Civilization #10: The Trial of Socrates and Plato's Allegory of the Cave

The Greek playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were prophets of democracy. They saw themselves as teachers who taught Athenians how to practice democracy. They argued for three major benefits of this system:

1. Kings are bad. Kings have hubris, and hubris creates all sorts of problems. In the play Antigone by Sophocles, the king Creon sentences Antigone to death, even though it was unjust, because of his hubris.
2. Democracy is a gift from the gods. It teaches citizens individual responsibility. In the Oresteia, Aeschylus told us that democracy is a gift from Athena to promote justice and truth in the world.
3. Democracy is the best way to promote justice and truth. If citizens come together, deliberate, and act in good faith, then the world will be a better place.

This was the argument from the playwrights of Athens. Obviously, there were people who disagreed with this perspective, and one of the most famous opponents of democracy was Socrates.

Socrates: The Great Opponent of Democracy

Socrates lived during the Golden Age of Pericles in Athens and was a very vocal opponent of democracy. His reasoning was that to practice democracy properly, people need to access the truth. But to access the truth, you need to have reason, and his argument was that most people are not capable of exercising reason in their thinking.

To prove this, he would spend every day sitting outside the Agora, the marketplace of Athens where everyone came together. He would spend all day arguing with people in something called a Socratic dialogue, showing the flaws in their reasoning and demonstrating why they didn't really understand the world when they thought they did. He was trying to prove that they were ignorant.

The Socratic Dialogue

Let me give you a demonstration of what Socrates did. Give me a statement that is fundamentally and inherently true.

The Earth is a sphere.

This is a statement that we think is true. Socrates would slowly and methodologically expose the flaws in this statement.

• Socrates: What is a sphere? Explain what a sphere is.
• You: A three-dimensional, round-shaped entity.
• Socrates: Give me an example of a sphere.
• You: A ball.
• Socrates: So you're saying the Earth is like a ball. Is that correct? It's round all around?
• You: Yes.
• Socrates: And how do you know this statement is true? Who told you this? You can know a ball is a sphere because you hold it in your hand, but you're not a god. You don't hold the Earth in your hand. So how do you know it's true?

This is what Socrates did. This is what is called a Socratic dialogue, and we still use this method in many different places, like law school. In American law schools, they will teach you using the Socratic dialogue. The idea is to show the flaws in your reasoning. Obviously, if you got into an argument with Socrates, you would come out as a very mad person.

The reputation of Socrates in Athens during this time was that he was either an intellectual bully, a clown, or, most commonly, a trickster. He tricked you into making statements that were illogical because, fundamentally, language does not capture the truth. Language is just a convention we have in order for us to communicate, but it's not meant to reflect reality. Socrates was exposing the fundamental flaws in our language system.

To give you a sense of how Athenians thought about Socrates at that time, let me describe a play by Aristophanes. Aristophanes was a very famous satirist in Athens, and he made fun of all the famous individuals, including Pericles (the de facto king of Athens) and Cleon (who replaced Pericles as the leader). He also made fun of Socrates.

The play was produced in 423 BCE and was called The Clouds. In the play, a normal Athenian farmer is in a lot of trouble because his wife spends a lot of money, and he owes a lot to creditors who are banging at his door demanding their money back. He comes up with a plan to get rid of his debts. There's a school called the "Thinkery," run by a man named Socrates. The Thinkery proposes to teach you reason, logic, and truth so that you can go and deceive jurors—basically, manipulate people in a trial to get out of your debts. He wants to send his son to the Thinkery to learn how to lie. His son, who is a playboy, refuses because he says that Socrates is a cheat, a liar, and a fraud.

The man decides to check out the Thinkery by himself. He goes in and sees Socrates hanging from a basket from the ceiling. The man is curious and asks, "What are you doing up there?" Socrates says, "Well, from up here I have a clearer and higher vision of the world. I can access truth better. Also, from here I can draw inspiration from the clouds, who are the true gods. Not Zeus, not Heracles—the clouds are the true gods, and they're the ones who give me inspiration to come up with all these brilliant ideas."

The man and Socrates have a very long conversation, and he's completely convinced Socrates is a sage, a philosopher. He runs back and tells his son he must go enroll in the Thinkery and learn from Socrates. The son decides this is the path of least resistance and goes to the Thinkery.

