柏拉图: 苏格拉底的审判与死亡/PLATO: Trial and The Death of Socrates (The)

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- 柏拉图: 苏格拉底的审判与死亡
  PLATO: Trial and The Death of Socrates (The) - Apology / Phaedo
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柏拉图: 苏格拉底的审判与死亡 / PLATO: Trial and The Death of Socrates (The) - Apology / Phaedo
[ 读物介绍 ]
PlatoThe Trial & The Death of SocratesApology · Phaedo The Apology and Phaedo describe the trial, conviction andexecution of Plato’s friend and mentor Socrates. Why, we may ask, wasthere a trial? What was Socrates accused of? Was he guilty? And if he wasn’tguilty (as Plato clearly thinks he wasn’t), why was he accused? Isthis a verbatim report of the speeches he gave? More generally, what is itabout these dialogues, and about Socrates himself, that has exercisedsuch a fascination over later ages? To take these questions in order:He was accused of two things: 1) notbelieving in the gods the city believed in; and 2)corrupting the young. Was he guilty? Well, it depends on your point of view. Youcould say, with some justice, that very few people in late 5th century Athensbelieved in the gods the city believed in; Certainly not in the Olympian godssuch as Zeus, or Aphrodite, or Apollo. There were still those who believed thesun and the moon were gods. Indeed, the catastrophic loss of the Athenianexpeditionary force to Sicily 14 years earlier had in the end been caused byits commander’s superstitious refusal to abandon an untenable position for 28days following an eclipse of the moon. But then Socrates was prepared to acceptthe sun and the moon as gods, as he explains in the Apology. Did he corrupt the young? In a sexual sense, no. Alcibiades,the best-looking young man in Athens, famously attempted to seduce Socratessexually, and failed. But in a different sense, maybe the answer could be yes.What Socrates did was to teach the young to ask questions, which their eldersfound difficult or impossible to answer. If you were one of those elders, youmight well have thought that he was making young people into worse people thanthey would otherwise have been. In that sense, from the point of view of theirelders, maybe he did corrupt the young. It’s a common enough argument, now asthen: ‘when I was young we respected our elders; these days there’s no respectany more; someone must be to blame.’ Was that a sufficient reason for him to be accused? Innormal times, no. But these were not normal times. Within the last five yearsthe Athenians had lost a war and an empire, and been deprived of theirdemocratic rights. Many of the people who had taken away those rights had been followersof Socrates in their youth. When democracy was restored, there were those whowanted their revenge. Is the Apology the speech Socrates actually made? And did hespend his last hours in the way Plato describes? It is hard to say withcertainty. As far as we know, Socrates never wrote anything, and if he didwrite anything, it hasn’t survived. Almost everything we know about him comesfrom Plato, though there is a hint in Xenophon, which suggests that what heactually said at his trial was a bit different from what Plato has given us. Itmay be we have to take Plato’s account as colored by what he thinks Socratesshould have said, or what he would have liked Socrates to have said. We can, however, say with confidence that the way Socratestalks and acts in the Apology and Phaedo is wholly in character with the way hetalks and acts in every other Platonic dialogue. Beyond that, we have to acceptthat the Socrates who has been admired for more than 2000 years is the Socratespresented to us by Plato, just as the Jesus who has been admired for 2000 yearsis the Jesus presented by the New Testament. And finally, what is it about Socrates that has sofascinated later ages? Two things, principally: an ethical standpoint and a methodof argument. The ethical standpoint can be summed up in two of Socrates’most famous beliefs: It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong, becauseonly doing wrong can harm you. And no one does wrong on purpose; people dowrong only from a failure to perceive what is right. More striking still is themethod of argument: it annoyed the ancient Athenians, and it annoys a lot ofpeople today, but it is revolutionary for all that – and as needed now as itwas then. Before Socrates there were three ways of resolving a disagreement: byforce, by appeal to authority or by competitive oratory. What all three have incommon is that they produce a winner and a loser, and that the loser is evenless convinced at the end than at the beginning. Socrates’ method – arguing byagreed steps from agreed premises – necessarily results in an agreedconclusion. If you don’t like the conclusion, you can go back and amend thepremises. So – a new ethical position, and a new method of argument.And nowhere will we find either more clearly and movingly exemplified than inthe Apology and the Phaedo. Notes by Tom Griffith The Cast of The Trial & The Death of Socrates Socrates BruceAlexanderMeletus DavidTimsonPhaedo JamieGloverEchechrates GordonGriffinIntroduction NevilleJason BRUCE ALEXANDER is best known as Superintendent Mullett in A Touch of Frost and has appeared in many other televisionshows such as Berkeley Square, Casualty and Peak Practice. He has also playedmajor roles in the theater, notably with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is adirector of ACTER, which annually tours Shakespeare to US campuses. Alexanderhas read numerous recordings for Naxos AudioBooks. JAMIE GLOVER trained at the Central School of Speech andDrama and has since played title roles in Hamlet and Henry V and a number ofother roles in, amongst others, Tartuffe and The Rose Tattoo for Sir PeterHall. His television appearances include A Dance to the Music of Time andCadfael. NEVILLE JASON trained at RADA where he was awarded theDiction Prize by Sir John Gielgud. He has worked with the English Stage Co.,the Old Vic Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as in films,television and musicals. He is frequently heard on radio. He has abridged andread Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past as well as many other titles for NaxosAudioBooks. DAVID TIMSON has performed in modern and classic plays acrossGreat Britain and abroad, including Wild Honey for Alan Ayckbourn, Hamlet, TheMan of Mode and The Seagull. He has been seen on television in Nelson’s Columnand Swallows and Amazons, and in the film The Russia House. A familiar andversatile audio and radio voice, Timson is a popular reader for NaxosAudioBooks. GORDON GRIFFIN has recorded over 220 audiobooks. His vastrange includes nine Catherine Cookson novels, books by Melvyn Bragg, DavidLodge, the entire Wycliffe series by W. J. Burley and his award-winningrecording of A Tale of Two Cities. Gordon also appears regularly on televisionand in films. He was dialogue coach (Geordie) on Byker Grove and Kavanagh QC.