Precis of Socrates' Strategy in Plato's Apology

            In his cross-examination of Meletus, Socrates begins with a restatement of the charges that have been brought upon him, notably that he is a “corruptor of youth” and “does not believe in the gods of the state”. Instead of aiming his argument at refuting these claims, Socrates is brazen enough to make claims of his own against Meletus. In doing so, he assumes a position of strength against his accuser, refusing to idly accept the subordinate position in which he has been placed. He then proceeds to defend his own claims of Meletus’ wrongdoing by through a series of questions that probe assumptions, beginning with broad questions with obvious answers that Meletus is forced to respond to and gradually narrowing them until he arrives at a question in which he likely would never have agreed to without the prior questions setting the stage; a strategy that involves trapping his opponent in his own admissions.

            He begins broadly with a clarifying question of “who is the improver of youth?” (In which he solicits a specific person) and to which Meletus answers “the judges.” Socrates then inquires, “what, all of them, or some and not others?” to which Meletus is forced to reply “all of them,” seeing as all of the judges are present witnesses to their discourse. By cornering Meletus into saying all of them improve youth, he is setting the stage for Meletus to make other absolutist claims, essentially mocking the binary nature of the claims that have brought them there.

            Socrates continues in the same fashion, asking if the audience, the senators, and the citizen assembly all improve them, with numbers of all of the aforementioned groups, which were also likely present at the trial. He is then able to draw the conclusion that “Every Athenian improves and elevates them; all with the exception of [himself].” The absurdity of such a claim is obvious but Meletus has been trapped in his own affirmations and appears to look unreasonable and careless in his accusations, which in addition further evidences Socrates’ claim that he has “interest in matters in which he never had the smallest interest.”

            Socrates supplements the overall absurdity of the claim and further mocks its binary nature by asserting that the opposite of such a situation would be more likely to be true in regards to horses, such that, “the trainer of horses does them good and all others do them harm.” By using such an example, Socrates is allowing for his audience to make a connection between the hypothetical situation and his own. In such an example, Socrates symbolizes the figure of himself through the image of a horse trainer, in which he draws similarity to in that he is specialized in improving and that he is one of a kind in his field, which evidences a claim he will make at the end of his speech that the Athenians need him more than he needs them.

            Through his example, Socrates is further able to appear more humble than he would have had he overtly asserted that he is one of a kind, an area in which he is lacking overall in his defense. It is a strategy he employs throughout the whole of the work such as when he asserts that the oracle claims he is the wisest, and that he is inclined to disagree with this. By using his specific style of questioning Meletus, he is appealing to Meletus’ own style of reasoning and inverting it, claiming that the method he used to arrive at such claims could just as easily be used to arrive at another, and posing the question of how one can one trust such reasoning if it can be used to arrive at an opposite conclusion.