Know Thyself The Socratic Dialogues Adapted by Daimon Classics Released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISBN: 9798995868002 Edition: 1, Daimon Classics, 2026 ============================================================ ------------------------------------------------------------ The Man Who Would Not Stop ------------------------------------------------------------ In the year 399 BC, the city of Athens put an old man on trial. He was seventy years old. His name was Socrates. He had spent his whole adult life walking the streets of Athens and asking people questions. Hard questions. Questions like: Do you actually know what you think you know? Have you ever really examined your own life? Are you living the way you want to live, or just the way you were told to? Most people found this annoying. Some found it threatening. The charges against him were serious: corrupting the young people of Athens, and disrespecting the city's gods. A jury of 501 citizens voted on his guilt. The result was 280 to 221. Guilty. He was sentenced to death. The part that is hard to believe is that he could have escaped. His friends had money. They had a plan. They were ready to get him out of the city. He refused to go. He could have promised to stop asking his questions. He refused to do that too. On the day they brought him the poison, he was the calmest person in the room. His friends were the ones falling apart. What you are about to read is the speech he gave at his trial. It is called the Apology, which in Greek means a defense speech, not saying sorry. Socrates was not sorry about anything. He explained who he was. He explained what he had been doing his whole life. He explained why he would not stop, even to save himself. It is one of the most important things ever written. Not because it is old. Because it is true. This volume also includes three shorter companion texts. Crito is the conversation Socrates had in prison the morning before his death, when a friend begged him to escape. Alcibiades I is an earlier conversation where Socrates confronts the most ambitious young man in Athens with a simple question: do you actually know yourself? Selected passages from Phaedo show us his final hours, what he believed about death, and the moment he died. Together, these four texts tell one complete story. The story is about a person who decided that living honestly was more important than living comfortably, and who kept that decision even when it killed him. If you get one thing from this book, let it be this: the question Socrates spent his life asking is the same question you are going to have to answer, whether you want to or not. The question is: what kind of person are you actually willing to be? Daimon Classics ------------------------------------------------------------ A Note on the Text ------------------------------------------------------------ Plato wrote the Apology in ancient Greek sometime around 399 to 390 BC, within a few years of the actual trial. He was present at the trial himself and almost certainly heard Socrates speak. Whether the speech in this dialogue is what Socrates actually said, or Plato's ideal version of what he said, has been debated by scholars for centuries. Most believe the answer is somewhere in between: shaped by Plato, but rooted in memory. This book is an adaptation, not a translation. That distinction matters. A translation renders the words of the original as closely as the target language allows. An adaptation keeps the arguments, the structure, and the core claims, but rewrites the language for a different kind of reader. The source for this adaptation is the English translation of Plato's dialogues by Benjamin Jowett, first published in Oxford in 1871, now in the public domain. Jowett's translation is accurate, scholarly, and widely used. It is also written in the long, winding sentences of Victorian academic prose, which most modern readers find slow going. That is the gap this edition is trying to close. Every argument Socrates makes in Jowett's text is in this adaptation. Every key claim is present. The order of the arguments matches Jowett's order. Where the original uses difficult vocabulary, we have used plain everyday words. Where the original uses a single long sentence with multiple clauses, we have broken it into two or three shorter sentences. Where the original speaks in Victorian English, we have written in contemporary English that a student can read without stopping. What we have not done is add claims Socrates did not make, or put emotions into his voice that the original does not support. When context is needed, we have added it in italic editor's notes before each section, not in Socrates' own voice. Those italic notes are our words. Everything else is an adaptation of his. Readers who want the literal Greek text should read it in Greek, or in Jowett's own translation, which is freely available online at Project Gutenberg (ebook numbers 1656 for Apology, 1657 for Crito, 1658 for Phaedo). This edition is for everyone else. For the student who has never read philosophy. For the young person standing at the beginning of their life. For anyone who takes seriously the question of how to live. That was always who Socrates was talking to. ------------------------------------------------------------ Athens in 399 BC ------------------------------------------------------------ To understand why Socrates was put on trial, you need to know something about the city he lived in. Athens in the fifth century BC was the most powerful and culturally rich city in the Greek world. It had a democratic government, which was unusual and even radical for its time. Citizens voted on laws and elected their leaders. The arts flourished. Playwrights, sculptors, historians, and philosophers all worked in Athens at the same time. Socrates was born in Athens around 470 BC. His father was a stonemason and his mother was a midwife. He served as a soldier in several military campaigns and was known for his courage. He never wrote anything down. Everything we know about him comes from other people's accounts, primarily the dialogues written by his student Plato. The Athens that Socrates lived in was not stable. In 431 BC, a long and devastating war began between Athens and Sparta, called the Peloponnesian War. It lasted nearly thirty years. Athens lost. The defeat was humiliating and traumatic for the city. In 404 BC, after Athens surrendered, a group of thirty men called the Thirty Tyrants seized control of the city with Spartan backing. They ruled through violence and fear, executing or exiling hundreds of citizens. Socrates refused to cooperate with them and nearly died for it. The Thirty were eventually overthrown and democracy was restored, but the city remained shaken and suspicious. It was into this fragile, wounded Athens that Socrates was brought to trial in 399 BC. The city wanted stability. It wanted unity. It did not want someone going around asking uncomfortable questions about justice and wisdom and whether the people in charge actually knew what they were doing. That is the world of the Apology. Keep it in mind as you read. ============================================================ PART I: APOLOGY ============================================================ How He Spoke, and Why ------------------------------------------------------------ The trial opens with Socrates standing before 501 male citizens of Athens who will vote on whether he lives or dies. He is seventy years old. He has never been in a courtroom before. Following Jowett’s translation, his opening addresses the jury directly about the speeches his accusers just gave. I cannot tell how my accusers have affected you, Athenians. I know this: they almost made me forget who I am, they spoke so persuasively. Yet they have hardly said a word of truth. Among the many false things