Did Plato put enough of his own personal viewpoint into the story of Socrates to distort it?

Question

Socrates did not use debate or dialectic. He used give and take action between listener and speaker. Plato wrote that his teacher's search for truth demanded a loser and winner, but that is a subtle distortion. Agree to any extent that this is possible?

Since we actually have nothing that Socrates may have written down himself, one can consider this as a reinterpretation of Plato's teacher, and the sincere humility with which he sought for the truth. Socrates did not engage in conflictive debate, even though Plato (and other creative writers) reported the story that way...

Answer 1

If you look at Plato's "The Apology of Socrates" and compare it to historical accounts of events at the time, I think it's pretty clear that Plato IS providing a warped view of the events. However, I think Plato isn't making his teacher look BAD... I think he's making him look GOOD!

Consider: Socrates had been making his viewpoints well-known for decades and in very public places... why would Athenians wait so long to do anything and then consider his crimes so serious as to merit death? There is quite obviously more going on the Plato is allowing.

The problem with figuring out what Socrates was actually doing and encouraging others to do is that there is no account left by Socrates himself. Everything we know about him was written by pupils or critics. But there are two of his ardent pupils who are often glossed over in discussions of Socrates: Alcibiades and Critas.

From these two gentlemen we can learn of a somewhat different side of Socrates... traces of which also can be found in Plato's 'Republic'. Among the many other things Socrates questioned, one was the Athenian way of life. As he knew all too well from his questionings of common folk, most people did not really give much thought into deeper matters. He called them sheep. Sheep in need of a shepherd. And not equal members of a republic.

It was Alcibiades who took this first to heart. One of Socrates' favourite politicians, he had fled to Sparta to avoid being tried for defacing religious structures. There, he assembled support and returned to overthrow the republic and discard the constitution as Socrates had advocated so many times. What had seemed like harmless mockery to the Athenians suddenly became a lot less funny.

It was Critias, however, who COMPLTELY ruined the scene. Alcibiades was deposed after just four months, but Critias was not only far longer lasting, but many times more brutal. He is universally described as cruel, inhumane, and a fan of Socrates. Critias united a group of thirty wealthy landowners to seize the the city and rule it with an iron first. Literally thousands were executed and thousands more exiled before the democracy was able to re-establish itself.

As you can imagine, Socrates and his criticism of Athens' system of government was no longer even vaguely seen as funny (you can see part of the OLD view of Socrates in the play 'Clouds' by Aristophanes... a play which Socrates even reportedly attended). But as part of the return to power, the democracy had granted amnesty to all citizens. Nothing he had done before could be considered against him. Even openly calling for his students to form rebellions.

That might have been the end of that, if Socrates had perhaps been a little wiser and not returned to the streets to once more decry the way things were. Once more he attracted a band of young pupils. And - whether it was related to Socrates or not - there was even another failed uprising.

Enough was enough. To the people of Athens, this was now TREASON, not just philosophy. It probably only took them so long to get around to it because Socrates himself was old and poor... they probably hoped he would just keel over and save them the trouble.

Instead (as you probably know) Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon decided to step forward and proffer charges. If Socrates and his pupils were so opposed to democracy, then (many thought) perhaps there was something democracy could do about it...

Answer 2

Even if the interaction of Socrates and Plato were happening today, Plato's point of view would distort the report. The observer ALWAYS distorts the event. It matters little who, when or what. We each have a personal experience of everything in our lives. Our personal experience is a distortion of what actually took place. There is no way to know what took place even when something is happening in current time. That is the nature of language and human mental activity.

The simple test is to play a game of
"telephone". The original message always comes back distorted even though the original message was sent 5 minutes ago.
Everything is distorted. The world is an illusion of our own making.

Answer 3

You are incorrect. All accounts of Socrates' argumentative action involves dialectic. This is found independantly in Plato's dialogues, Xenophon's Conversations with Socrates as well as Aristophanes (who mocks Socrates for his dialectical debating habits), and even in remarks by Aristotle.

Your notion of "give and take action" is entirely vague. "Give and take" may be construed as a metaphor compatible (and hence no argument against the claim that Socrates did engage in debate and dialectics) with conceptual dialectics, whereby one person asserts a thesis (giving), another asserts problems with that thesis, the antithesis (taking), then coming to a further understanding of the concept in question after having considered the merits of the proposed counter-examples--the synthesis.

Plato never wrote anything as you state: that his teacher's search for truth demanded a loser and a winner. If you claim that Plato indeed wrote such a thing, please give your citation location (e.g., which dialogue and what reference number).

Socrates debated frequently using dialectic as his primary method. He was ultimately sentenced to death for engaging such practice. For you to claim that Socrates did no such thing is particularly odd. Either you have stumbled upon a greatly novel approach to Socratic scholarship (since all scholars disagree with you) or you simply have never read Plato or Xenophon. I'm inclined toward the latter.