Plato’s Apology: Socrates and the Rhetoric behind Denying Knowledge

Win Kyaw

GSI: Kuan Hwa

Rhetoric 103A

October 7, 2016

In Plato’s Apology, Socrates gives an account of how his notoriety emerges from being associated with a certain kind of wisdom: intending to refute the oracle of Delphi, Socrates sets out in vain to find someone wiser than himself among politicians, poets, and artisans. In the account, Socrates effectively utilizes the language of knowledge denial to produce various argumentative effects like exposing the pretensions of his adversaries in a convincing manner and making a strong case for his own innocence. Upon closer examination, it can be seen that numerous phrases consisting of the verb ‘to know’ are used figuratively, two of which are identified in this figurative analysis as hyperbole and litotes, and that Socrates powerfully concludes his account with the use of height metaphor and the parting gift of a paradox.

            Socrates describes his initial impressions of a reputedly wise politician as follows: “When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself.” Initially, the issue is not about knowing but about being wise, which Socrates subsequently defines as “know[ing] anything really beautiful and good.” But, instead of getting into his particular definition of wisdom, Socrates reflects upon himself in relation to the politician: “he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him.” It is significant that Socrates initially speaks in terms of wisdom but he almost immediately shifts to the language of knowing ‘nothing’. In the sentence “he knows nothing”, for instance, Socrates denies knowledge by using the word ‘nothing’ in conjunction with the verb ‘to know’. Some of the intuitive things to say in this situation might be that the politician does not know everything, that he does not know a lot, or that he does not know some things. But, Socrates chooses to say in terms of an extreme on the spectrum of knowledge – he knows nothing! Thus, Socrates’ choice of the word ‘nothing’ counts as an instance of hyperbole because he exaggerates the littleness of what the politician knows. This instance of using figurative language also conveys Socrates’ disillusionment with the pretentious politicians whose public images have now started to deteriorate with Socrates’ charge that they know ‘nothing’.  One other argumentative merit that this choice has is that of clarity as it rules out the more complicated issues like, for example, whether the things that the politicians are ignorant about are in fact insignificant or whether some things the politicians really do know are significant (eg. laws, politics, etc.).

On the other hand, it is significant that, when Socrates shifts focus from the politician to himself, the claim he makes about himself is that “I neither know nor think that I know.” It is not that Socrates knows that he knows nothing. Regardless, what Socrates does say about himself is argumentatively effective on its own terms. It is an instance of litotes as Socrates is actually proving the very thing he avoids by denying associations with knowledge or even the activity of knowing. Also, Socrates’ claim about himself illustrates pathos or appeal to emotions from the audience as Socrates presents himself in the image of an underdog in the game of knowing. Not only does Socrates achieve securing credentials for himself as the ‘true’ knower, he also succeeds in persuading the audience to root for the underdog, who is now armed with the single advantage, namely knowing through claiming to not know, over his absolutely ignorant adversaries who later come to include entire categories of politicians and poets.

            The rhetoric of denying knowledge takes a new turn in Socrates’ encounter with artisans. Surprisingly, Socrates states that “I was sure that they knew many fine things; and in this I was not mistaken, for they did know many things of which I was ignorant.” However, the undoing of artisans consists of claiming to know “all sorts of high matters.” Unlike in the case of politicians and poets, Socrates’ conclusion in this case is that his advantage lies in “neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance.” In order to understand Socrates’ peculiarity in this last encounter, one needs to unpack the metaphor of height or matters being ‘high,’ which is done by Socrates himself in the conclusion of his account when he asserts that “God only is wise” and that the oracle of Delphi means to say “the wisdom of man is little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name as an illustration as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.”

It is interesting that towards the end Socrates moves back to the notion of wisdom and adds a new dimension to his rhetoric of denying knowledge. Human knowledge in general, including what artisans know, is not of ‘high’ matters but of matters down in the human realm, down in the hierarchy of worthy knowledge. The metaphorical lowering of the status of human knowledge produces the argument from quality that what one knows as a human being is worth so little it is not wrong to say she knows nothing of worth or, in short, nothing. This can also be construed as a pathos move for both Socrates and his adversaries as one transcends beyond individual ignorance and now comes to perceive the human condition itself. It might not be wrong to say that this conclusion leaves readers with an example of paradox, especially when one realizes that the acknowledgement of deficiency in human knowledge is, as Socrates demonstrates throughout the account, the only way to cure the human condition of knowing ‘nothing’ and not knowing it.