they said, one amazed me. They warned you to be on your guard so you would not be deceived by my powers as a speaker. To say this, when it was obvious I would be proven no great speaker the moment I opened my mouth, seemed to me the most shameless thing of all. Unless by eloquence they meant the force of truth. In that sense, I am eloquent, but in a very different way from theirs. I will not speak to you the way they did. I will not deliver a polished speech with carefully chosen words and phrases. The words I use will be the words that come to me in the moment. I am confident in the rightness of my cause. I am seventy years old and this is the first time I have ever been in a courtroom. I am a stranger to the language of this place. Think of me as a foreigner. You would excuse a foreigner for speaking in his own way, not yours. Do not judge me by the manner of my speech. Judge me by whether what I say is true. That is the only thing that matters in a courtroom. Let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly. The Rumors, and Where They Came From ------------------------------------------------------------ Before addressing the formal charges, Socrates deals with something older and harder to fight: years of rumors and gossip. Many people on the jury grew up hearing that Socrates was dangerous. He has to address this first, or nothing else he says will land. There are two kinds of accusers I have to answer. The old ones and the new ones. The new ones are Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon. They are here today. I will answer them in a moment. The old accusers are more dangerous. They have been accusing me for many years, and most of you have been hearing them since you were children. They told you a story about a man called Socrates who studied the stars and things under the earth, who made bad arguments sound good, and who taught other people to do the same. The comedian Aristophanes put me in one of his plays, swinging in a basket high above the stage, talking nonsense about the sky. People laughed. They remembered. These old accusers are hard to answer because I cannot face them. They have no names. They worked on you when you were young, when you were easy to persuade, and when nobody was there to argue back. I have to fight shadows. Let me try anyway. None of it is true. I know nothing about astronomy or what is under the earth. I have never taught those things. I have never charged anyone money for teaching anything. I do not have a school. If you have heard otherwise, you were told wrong. I am a poor man. If I had been running some kind of profitable teaching business for years, I would not be poor. My poverty is proof. The Oracle, and the Mission It Created ------------------------------------------------------------ This is the central story of Socrates’ life. Everything that made him famous, and everything that got him killed, grew out of a single statement from the Oracle at Delphi. What he did with that statement reveals exactly how he thought. Someone will now ask me: if none of that is true, where did the rumors come from? What have you actually been doing? It is a fair question. Let me answer it honestly. I have a friend named Chaerephon. He is dead now, but his brother is here in court today and can confirm what I am about to tell you. Years ago, Chaerephon went to the Oracle at Delphi and asked her a question. The Oracle at Delphi was the most respected prophet in the Greek world. People came from everywhere to ask her things. Chaerephon asked: is anyone wiser than Socrates? The Oracle said: no. No one is wiser. When I heard this, I was confused. I do not feel wise. I have never felt wise. What could she possibly mean? The gods do not lie. So the answer had to mean something. I decided to figure out what. My plan was simple: find someone wiser than me. If I could find just one person who was clearly wiser, I could go back to the Oracle and say, see, you were wrong, here is someone wiser. So I started looking. I went to a well-known politician first. This man had a huge reputation for wisdom. Everyone respected him. I sat down and talked with him. He was not wise. He believed he was wise. The people around him believed he was wise. When I actually examined his ideas, they did not hold up. He claimed to know things he did not know. I tried to point this out, as politely as I could. He hated me for it. I walked away having made an enemy, yet I had also learned something important. I said to myself: I am better off than this man. Not because I know more. The real difference is this: I do not think I know things I do not actually know. He is ignorant and confident. I am ignorant and honest about it. That small difference, I started to think, is what the Oracle meant. I kept going. I visited the poets next. Surely the people who write about wisdom and courage and the human soul must be wise. I read their finest passages and asked them to explain what the words meant. They could not do it. Their poems were beautiful. They did not understand them. It was as though the words had passed through them rather than come from them. Because they wrote beautiful things about wisdom, they thought they were wise about everything. They were not. Then I went to the craftsmen. These men actually knew things. They understood their craft, how to build, how to shape materials, how to fix things. I respected that. The same problem appeared. Because they were excellent at their trade, they believed they understood everything else too. They overreached. Their real knowledge was surrounded by a much larger cloud of false confidence. The same pattern, everywhere I looked. After years of this, I came to one conclusion: the Oracle was right. Not because I am wise. The reason is simple: I am the only one who does not pile fake wisdom on top of real ignorance. The god was saying that true wisdom begins with knowing the size of your own ignorance. Of all the people I examined, I was the only one doing that. This is what I have been doing my whole life. Testing reputations. Exposing the gap between what people claim to know and what they actually know. I have done it because I believed I was supposed to. It has cost me everything: my money, my time, my reputation. I have made hundreds of enemies. That is where these charges come from. Not from anything I actually did wrong. From thirty years of making important people look foolish, and from the grudges they have been carrying ever since. The Cross-Examination of Meletus ------------------------------------------------------------ Now Socrates turns to the formal charges. Meletus, one of his three accusers, is present in the courtroom. Socrates questions him directly. Watch how a simple series of questions forces Meletus to contradict himself. Enough about the old rumors. Now let us talk about the actual charges. Meletus says I corrupt the young people of Athens. So let me ask him: who improves them? If I am making them worse, someone must be making them better. Who is it? Meletus said: the laws. I pressed him: the laws are a system, not a person. Which person makes the youth better? He looked at the crowd and said: everyone here. The judges, the audience, the assembly. All of them. Think about what he just said. He is claiming that every single person in Athens improves the young, except for me. That I am the only person in this entire city making them worse. Does that make any sense to you? Think about horses. Does every person who spends time around horses make them better? Of course not. Training a horse well takes real skill and real knowledge. Most people who try will make the horse worse, not better. Only a few trained people can actually improve a horse. Having more people involved does not help. It usually makes things worse. People are the same. Good character does not come from being surrounded by a crowd of