Analyze of Socrates' Crito

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The Crito strikes us as an oddly shocking story simply because Socrates, who was once portrayed as a loyalist to the gods, now argues the importance and essentiality of obedience to the laws of the state. It is natural to find The Crito surprising because Plato had described Socrates in The Apology as being a wise man, superior to all others, and now in his final days of life he suddenly stresses his own equivalence to all other citizens around him. It seems rather unlikely that Socrates would believingly adopt such a contradictory philosophy within only a matter of days, and thus it is probable that Plato is suggesting that we should not take Socrates' words at face value. Socrates presents to his friend, Crito, an array of arguments that emphasize the importance of obedience to the laws, yet Socrates' life actions do not support his contentions and he himself does not believe that the law is entirely just. By presenting these arguments, Socrates is merely trying to reassure both himself and Crito that his failure in persuading the law is still just and the ideal time for his death has come, despite his lack of firm belief in all of the contentions he presents.

Extraits

[...] Towards the end of their conversation, Socrates asks himself through a self created pseudo-authority, “will there be no one to say that you, likely to live but a short time more, were so greedy for life that you transgressed the most important (54). Although Socrates does not harp on this point, or even present it himself as an argument for obedience to the laws, it does seem to have an impact on the way he views his current situation. Perhaps if he were a younger man with more hope for a fruitful future he would not defend the arguments he does present quite so resolutely. [...]

[...] Even when Socrates himself spoke in The Apology, a speech which displayed both his education and his oral skills, he was not able to persuade the majority. Why then, should he believe that all citizens in any given city agree with all the laws they live by? Shouldn't Socrates', the man who believes himself to be wisest of all men, own failure demonstrate the difficulty in bringing about change, and therefore weaken the importance of the agreement between citizen and city? [...]

[...] One should not obey the law simply to perpetuate the beliefs of the jurors who judged in favor of this person, and to not reassure those who judged against. This line of reasoning is in fact absurd. I believe that Socrates, at this point in his life, realizes that there is no point in living further to live a mediocre life, when he can instead die now as a martyr. This argument seems to suggest that he doesn't want the jurors who judged against him to feel assured in any way, and thus prove to the people that he believed in what he was dying for. [...]

[...] Thus, he clearly cares about his reputation and how he will be viewed by the public. This is why when he was given the chance to appeal for exile in court, he instead blatantly chose to die. I think that this line of thinking is entirely natural, but it is not an especially solid argument to contend that one should obey laws to preserve a legendary reputation, even if one doesn't believe fully in the law's principle, rather than challenge the law at the risk of losing an admirable reputation. [...]

[...] He uses his beliefs in the gods to convince himself that he can make the best of his failure to persuade the laws by simply obeying them, and receiving true justice in the afterlife. Plato presents Socrates as a man who has unjustly been condemned to death, and so he is left to make the best of his situation. Socrates does this by presenting to Crito a set of arguments as to why it is right for him to die now, even though some of his arguments directly contradict the principles and actions he has lived by throughout his famous life. [...]