Question

In the Apology, Socrates said that if the Athenian court forbade him to practice philosophy from then on, he would refuse to obey. In the Crito he seems to say that one must always obey the legal authorities, even when they command what is unjust.  Is there a way to reconcile what he says in these two works?  Can you think of a way to make his statements consistent with one another?  Try to formulate a position on this question that you'd be willing to defend.

Answer 1

Difference between Apololgy and Crito

APOLOGY

• The Apology is a speech given before a large and largely anonymous audience over 500 persons, the assembly, the court.We see Socrates addressing the only time in any platonic dialogue, an audience of this size.
• Apology take place in the court of Athens , the most public of settings.
• Apology shows Socrates defending himself and his life as a gift of the god the most truely benefits the city.
• Apology presents Socrates as the first Martyr for Philisophy, the first person to die for the cause of Philosophy.
• The one represented by Socrates regards reason, that is to say , the sovereign reason of the individual as the highest possible authority.
• It is the Philosophers reliance on his own reason that frees him from the dangerous authority of the state and safe guards the individual from complicity in the injustice and evils that seems to be a necessary part of political life.
• Here is Socrates , the principled abstainer .
• The one point of view takes the Philosophic life, the examined life, to be the one most worth living;the other takes the political life.

CRITO

• Crito , on the other hand , is a conversation between Socrates and a single individual.
• Crito occurs within the darkness and confinement of a Prison cell.
• In the Crito, we see him bow down to the authority of laws that he seems to have previously rejected.
• Crito shows Socrates trial and sentence as a case of justice delivered.
• Other moral code is represented by the speech of the laws where it is the laws of the community, its oldest and deepest believes and institutions, its constituition, its regime as we could say , its politea that are fundamentally obligatory on the individual and even takes priority over the individual.

The life of citizen engaged in the business of deliberating, legislating, making war and peace as the highest calling for a human being.

The Athenians refused to tolerate Socrates because they know he is not harmless , that he possess a challenge , a fundamental challenge to their way of life and all that they hold to be noble and worth while.Plato's dialogues , the Apology as well as the Republic and the Crito are in the broadest sense of the term , an attempt not only to answer the charge against Aristophanes but also defend the cause of Philosophy as something of value and merit.