well-meaning strangers. It comes from careful, skilled guidance. The idea that all of Athens educates its young people, and only Socrates ruins them, is the idea of someone who has never thought seriously about what education actually requires. Meletus has shown us, just by answering that question, that he has never genuinely cared about the education of young people. This charge is not about them. It never was. Now let me deal with the second part of the charge: that I corrupt young people on purpose. Think about this carefully. I live here. These young people are my neighbors. I see them every day. If I make them worse, I make my own life worse, because I have to live with them. Who deliberately makes their own neighbors worse? No sane person does that. If I have been doing any harm, it must have been by accident. If it was an accident, you do not drag someone to court. You go to them privately. You explain what they are doing wrong. You give them a chance to fix it. Meletus never did that. He came straight here. That tells you everything you need to know about what this is really about. Now the charge that I do not believe in the city’s gods. Meletus says I introduce new divine beings. When I pressed him further, he started saying something different. He said I believe in no gods at all. Those are not the same claim. He cannot have it both ways. Either I believe in the wrong gods, or I believe in no gods. He mixed up two different accusations without thinking about either one. I have spoken my whole life about a divine sign, a kind of inner voice that stops me when I am about to do something wrong. If I believe in that sign, I believe in something divine. If divine things exist, divine beings must exist. Meletus tied himself in a knot. He did not think this through. Why He Would Not Stop, Even Now ------------------------------------------------------------ One of the most important passages in all of Western philosophy. Socrates tells the jury directly that even if they offered to let him go on the condition that he stop asking questions, he would refuse. His explanation is a definition of what it means to live with integrity. Someone may say: Socrates, are you not ashamed of a life that has brought you to this? To an early death? My answer is this. A person who is good for anything should not calculate whether he will live or die. He should consider only whether what he is doing is right or wrong, and whether he is acting as a good person or a bad one. Think about the soldier posted by his general to a position. Even when it gets dangerous. Especially when it gets dangerous. That is what it means to follow orders. That is what honor requires. I was posted to my position by something greater than any general. Call it god. Call it conscience. Call it the deepest thing I understand about what a human life is for. My assignment has been this: live philosophically. Ask questions. Care about wisdom. Do not let people, including myself, get away with pretending to know things they do not know. If I abandoned that out of fear of death, I would be doing something shameful. Worse, I would be pretending I know that death is bad, and therefore worth avoiding. The truth is, I do not know that. Nobody does. Death might be terrible. It might be wonderful. It might be nothing at all. Treating it as the worst possible outcome is exactly the kind of false certainty I have spent my life fighting against. So if you said to me, Socrates, we will let you go, but you must stop your philosophical work, stop questioning people, stop all of it, my answer would be this. I love you and I am grateful. Still, I will obey god before I obey you. As long as I am breathing, I will keep doing what I do. I will walk up to people and say, are you not embarrassed to care so much about money and reputation and status, while caring so little about whether your soul is actually good? I will say this to everyone, young and old, citizen and stranger. This is not arrogance. This is service. You can verify it. I am a poor man. I have spent decades doing this work and I have nothing to show for it financially. Nobody does something that exhausting for that long without believing in it completely. The Gadfly and the City ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates introduces one of his most famous images. He compares himself to a gadfly, a small biting insect, and Athens to a large slow horse. The image is funny and self-aware. It is also completely serious. I am not arguing for my own sake. I am arguing for yours. You are about to swat me away, and if you do, I do not think you know what you are losing. I am like a gadfly attached to a horse. The horse is Athens. Athens is large and powerful and impressive. It is also slow. It gets comfortable. It stops paying attention. It needs to be stirred up. I am the stirring. I spend my days landing on people, poking them, making them uncomfortable, asking them the questions they would rather not think about. It is irritating. I know that. Nobody likes a gadfly. The horse needs it. If you kill me, the horse goes back to sleep. Maybe eventually the god sends another gadfly. That will not happen for a while. In the meantime, you will be very comfortable and completely unexamined. I am not saying this to make myself sound important. I am saying it because I genuinely care about what happens to this city more than I care about what happens to me today. Some of you will ask: if you care so much about Athens, why have you never entered public life? Why no politics, no office, no public service? Because my inner voice told me not to. It was right. A person who genuinely fights for what is just in public life does not survive long. I can prove this with two moments from my own life. Years ago, the assembly wanted to put ten generals on trial together. This was illegal, and I was the only senator who voted against it. The crowd screamed at me. They threatened to arrest me. I held my position. I could easily have been killed for it. Later, when the Thirty came to power, a brutal group of men who seized control of Athens, they ordered me to help them arrest an innocent man named Leon so they could execute him. I went home instead. The others followed the order. I did not. If the Thirty had not fallen shortly afterward, I would have died for that too. A person who fights for justice in public life does not last. I have lasted because I have done it one conversation at a time, privately, with individuals. That is not cowardice. That is the only strategy that actually works. His Witnesses Are Here in the Room ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates makes a powerful logical point. If he has truly been corrupting the youth of Athens for thirty years, there should be evidence. Where are the victims? I have never been a formal teacher. I never took students, never charged fees, never promised to make anyone better. People were free to come listen to my conversations if they wanted. Some did. Some did not. Some of them turned out well. Some did not. I cannot be held responsible for what free people chose to do with free conversations. If I have been corrupting the young people of Athens for thirty years, where are the people I corrupted? They would be grown adults by now. Why are they not here, standing up to say what I did to them? Look around this courtroom. The people here to support me include Crito, who has known me his whole life. His son Critobulus. Lysanias. Antiphon. Plato himself is here today, brother of Adeimantus. These are the fathers and brothers of the young men I supposedly ruined. They came here to speak for me. If I had destroyed their sons and brothers, do you think they would be here defending me? They are here because they know the truth. Meletus is lying. Why He Did Not Beg ------------------------------------------------------------ In Athenian courts