43 pages • 1 hour read
PlatoApology
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Literary Devices
The Socratic Method
The Socratic method—often referred to as elenchus—is a rhetorical form in which two individuals engage in an argumentative dialogue. It is designed to draw out and interrogate assumptions held by one or both individuals in the dialogue. This format is used in most of Plato’s dialogues involving Socrates, though in Apology Socrates actually describes the process in detail instead of merely engaging in it. He describes employing this method when speaking to Athens’s political, social, and financial elite to expose their ignorance. Socrates claims he does so not to humiliate these individuals but to help them become better, wiser citizens. He explicitly showcases this during his cross-examination of Meletus.
Socratic Irony
Socratic irony is a key component of the Socratic method, particularly as it appears in Apology. In short, to employ Socratic irony is to feign ignorance in order to expose another individual’s ignorance. When interrogating Meletus, for example, Socrates asks questions innocently, even though he already knows the answers. The point of the questioning has little to do with each individual answer; rather, the cumulative sequence of questions and answers is methodically designed to confound Meletus by maneuvering him to contradict himself. In addition to feigning ignorance, Socratic irony also involves feigning a sense of respect for the credence of the opponent’s intellect, thus lulling them into a false confidence that may lead to rhetorical mistakes. Socratic irony continues to emerge in the pop culture of the 20th and 21st centuries, most notably in the American television series Columbo, which features a seemingly incompetent detective whose feigned naiveté elicits inadvertent confessions from overconfident assailants.
Monologue
Although Apology is classified as a dialogue, it consists primarily of a long monologue delivered by Socrates. The exception is the work’s middle section in which Socrates cross-examines Meletus. This differentiates Apology from many of Plato’s other dialogues featuring Socrates, in which the philosopher engages in long back-and-forth conversations with students or opponents designed to showcase the Socratic method. Here, however, the conversation is largely one-sided, leaving Socrates to explain and defend his method, laying out his technique. To many scholars, this positions Apology in a special place among Plato’s work, in that it depicts Socrates sharing his knowledge and views across a variety of topics, instead of acting primarily as a facilitator for exposing the ignorance of others.
Related Titles
By Plato
