Teaching Plato in Translation
by Susan Gorman, Boston University
Original text © 2004 Susan Gorman
The Apology
Emotion and Reason as Rhetorical Strategies
In the Apology, Socrates makes some especially interesting claims about emotion as a rhetorical strategy. He claims at Stephanus page 34d that he will not incite emotion to aid his cause by parading his family in front of the jury. He does not want his judges to vote to acquit him purely because of the emotion that is displayed.
[Note, however, that although Socrates tells his judges that he will not parade his family in front of his accusers in order to garner sympathy, he does do something similar. Even if he doesn't make his sobbing children appear physically, he evokes their images at Stephanus page 34e. He makes special note of the youth of two of his three sons. This tricky play with language is at the same time amusing and incredibly manipulative.]
Even more interestingly, at Stephanus page 38a, Socrates makes the claim that he will, if acquitted, continue doing what he has been doing (i.e. teaching and talking with others), because an unexamined life is not worth living. His words seem to be purposely inciting emotion against him. Is Socrates making fun or making light of his audience and their desires? To put it in more extreme terms, does Socrates have a death-wish?
I have always found this deployment of emotion in the Apology to be especially interesting. Socrates seems not to want emotion to help him, but will let it hurt him. He almost challenges the audience to convict and kill him, daring them to do it.
I ask my students why he would want to use emotion in this way, a question that leads to further examination of the use of language and debate in the Apology.
What kind of language is persuasive? What effect does it have to deny eloquence as he does at the beginning of his speech? If the audience thinks that Socrates does not speak well, they may be more easily affected by his rhetoric. If the strategy works as it is supposed to, the audience will not think that they are being manipulated by language but instead being persuaded by the "truth".
Socrates often uses a negative dialectic. He tears down through his rhetoric what people think that they know. He dismantles their opinions by poking holes in them. Interestingly, however,Socrates can dismantle knowledge, but does not offer any rebuilding here. How is that useful?
In asking these questions, I could highlight for my students some of the major questions of persuasiveness and argumentation that are important in crafting and writing arguments of their own.