it was common, almost expected, for defendants to bring their weeping wives and children before the jury to ask for sympathy. Socrates refuses to do this. His explanation is not just personal. It is a philosophical argument about what justice actually requires. You may have noticed I have not done what defendants usually do in this courtroom. I have not cried. I have not brought my children up here. I have three sons, one almost grown. I have not brought any of them. Some of you may be offended by this. You may think I am being arrogant, or that I do not take my situation seriously. That is not it. I will not beg because begging would be wrong. Think about what a jury is for. You are here to make a judgment. You are here to decide what is just. The moment I stand up here crying and asking you to feel sorry for me, I am not asking you to judge anymore. I am asking you to feel. Those are completely different things. Your oath was to judge according to what is right. I am asking you to honor that oath. Do not vote for me because you feel sorry for me. Do not vote against me because you are annoyed with me. Vote based on what is true and what is just. That is all I ask. I have watched men of great reputation stand in this courtroom and carry on as though death were the most terrible thing imaginable. Weeping. Begging. Making themselves small in front of everyone. I found it embarrassing. Not because fear of death is shameful, fear is human, but because they let that fear turn them into someone they would not want to be. I would rather die as myself than survive as someone I do not recognize. The Verdict, and What Followed ------------------------------------------------------------ The jury has voted. Guilty, 280 to 221. Now comes the sentencing. Athenian law required both sides to propose a penalty. Meletus has proposed death. Socrates must propose something else. The jury has voted. I am guilty. Now we move to sentencing. I need to propose an alternative to the death penalty Meletus has asked for. Let me think honestly about what I deserve. I have spent my entire adult life doing work that I believe has been genuinely useful to Athens. I have gone from person to person, free of charge, asking the questions that most people avoid. I have pushed this city to think harder about who it is and what it values. I am poor because of it. I have neglected my own household completely. What does that kind of life deserve? Honestly? I think it deserves free meals at the public hall. That is the honor Athens gives to Olympic champions. I believe I have done more for this city than winning a race. I am not saying this with vanity. I am saying it because if I am going to evaluate myself honestly, I should do it honestly. That is not the answer anyone is looking for, I understand. A fine, then. My friends, including Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, are willing to guarantee thirty minas on my behalf. That is my counter-proposal. I will not propose prison. At seventy, that is just a slower death. I will not propose exile. If I went to another city, I would do exactly what I do here. I would keep asking questions. The same problems would follow me. Exile solves nothing for anyone. Agreeing to stop philosophizing as a condition of staying is something I cannot do. The unexamined life is not worth living. That is not a phrase to me. It is the thing I believe most deeply. Stopping would mean becoming someone I am not. I do not know what I would do with a life like that. So: a fine. Thirty minas. Guaranteed by my friends. To Those Who Condemned Him ------------------------------------------------------------ The jury has now voted for death. Socrates speaks to the room in two separate speeches, one to those who voted against him, one to those who voted for him. Each speech is completely different in tone. Now that the vote is in, I want to say something true to both groups in this room. To those of you who voted for my death: you made a mistake. Not necessarily a legal one. You had the power to do this. It was a moral mistake. You condemned me not because I was actually guilty, but because you were uncomfortable. You wanted the questions to stop. You thought that if you killed the person asking the questions, the questions would go away. They will not. Other people will come. They will be younger than I am. They will be less patient and less polite. I have spent my career keeping things civil, giving everyone a fair chance to respond. The people who come after me will not have my manner. You will find them more difficult. You will have brought it on yourselves. The only way to stop being questioned is to live a life that holds up to questions. Silencing me is not a solution. It is avoiding the real problem. I want to be clear about one more thing: I am not angry with you. You have not actually harmed me. You may have ended my life, but that is not the same as harming me. A person of bad character cannot truly harm a person of good character, not in any way that lasts. By judging me unjustly, you have harmed yourselves. That is the greater loss. To Those Who Voted to Acquit Him ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates now turns to the 221 who voted for his acquittal. What he says to them is one of the most remarkable meditations on death in all of human thought. To those of you who voted for me, I want to share something while there is still time. You know the inner voice I have spoken about. The divine sign that has guided me my whole life. It stops me when I am about to make a mistake. It has been reliably present my entire life, sometimes stopping me in the middle of a sentence. Today it was silent. Not once did it stop me. Not when I was preparing. Not while I was speaking. Not at any moment during this trial. I think that means something. I think it means what is happening to me today is not a bad thing. Let me explain my thinking on death. There are really only two possibilities. Either death is the end of everything, like a dreamless sleep, or it is a passage to somewhere else. If death is like dreamless sleep, that is not terrible. Think of the deepest, most restful sleep you have ever had. No dreams, no disturbances, just pure rest. If you could trade many of your difficult days for a sleep like that, most of us would. Eternal rest, compared to the troubles of being alive, does not sound so bad. If death is a journey to another place, where everyone who has ever died now lives, then I am genuinely curious to go. Think of who might be there. Homer. Hesiod. The great heroes of ancient times. The real judges, not the political ones. People who see you clearly and judge you on what you actually are. Most interesting to me would be the people who were condemned unjustly in their own time. We would have a lot to talk about. In that other world, they say, no one gets executed for asking questions. I am not claiming to know which of these is true. I do not know. When I think through both options, neither one seems terrible. The fear of death comes from treating something unknown as though it were certainly bad. That is the same kind of false certainty I have spent my life opposing. What I do know is this: no real harm comes to a good person, in this life or after it. I have tried to be a good person. I am not afraid of what comes next. One last request. When my sons are grown, hold them to the same standard you held me to. If they care more about money or reputation than about being genuinely good, call them out on it. Do not let them become comfortable. That is the most useful thing you could ever do for them. The time has come to part. I go to die. You go to live. Which of us goes to the better fate is known only to god. ============================================================ PART II: CRITO ============================================================ The Friend