Socrates Defense What Is Socrates' Research Proposal

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Furthermore, many laypeople can have great stores of knowledge, and may have learned to train horses better than professionals -- and to be better teachers and philosophers, from personal experience. In fact, given that philosophy is the study of life, one could argue that ordinary people are the best teachers of the discipline. This is one of the principles of the democratic Athenian system, that everyday people can govern and teach themselves. Socrates, an advocate of philosophers 'leading' others through teaching and through government leadership in a philosopher-kingdom, stands opposed to such ideals and ideas in his teachings.

Socrates has a strong point, however, when he notes that Meletos has not lived up to Athenian democratic ideals. Rather than trying to teach Socrates the right way of thinking, and engaging in a dialogue with Socrates, Meletos brings a case against Socrates in the law-courts -- simply because he disagrees with the philosopher. A true democrat who opposed what Socrates taught would have opposed him verbally, and tried to teach him the right way of thinking through personal advocacy, and not used the laws of the state to oppose his point-of-view.
Meletos acts as a censor because he is afraid he cannot rhetorically overcome the philosopher. Meletos is not an advocate of instruction, but persecution and obedience. Socrates says: "If I corrupt unintentionally, the procedure is not to prosecute me here for such offenses, but to take me aside privately and teach and admonish me, since it is clear that if I learn, I will cease doing what I do unintentionally. You, however, fled from me and were unwilling to associate with me and teach me, but prosecuted me here, where the procedure is to prosecute those who need punishment rather than instruction."

Finally, Socrates says that he does believe in gods, but not the city's civic gods. Thus, he is not pious, but merely pious in a different way. He implies that freedom of religion is also commensurate with Athenian democratic principles, and it is wrong to force citizens to only worship certain gods. To prosecute Socrates is thus not an act of freedom, or useful for moral instruction and for Socrates to worship different gods is not impious and does not corrupt the young by example......

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