Meanwhile, the man's creditors are banging at the door, saying, "Where is my money?" The man is now going to use all the tricks that Socrates taught him. He says, "I don't owe you any money." The creditor says, "You swore by Zeus that you would pay me back." The man says, "Oh, guess what? Zeus doesn't exist. He's not a god, so I swore an oath to nothing. Therefore, I owe you nothing." The creditor obviously gets angry and leaves.

Now the son comes back, and the first thing he does is start beating his father. The father asks, "Why are you beating me, son?" The son says, "Socrates taught me to beat you." The father is shocked. The son explains, "He taught me justice. Now, when I was young, did you beat me?" The father says, "Yes, of course I beat you, because you were a naughty boy." The son replies, "Therefore, I can now beat you because you're a naughty person for refusing to pay back your creditors." The man gets very angry and decides to go burn down the Thinkery with Socrates inside it. That's how the play ends.

This play tells you what Athenians thought of Socrates at this time. They didn't think much of him. He worships the clouds, which is nothing. What they're saying is Socrates makes things out of thin air. He's just a fraud, a manipulator, a liar.

But Socrates did have a lot of fans, specifically people who really hated democracy. The people who really hated democracy were the children of the rich. These were aristocrats, born into the wealthiest, most noble families of Athens, who hated the fact that the normal people thought they were their equals. What Socrates did was he taught them basically mental or linguistic kung fu to go beat up these commoners who dared to think they were equals. The most famous of Socrates' students included Plato, who we all know, but also Alcibiades, who was one of the wealthiest members of Athenian society and actually became a leader of Athens as well.

Because Athens was such a wealthy, open, and tolerant society, they allowed Socrates to do whatever he wanted.

The Trial of Socrates

This changed in 404 BCE, the year that Athens lost the Peloponnesian War to Sparta. When Athens lost, Sparta had the right to burn Athens down, but it did not. Instead, Sparta imposed a dictatorship called the Thirty Tyrants. The Thirty Tyrants came from the wealthiest families of Athens, who also happened to be students of Socrates. Socrates did not actually participate in the tyranny; he refused. But many of these tyrants were his students, and they were terrible people. They killed at least 5% of the Athenian population, stole a lot of wealth, and were so terrible that ultimately the Athenian people revolted against them and reinstalled their democracy.

When the tyranny was overthrown, the Thirty Tyrants were exiled, but most people who participated in the regime were given clemency; they were forgiven. Then what happened next is very strange. In 399 BCE, Socrates was put on trial. This was after the democracy was reinstated and after people who participated in the tyranny were forgiven.

Socrates was put on trial and charged with two crimes:

1. Impiety: Insulting the gods of Athens, including Zeus (which is what he did in the play The Clouds).
2. Corrupting the youth of Athens: Miseducating the youth (which is also what he did in The Clouds).

It almost seems like this entire trial was a cruel joke put on by the people of Athens to teach Socrates a lesson. The people of Athens expected Socrates to apologize, make some jokes, be funny, and then all would be forgiven.

During the trial, Socrates refused to defend himself. What he said was this:

I am not a good speaker. I am bad with words. I'm just a poor person who comes from a poor family who spends every day seeking out the truth. I spend all my time seeking out the truth, thinking about the truth, that I have no time to practice rhetoric. I'm not good with words. Also, I should not have to defend myself because you're all capable of reason, you're all capable of logic. Therefore, if you just think for yourself, you will realize I'm not guilty. I had absolutely nothing to do with the Thirty Tyrants. I spent all my life trying to help Athens. Therefore, if you're stupid, you will vote me guilty. If you're stupid, there's nothing I can do about it.

Obviously, the jury was insulted by his speech. Out of 500 people, they voted 280 to 220 that he was guilty. As you can see, it was still a pretty close vote. Socrates was basically being a jerk during the trial, and they still voted him guilty, but it was close.

The second part of the trial was to figure out his punishment. The jury asked Socrates to propose a punishment for his crimes. What Socrates said was:

You have found me guilty, and the reason why you found me guilty is because I speak the truth. I am a godly gadfly. I go around and I point out the nasty truths of Athenian society. I put a mirror to your face and I show you your warts, your pimples, your ugliness. Therefore, you hate me. But what I've been doing all my life has been for the good and betterment of Athens. I'm a public servant. I am the most selfless public servant because I speak the truth, and by showing the truth, I make you a better person. Therefore, I think a just punishment would be a pension. You guys should pay me to retire in peace. But you know what? I'm a generous and forgiving individual. Therefore, if you don't want to give me a pension, I will understand. I am willing to pay a small fine. I'll pay a fine, and then we're good. How about that?