in the Dark ------------------------------------------------------------ It is the morning before Socrates is to be executed. His old friend Crito has come to the prison before dawn. He has arranged an escape. Socrates, as always, wants to think it through carefully first. The dialogue that follows is condensed from Plato’s Crito, but every argument the two men make in the original is present here. Socrates woke to find his friend Crito sitting quietly beside him in the dim cell. It was very early, still dark outside. “How long have you been here?” Socrates asked. “A while,” Crito said. “I did not want to wake you. You were sleeping so peacefully. I have been sitting here watching you and marveling at how easy your sleep was. I have been awake most of the night.” Socrates smiled. “Because it would make no sense to be upset, Crito. Not at my age.” Crito leaned forward. “Socrates, I have to tell you something. The ship from Delos will arrive today or tomorrow. When it does, you will be executed.” “Then that is when it will be,” Socrates said. “That is why I am here,” Crito said. “I have made arrangements. You can get out of here tonight. I have friends, money, a safe place for you to go. Everything is ready. I have come to ask you to let me help you.” Socrates was quiet for a moment. “Crito, your concern for me is touching. It really is. You have been coming here every day. We need to think about this carefully, you and I. Not whether it is possible for me to escape. Whether it is right.” “You are going to die,” Crito said. “That is what I know.” “That is not the question,” Socrates said. Which Opinions Actually Matter ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates makes a distinction that gets to the heart of one of the most common sources of anxiety in human life: worrying about what other people think. He asks Crito to think carefully about which people’s opinions actually deserve weight. “Let me ask you something,” Socrates said. “Think about a person who is trying to become a better athlete. Does that person follow the advice of everyone who watches him practice? Or does he listen to his trainer, the person who actually understands what good training looks like?” “Their trainer, obviously,” Crito said. “What happens to an athlete who ignores the trainer and just follows the crowd?” “Their body gets worse. They train wrong. They get injured.” “Right. Now, we have always agreed that there is a part of us that gets damaged by doing wrong and improved by doing right. We have said all our lives that this part matters more than the body. Are we going to abandon that idea now, just because my life is at stake?” “Of course not,” Crito said. “Then the only question is whether escaping would be right or wrong. Not what people will think. Not what it will cost. Not whether I have the opportunity. Simply: would it be right?” Crito was quiet. “Because if it is wrong,” Socrates continued, “we do not do it. No matter what. We have been saying this our whole lives. This seems like a bad time to change our minds.” What the Laws Would Say ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates does something unusual here. He imagines the Laws of Athens speaking to him as a kind of voice, arguing their case. This is one of the most powerful passages in all of Western philosophy. The Laws make an argument about obligation, gratitude, and what it means to be a citizen. “Let me try something,” Socrates said. “Imagine the Laws of Athens themselves walked in right now and stood in front of us. What do you think they would say?” He paused, then began to speak as though he were the Laws. “Socrates, what are you doing? By escaping, you are trying to destroy us. You are saying that a court verdict means nothing if you personally disagree with it. Do you imagine a state can survive if individuals set aside its decisions whenever they feel they are right?” “But it was an unjust verdict,” Crito said. “Let the Laws continue,” Socrates said. “They would say: Did we not give you seventy years of life in this city? Did you not raise your children here, build your friendships here, live your whole life under our protection? In all those years, did you ever leave? Did you ever say our laws were unjust and find somewhere better? You had the freedom to go. You stayed. By staying, you agreed to abide by our decisions, including this one.” “That is true,” Crito admitted. “And now, the one time we ask something hard of you, you want to break that agreement. What would people say? That Socrates, who spent his whole life talking about justice, abandoned justice the moment it became personally inconvenient?” Crito had no answer. “The Laws would also ask: where would you even go? To Thessaly? To spend the rest of your days as a fugitive? An old man in hiding, sneaking around, living on someone else’s charity, pretending to be someone you are not? Is that the Socrates you want to be at the end of your life?” Socrates looked at his friend. “Every time I try to think of a good reason to escape, the voice of the Laws comes back louder than before. I keep testing the argument, and the argument keeps holding. I cannot find the flaw in it.” The Final Answer ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates makes his choice. What is remarkable is not that he chooses to stay and die. What is remarkable is why. He is not resigned. He is not defeated. He is at peace, and his peace comes from a place of complete clarity about what matters to him. “Crito, I hear everything you are saying. I know you love me. I know this is painful for you.” “So you will not go.” “I will not go.” Crito sat back. After a long silence, he said: “Then what do we do?” “We accept it,” Socrates said. “We let it be what it is. This is not something being done to me against my will. This is the consequence of how I chose to live. I would choose the same way again.” “I do not understand how you can be this calm.” “Because I am not losing anything I actually want to keep,” Socrates said. “A life where I had to stop asking questions, stop caring about truth, stop being who I am? That would not be my life. That would be a different person wearing my face.” “To me it seems like you are losing everything.” “To me it seems like I am keeping the only thing that ever mattered.” They sat together in silence until the sun came up. Editor’s Note: Alcibiades I is an earlier dialogue, thought by most scholars to have been written by Plato or a close follower. The conversation takes place around twenty years before the trial of Socrates. Alcibiades was a real person, famously beautiful, famously ambitious, and famously reckless. He would go on to become one of the most brilliant and most controversial figures of his generation. What follows is a condensed adaptation of the central argument of that dialogue. ============================================================ PART III: ALCIBIADES I ============================================================ The Most Ambitious Young Man in Athens ------------------------------------------------------------ Alcibiades is about twenty years old. He is already famous: wealthy, from one of the best families in the city, brilliant, handsome, and utterly confident that he is destined for greatness. Socrates decides it is time for a conversation. There was a young man in Athens named Alcibiades. He was about twenty years old. He was already famous. He was wealthy, from one of the best families in the city. He was brilliant, and he knew it. He was about to step into public life and begin giving speeches, influencing decisions, telling the most powerful city in Greece what to do. Socrates decided it was time to talk to him. “You are about to offer advice to the city of Athens,” Socrates said. “Before you do, I want to ask you something. What is the advice going to be about?” “About what is best for Athens,” Alcibiades