reasons: the definition of piety can have more than one meaning, the structure of the conversation between Euthyphro and Socrates is dynamic, and their knowledge of piety also keeps changing. The definition of the word piety can mean more than one thing. During the conversation, Euthyphro keeps changing the definition of piety. First, he states, “In that case it’s what’s lovable to the gods that’s pious, and what’s not lovable to them that’s impious” (13).
One of the charges in the affidavit written by Meletus against Socrates is that he is an evil doer "corrupting the youth" (Grube). Another charge brought against Socrates is that he is making up new Gods and disregarding the old Gods the Athenians believe in (Grube). Socrates starts his defense by addressing the jury and telling them that his accusers had a prepared speech, while Socrates' speech will be completely improvised (Perel). Socrates continued to further disassociate himself from the opponents by telling the jury to forgive him for his conversational tone in his speech, for that is how he best speaks (Perel). Socrates asked the jury to focus on the substance of his defense, not how his defense is delivered.
The Charges against Socrates In Apology from Plato, Socrates is confronted with some charges from two groups of accusers. The first group of accusers says that Socrates is “guilty of wrongdoing in that he busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth.” (Plato 19b) Also, they add up that “he makes the worse into the stronger argument, and he teaches these same things to others.” (Plato 19b) The second group of accusers alleges Socrates’ guilt as “guilty of corrupting the young and of not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other new spiritual things.” (Plato 24b-c) These are the charges against Socrates from Apology. When the first group of accusers charges against Socrates, they identify Socrates as a natural philosopher by “a person who studying things in the sky and below the earth.” (Plato 19b) In Socrates’ time, everything was started and ended by gods because Athenian people told stories of gods and made themselves in terms of gods. In Athenian society, the gods were the most powerful being because they created, fashioned, and ruled the world. However, some Greek philosophers were not happy with it, and they started paying tribute to natural processes when they recognized that the natural processes or elemental processes had been upon the earth.
Despite Socrates' obfuscation of the charges put against him (particularly the alleged distinction between "old charges" and "new charges"), the only charges relevant to his guilt in the trial were the so-called "new charges" put forward by Meletus: 1. "corrupting the young" and 2. "not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other new spiritual beings" (Apology 24b-24c). In Euthyphro, while discussing the matter immediately prior to the trial, Socrates connects the two charges, and says the indictment against him claims he corrupts the youth by
Because of his occupation he’s not able to engage in public affairs (23b-c) iii. the young rich following him because they like to listen to his questioning (thus the accusation that he corrupts them) i. Socrates current accusers don’t know what he discusses so they’ve used the charges suggested by the earlier accusers i. Meletus defends the poets ii. Anytus: the craftsmen and politicians iii. Lycon: the orators C. The Later
And to find out some answers, we need to go through Plato’s dialogues, “Crito” and “Phaedo”. This conversation between Socrates and his dearest closer friends and fellows, may bring us some of the answers…if we have the good sense of reading it more than once. After been convicted in Athens for corrupting the youth and not believing in Gods, Socrates was given the chance to scape to another city to save his life.
Aristotle says that incontinence is brought forth by lack of knowledge of particulars due to being taken over by passions. This makes incontinent acts involuntary, just as an act of a mad, sleeping, or drunk man is involuntary. Aristotle also says that involuntary acts are pardoned ( Aristotle 35). The point of contradiction comes when Aristotle says that incontinence is blameworthy (Aristotle 119).This is why the response from Aristotle does not completely answer the question at hand. Epictetus has more sound argument.