Again, the Athenian jurors were pissed off. They voted to condemn him to death by drinking hemlock. They gave him the death penalty.

After they did so, they came to realize that they were perhaps tricked by Socrates. Socrates was 70 years old, which was very old for back then. He really didn't have much to live for, and here was the opportunity for Socrates to be a martyr for the truth. All his life, he had been trying to convince people that democracy does not work because people are incapable of reasoning out the truth. What this trial showed was that he was correct. In many ways, you can make the argument that for Socrates, this trial was a type of performance art.

The people of Athens realized they were probably tricked and were trying to get out of condemning Socrates to death. But Socrates insisted. It came to a point where Socrates was just left alone, and he had to demand to be given hemlock. He had to administer the hemlock by himself, and when he drank it, he died.

Plato's Defense: The Allegory of the Cave

After his death, Socrates remained an extremely controversial individual in Athens. He had a student, Plato, who was maybe 28 or 29 at the time his mentor died. He loved Socrates and committed the rest of his life to restoring and redeeming his reputation. When he was 40 years old, he founded a school called the Academy, which was inspired by the vision of Socrates as a philosopher who sought the truth.

In 375 BCE, he wrote a book called The Republic. The Republic is the most famous of Plato's works and is arguably the greatest work of Western philosophy. Many today consider it the greatest book ever written. There are people in this world who read The Republic and it forever transforms the way they see the world.

In The Republic, there's a very famous metaphor called the Allegory of the Cave. This is really the most famous allegory or metaphor in Western thought. By far, nothing comes second to this.

Imagine a cave deep under the Earth. In this cave, at the back, there's a large fire that shines light into the cave. There are these prisoners who are chained to the floor, chained so that they cannot move their necks or move around. The only thing they can do is stare at a wall in front of them.

There are people behind them who are like puppeteers. They hold up cardboard pictures of things like rats and birds, and the fire projects these images onto the wall. These prisoners, who can only see the wall in front of them, come to think that this wall is the truth. It's the only reality that exists. They start naming things that they see, and that creates language. They like to play games and try to figure out who can create the best language, and they give awards to the people who create the best language—who are playwrights. What Plato is saying is that we may honor art and poetry and drama, but they're all lies.

One day, for whatever reason, one man finds his chains are loosened, and he's able to get up. He looks around and sees a light coming from the top. He's curious and climbs all the way to the top. He's now outside in the free world. It's painful because his eyes are not trained to see the sunlight. The sunlight is like burning him alive. At first, all he's doing is staring at the ground, seeing reflections in a pond. But then he slowly acclimates himself to the sunlight and starts to see the world around him, and it's beautiful. But it's so beautiful that it is beyond language; he doesn't have the language to describe this world that he's in.

Finally, he develops the courage to stare up at the sky and he sees the sun. He is amazed by how the sun is the source of all life. Now, for the first time, he fully understands the truth of the world. When he does, he is seized by regret because he remembers he has all these friends who are still trapped and imprisoned in the cave, and he pities them. He swears that even though he loves where he is, he will venture back into the cave to show people the truth of the world and to tell them that they've been living a lie all their lives.

He goes back into the cave. Remember, his eyes are now accustomed to sunlight, so in the dark cave, he stumbles around, falls, and hurts himself. He goes and talks to the prisoners and tells them, "Hey, I've been to the outside world. I've been in the sunlight. I know what truth is." They're like, "Can you describe to us what it's like?" And he can't do it. Then they're like, "Tell us what you see on the wall." Because he's been so accustomed to the truth, he can no longer use human language to describe anything. The people are utterly convinced he's an idiot, he's insane, he's a clown. They refuse to follow him. At some point, because he insists on revealing the truth to them, they kill him.

That's the Allegory of the Cave. This allegory is powerful for three reasons.