said. “And you know what is best for Athens?” “Yes,” he said, a little impatiently. “Where did you learn that?” Socrates asked. “Who taught you?” Alcibiades stopped. He had not been expecting that question. The Gap Between Confidence and Knowledge ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates walks Alcibiades through a careful examination. He does not attack him. He asks questions. The questions reveal something Alcibiades has never had to face: the difference between being smart and actually knowing something. “You will give advice about whether to make peace or go to war,” Socrates said. “How will you decide?” “I will decide what is just, and then I will advise based on that.” “Good,” Socrates said. “Who taught you what justice is?” Alcibiades hesitated. “I learned it growing up. From everyone around me.” “You learned Greek the same way, from everyone around you. Would you give a speech as an expert on Greek grammar?” “No.” “Why not?” “Because I do not know it with the kind of precision that would allow me to teach it.” “Then how do you know justice with that kind of precision?” Alcibiades had no answer. “You are about to stand in front of the city,” Socrates said, “and tell them what is just and what is not. When questioned, you cannot say where you got your knowledge. You cannot explain how you know. You cannot define the thing you plan to teach the city about.” “Maybe I learned without noticing.” “Maybe,” Socrates said. “Or maybe you are about to give advice about something you do not actually understand. That would matter, if you are about to advise the most powerful city in Greece.” Know Thyself ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates brings the young man to the real point. The Oracle at Delphi has two words carved above its entrance: Know Thyself. Most people think they already do. “There are two words carved above the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi,” Socrates said. “Have you seen them? Gnothi seauton. Know yourself.” “I know them.” “What do they mean?” “They mean to know who you are.” “And do you?” “I think so.” “Do you know what you are?” Alcibiades paused. “Are you your body?” Socrates asked. “I suppose so.” “Your body can be hurt, can grow sick, will eventually die. Does that thing that gets hurt and grows sick and dies, is that really you? Or is that the thing that belongs to you?” “I think it belongs to me.” “Then what are you, the thing that has the body?” “I am, the one using the body. The one thinking. The one making choices.” “Good. What do you call that part?” “The soul, I suppose.” “To know yourself, then, is to know your soul. Not your body, not your reputation, not your family, not your possessions. Your soul. The thing that actually decides, that actually cares, that is actually you. Do you know that?” “I do not know,” Alcibiades said. “Before you tell the city what is good for it,” Socrates said, “you must know what is good for you. Before you can know what is good for you, you must know what you are. Before you can be trusted to advise the soul of Athens, you must have examined your own. Have you done this work?” “No.” “Then do not speak in the assembly. Not yet. Go home. Examine yourself. Come back when you know what you are. After that, the city will be lucky to hear from you.” The Mirror ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates explains why self-knowledge is almost impossible on your own. He uses an image that is simple and unforgettable. “Can an eye see itself?” Socrates asked. “No.” “What would it have to do to see itself?” “Look into something that reflects it. A mirror. Another eye.” “Right. An eye, if it wants to know itself, must look into something that shows it to itself. The soul is the same. It cannot see itself on its own. It has to look into something that reflects it back. That is why self-knowledge is not a solo activity. It requires honest conversation with another soul. Not any soul. A soul that cares about truth. That is what we are doing right now.” Alcibiades looked at him. “You have been watching me for years,” he said. “Why?” “Because you have real ability,” Socrates said simply. “People with real ability who do not know themselves tend to do a great deal of damage. People with real ability who do know themselves can change the world for the better. There is a significant difference between those two outcomes.” “And which one do you think I could be?” “That,” Socrates said, “depends entirely on you.” The Real Beginning ------------------------------------------------------------ This is where the dialogue ends. Alcibiades has begun to see himself differently, at least for a moment. Whether the change will last depends on what he does next. History tells us what he did. Alcibiades went on to become one of the most controversial figures in Athenian history. Brilliant in everything he did. Reckless. Charismatic. He would betray Athens for Sparta, then betray Sparta for Athens, then lose the trust of both. He died violently in exile. The question this dialogue leaves unanswered is whether he ever really followed the advice Socrates gave him: whether he ever, even once, sat down to examine his own soul the way he examined everything else. The question the dialogue leaves for you is different. You are not Alcibiades. Whatever your ability is, large or small, you have it. The question is the same one Socrates asked him. Do you know what you are? Editor’s Note: These passages are taken from the final section of Plato’s Phaedo, which records the last hours of Socrates and the moment of his death. The Phaedo is a longer philosophical dialogue. What appears here is the concluding portion, adapted in the same way as the preceding texts. Plato was not present that day. He was ill. He wrote the account years later, from the testimony of those who were there. ============================================================ PART IV: PHAEDO (SELECTED) ============================================================ The Last Afternoon ------------------------------------------------------------ The friends of Socrates have been coming to the prison every day since the trial. Today is different. When they arrive, Socrates’ wife and young son are already there. She says what everyone is thinking. The group arrived at the prison early on the last day. They had been coming every morning, but this time felt different from the moment they walked in. Socrates was sitting up, rubbing his leg where the chains had just been removed. His wife Xanthippe was beside him, holding their youngest child. When she saw the friends arrive, she said: “Socrates, this is the last time your friends will talk with you and you with them.” Socrates looked at Crito. “Someone should take her home. She needs to be with people who can comfort her.” After she left, the friends sat down. The room was quiet. No one knew how to begin. One of them finally asked: “How are you so calm right now?” “What would be the point of being otherwise?” Socrates said. “I have had seventy years to think about this. If I have not managed to make peace with it by now, I am not going to manage it today.” “But you are about to die.” “Yes,” Socrates said. “Let us talk about that.” What Philosophers Are Actually Practicing ------------------------------------------------------------ Socrates makes a remarkable claim: that the entire life of a philosopher, spent pursuing wisdom and truth, is in a certain sense a preparation for death. He does not mean this grimly. He means it as a kind of liberation. “Here is something I have thought about for a long time,” Socrates said. “A person who genuinely tries to live philosophically, who really cares about wisdom and truth above everything else, what have they been practicing their whole life?” “Thinking,” someone offered. “More specifically, they are practicing a kind of separation. They are learning to care less about what the body wants and needs, and more about what the mind knows and understands. Less about comfort, pleasure, appearances, status. More about truth, wisdom, what is actually real.” “And death is the complete separation of the mind from the body,” said Simmias. “Exactly,” Socrates said. “So a philosopher who has spent their life moving in that direction is not walking toward something foreign when death comes. They have been heading that way all along. The direction is familiar. The destination is what they have been practicing for.” “You are saying you have been practicing dying your whole life.” “I am saying that what most people call living, accumulating comfort, avoiding discomfort, caring above all about physical things, is actually a kind of distraction from what matters. Whereas I built my life around something else. Something that does not depend on the body to exist.” “Whereas you…” “Whereas I am, perhaps, more ready for this than most people would be.” The Last Argument ------------------------------------------------------------ In the hours before his death, Socrates continues to do what he has always done: argue carefully about difficult questions with people who are willing to think. He offers his friends a reason to hope, though he holds his conclusions with characteristic honesty about what he does and does not know. “I want to offer you something,” Socrates said. “Not proof. I do not have proof. What I have is a reason to be hopeful rather than despairing. Will you hear it?” “Please,” his friends said. “Think about opposites,” Socrates said. “Everything that exists seems to come from its opposite. Sleeping comes from waking, and waking comes from sleep. Hot things become cold. Cold things become hot. Things that are large were once small.” “Yes.” “Now: living things eventually die. That is the movement from life to death. If the movement only runs one direction, if everything alive eventually dies and nothing dead ever comes back to life, then at some point everything would be dead. No new living things. The world would become still and silent.” “The world is not silent and still,” Simmias said. “No. Life keeps renewing itself. New things are always coming into existence. Which suggests that whatever death is, it is not the simple end of the cycle. Something continues. Something comes back.” “You are saying something of us continues.” “I am saying it is the most reasonable thing to believe. I am not claiming certainty. When I weigh the two possibilities, something continuing seems far more likely than simple extinction.” His friend Cebes leaned forward. “Even if you are wrong, what have you lost by believing this?” “Nothing,” Socrates said. “If there is nothing after death, I will not be around to be disappointed. So the risk is entirely on one side. It costs nothing to hope. It costs everything to despair without reason.” The Last Hour ------------------------------------------------------------ The sun is going down. The prison guard comes in. What follows is one of the most moving scenes in all of ancient literature: a man facing death with complete calm, and the people who love him falling apart around him. As the afternoon light began to fade, the guard came in. He was visibly upset. He stood in the doorway for a moment before speaking. “Socrates,” he said, “I have come to know you over these weeks. You are the most decent person I have ever seen in this place. I know this is not your doing. Please do not be angry at me for what I have to do.” He began to cry and left the room. “What a kind man,” Socrates said. “He has been like this the whole time I have been here. Now please bring what needs to be brought.” Crito tried one last time. “Socrates, the sun is still above the horizon. You could wait a little longer. Men have delayed before.” “And gained what?” Socrates asked. “The appearance of caring about a few more hours? I do not want that.” When the cup was brought, Socrates looked at it calmly. One of his friends asked if he wanted to say a prayer before he drank. “Of course,” Socrates said. He held up the cup. “I pray that this journey to the other world goes well.” He paused. “I think it will.” He drank. Simply. Without hesitation. Without ceremony. His friends had been holding themselves together all day. They could not hold any longer. Even the ones who had promised themselves they would be strong were weeping. The room broke apart. Socrates looked at them with an expression they would remember for the rest of their lives. “What is this?” he said, gently. “I asked the women to leave so we would not have this. Be still. Be strong. There is no reason for this.” They tried. He walked around the cell, as the guard had instructed, until his legs felt heavy. Then he lay down on his back and closed his eyes. The coldness moved slowly up from his feet. He continued to talk as it moved. He answered questions. He stayed himself until near the end. His last words were to Crito. “We owe a sacrifice to the god of healing,” he said. “A rooster. Do not forget.” “It will be done,” Crito said. “Is there anything else?” There was no answer. Plato was not in the room that day. He was ill. He wrote about it years later, from what his friends told him. He ended his account with this: Of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and most just and best. ------------------------------------------------------------ Know Your Daimon: Reflection Prompts ------------------------------------------------------------ These questions are for you. Not for a grade, not for a test. Just for thinking. Take one. Sit with it. There are no right answers. 1. Socrates says wisdom starts with knowing what you do not know. What is one thing you feel confident about that you have never really examined? Where did that confidence come from? 2. The Oracle said Socrates was the wisest man alive. He spent years trying to prove it wrong. What have you learned about yourself from trying to prove something wrong? 3. Socrates says the unexamined life is not worth living. What part of your own life are you living right now without really thinking about it? What would you find if you looked honestly? 4. Crito begged Socrates to escape and save his life. Socrates refused because it would have been wrong. Has there ever been a time when you did the right thing even though it cost you something? What made you do it? 5. Alcibiades was brilliant but had never questioned his own certainty. Think of something you are very sure about. Have you ever genuinely tested it? What would you need to do to test it honestly? 6. Socrates says we need other people to truly know ourselves, like an eye needs a mirror. Who in your life reflects you back most honestly? Do you seek out that kind of conversation, or avoid it? 7. In his last hours, Socrates was calmer than everyone around him. What do you think made that possible? What would it take for you to face the hardest thing in your life without falling apart? 