1. Socrates Redeemed: Who's the man who goes out into the sunlight and sees the truth? It's obviously Socrates. With this allegory, Plato redeems the reputation of Socrates. Before, Socrates was despised and laughed at by the Athenians. What this allegory is saying is that's because Socrates is a philosopher of the truth, and people cannot deal with the truth. That's why today we celebrate Socrates as the greatest philosopher who ever lived. We consider him the first philosopher, even though he was not. That's the power of the Allegory of the Cave. This image forever transforms the way humanity understands and perceives Socrates.
2. Socrates as a Precursor to Jesus: This allegory becomes so powerful that in the imagination of Christians, Socrates becomes Jesus. Socrates is Jesus for Christians because Jesus was God, and he came down to our world to speak the truth. Because we feared the truth, we killed him. For Christians, the Allegory of the Cave is really the story of Jesus as well—another martyr for the truth.
3. The Framework for Christianity: This allegory becomes the intellectual framework for the religion of Christianity. Here is the Platonic understanding of the world. There's something called the Form of the Good (the metaphor for this would be the sun). The Form of the Good is the source of everything; it is the truth. Emanating from the Form of the Good are concepts and ideals that structure the universe: Reason, Beauty, Truth, and Justice. Emanating from these concepts are perfect forms, for example, the perfect horse, which represents beauty. From this higher world comes our lesser world, the reality we live in. Everything that we see here is only an imitation, a shadow of that world.

The major difference is that the higher world is eternal (it has always existed and will always exist), immutable (it will never change), and perfect. Everything down here is the complete opposite. We will all die, we all feel pain, but up there, no one feels any pain, no one dies. It's all perfect.

What is this? This is the Christian universe. This is God, this is Heaven, this is Earth. The Allegory of the Cave redeems the reputation of Socrates, gives Christians an understanding of Jesus, and becomes the framework from which Christians will build their understanding of the world. It becomes the basis of the Christian religion. Plato is the real founder of the Christian religion, not Jesus.

What is The Republic about?

The Republic isn't really about the Allegory of the Cave; the allegory actually appears within the book. Plato is trying to answer the question: What is a good society? It's clearly not democracy, because democracy killed Socrates. So what makes a good society? The answer is a society that's based on justice. But then, what is justice? It's truth. But then, what's truth? It's the Form of the Good. And what's the Form of the Good? It is the thing that philosophers can access through their own reasoning. Therefore, a good society is one that is ruled by philosopher-kings, because they are the only ones who can access the truth. This perfect society he calls the Republic.

Why is Plato considered the greatest philosopher of all time?

It's not because he's the best. I would say there are three good reasons why he's so influential today.

1. His Writing Style: Plato originally trained as a playwright. He learned the art of dialogue, which is the basis for theater. What he did that was innovative was he basically took the dialogue of the stage and transferred it onto the page. When you read Plato, it's actually a lot of fun because it's basically Socrates as the main character having arguments and conversations with other people. In terms of readability, Plato is probably one of the most readable philosophers.
2. His Anti-Democratic Stance: The most traumatic event in his life was the death of his mentor, Socrates, at the hands of Athenian democracy. So he passionately hated democracy. You know who else hates democracy? Kings. And throughout most of human history, kings ruled the world. What's amazing about Plato is he's the only writer in human history who has been read continuously for 2,000 years. We lost Homer for a bit, we lost the playwrights for a long time, but Plato has always been read. As a result, because it's easy to access Plato, he's become the most influential philosopher of all time.
3. The Academy: The Academy in Athens at that time was like Harvard or Oxford today. It was a place where all the elite children went. His students were the most powerful people in the world, and his most famous student was Aristotle. As we will discuss, Aristotle is the one who basically packaged and promoted Greek culture, and Plato became a very important individual in the spreading of that culture.

What were Plato's influences?

You can make the argument that Socrates was not that much of an intellectual influence on Plato. Remember, Socrates questioned your wisdom, but he himself did not propose any of his own theories.

What we know is this: this was the Golden Age of Greek philosophy. You had lots of philosophers in different places proposing all these wonderful theories, and Plato definitely had access to them. We also know this world of Greek thought was heavily influenced by Egypt, which was really the epicenter of learning and philosophy at this time and was very close to Greece. Mesopotamia and the Persians were also influential.

After Socrates died in 399 BCE, Plato spent the next 12 years traveling around the world, and while he was traveling, he was absorbing lots of different philosophies. We don't have access to many Egyptian sources, so we don't know what sources would have influenced Plato, but we know the Egyptians heavily influenced the Greeks. We can make the assumption that the Egyptians were a heavy influence on Plato, as well as Mesopotamia and other Greek philosophers like Pythagoras and Democritus.

What's really important is that Athens at this time was not an isolated society. It was part of a larger intellectual landscape, and a lot of these places had richer intellectual histories than Athens. The answer is we don't know for sure, because most of this is lost to us. I'm sure there were philosophers at this time who were the equal of Plato in terms of originality, but we don't know who they were. Censorship is not just about changing the past; it's also about eliminating most of the past.