8. Socrates spent his life asking one basic question: are you living the life you actually want, or just the one you were handed? What is your honest answer to that question right now? 9. Socrates compared himself to a gadfly, the small biting insect that keeps a slow horse awake. Is there a person in your life who does that for you? Do you have the patience to listen to them, or do you swat them away? 10. When Meletus accused Socrates of corrupting the youth, Socrates pointed out that he lives among these young people and would not knowingly make his own neighbors worse. Who are your neighbors, in the broadest sense? Are you making their lives better or worse by how you live? 11. Socrates said that when you do wrong, you harm yourself more than you harm the other person. Have you ever believed that? Is there something you did that you thought you got away with, that you later realized you did not? 12. Socrates refused to beg for his life because begging would have asked the jury to feel instead of judge. Have you ever gotten something you wanted by manipulating how someone felt rather than by being honest? How did that turn out? 13. In the last hours of his life, Socrates kept arguing. He kept thinking. He did not stop being himself. What would you want to be doing in the last hour of your life? How close is that to what you are doing now? 14. Socrates said a person of bad character cannot truly harm a person of good character. That is a strong claim. Do you believe it? Can a cruel person really not reach the core of a good one? 15. Alcibiades was given advice that could have saved his life and changed history. He ignored it. Is there advice you have been given that you know is right, that you have not yet followed? Why not? Write. Talk about these with someone you trust. Come back to them in a year. knowyourethos.com ------------------------------------------------------------ Glossary ------------------------------------------------------------ These are the key words from this book. Some of them are Greek. All of them matter. Apology In ancient Greek, this word means a defense speech. It does not mean saying sorry. When Socrates gave his Apology, he was defending himself in court, not apologizing. Arete (Virtue) The Greek word arete means something closer to excellence than to goodness. It means being the best version of what you are. For Socrates, arete was not about following rules. It was about genuinely becoming a good person, from the inside out. Crito Socrates’ old friend, a wealthy Athenian who tried to arrange his escape. Also the name of the Platonic dialogue that records their conversation in prison the morning before the execution. Daimon Your inner voice. The deep part of you that knows right from wrong before you have even had time to think about it. Socrates said his daimon would stop him, like a quiet warning, whenever he was about to do something wrong. Delphi The most important religious site in ancient Greece, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Home of the Oracle of Apollo, where a priestess called the Pythia was believed to speak messages from the god. Two words were carved above the entrance: Know Thyself. Dialectic The Socratic method of finding truth by asking questions back and forth. You make a claim. I question it. You revise your claim. I question that. Eventually, if you are both honest, you get closer to the truth than either of you could get alone. Dialogue The literary form Plato used to write philosophy. Instead of a lecture, the ideas come out through a conversation between characters. This matters because it shows that philosophy is not a body of answers to be memorized. It is a way of thinking that only happens when two people are willing to examine things together. Eudaimonia A Greek word usually translated as happiness, but it means more than that. It means flourishing. Living well. Being the kind of person who is fully awake, fully alive, actually using your potential. The Greeks believed eudaimonia was the goal of human life. The Examined Life Socrates’ central idea: a life that is never honestly looked at is not truly lived. You should know why you do what you do, and whether you actually believe in it. Most people never ask. Gadfly A small biting insect that lands on large animals. Socrates used this image to describe himself in relation to Athens. The city was the horse. He was the fly that kept biting until the horse paid attention. Irritating, yes. Also necessary. Gnothi Seauton “Know thyself.” Two words carved above the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi. Socrates believed these two words contained everything important about how to live. Hemlock The poison used to execute Socrates. It comes from a plant. It causes paralysis that slowly moves up the body until it reaches the heart. It was considered a dignified way to die in ancient Athens, used only for citizens. The Laws In the Crito dialogue, Socrates imagines the Laws of Athens personified as a voice speaking to him. This is a literary device. The argument the Laws make is that by living seventy years under Athenian protection, Socrates has agreed to abide by Athenian decisions, including this one. Meletus The young man who formally brought the charges against Socrates. He was a poet. The other two accusers were Anytus (a politician) and Lycon (a rhetorician), but Meletus was the official prosecutor. Oracle at Delphi A famous religious site in ancient Greece where a priestess called the Pythia was believed to speak messages from the god Apollo. People traveled from all over the Mediterranean to ask her questions. Her answers were often mysterious, but always taken seriously. Phaedo The Platonic dialogue that records the final hours of Socrates and the moment of his death. It is named after one of his students who was present that day. Plato A young man of noble family who became Socrates’ student. After Socrates died, Plato wrote down everything he could remember of his teacher, in the form of dialogues. Almost everything we know about Socrates comes from these writings. Plato later founded a school called the Academy. Prytaneum The public hall in Athens where Olympic champions and other honored citizens were given free meals for life. When Socrates jokingly proposed this as his “penalty,” he was making a serious point about what kind of life actually deserves civic honor. Sophist A type of teacher in ancient Athens who charged money to teach people how to win arguments and give persuasive speeches. Socrates had two differences from them: he charged nothing, and he was interested in truth, not in winning. Soul (Psyche) In Greek philosophy, the psyche is not just a religious concept. It is the part of you that thinks, chooses, and cares. It is who you actually are. Socrates believed taking care of your soul, making it genuinely good, was the most important thing a person could do. The Thirty A group of thirty men who seized control of Athens in 404 BC and ruled through fear, arresting and executing people they saw as threats. Socrates refused to help them. He risked his life to do so. Xanthippe Socrates’ wife. History remembers her mostly through the writings of others, some of whom portrayed her as sharp-tongued. She was the mother of his three sons. On the last day of his life, she and their youngest child were in the prison cell with him before his friends arrived. ------------------------------------------------------------ What Is Daimon Classics? ------------------------------------------------------------ The ancient Greeks had a word: daimon. It means the voice inside you that knows who you really are. Not the voice that tells you what other people want. The one underneath that. The true one. Socrates believed every person had a daimon. He believed the whole point of life was to listen to it. Most of us do not. Life gets loud. There is always something to do, somewhere to be, something to want. People are constantly telling you who you should become. After a while, it gets hard to hear yourself think. That is the problem these books are trying to solve. Daimon Classics takes the greatest writings of philosophy from the ancient world and puts them in plain, honest language. These are adaptations, not translations. Every argument the original author made is still here. Every important claim is still here. The language has just been cleared away so you can actually read them. These writers lived thousands of years ago. They were thinking about the same things you think about. Who am I? What actually matters? How should I spend my time? What do I owe to other people? What do I owe to myself? They have a lot to say. It is worth hearing. Read slowly. Argue with the pages. Come back to them later. Your daimon is waiting. Know Your Ethos