Thoughts on the 'social contract' in Plato's Crito

[Anonymous No.20381059]

There is at least some level of contradiction in Socrates’ concept of the ‘social contract’. He claims that every citizen is free to leave the polis, if he disagrees with how the polis functions, including how the laws are constructed. But later Socrates points out that other “well-governed” city states such as Thebes or Magara would look upon an emigrating citizen from Athens as a “enemy to the government” and a “destroyer of the laws”, if it was known he broke a law in Athens (53b). It seems your options are relatively limited if you are discontent with the law; you are not capable of changing the law, if you break a law in any one polis, then you are effectively banished from all poleis, and lastly laws doesn’t really seem to differ much from polis to polis, at least they ought not to in the view of Socrates/Plato.

[Anonymous No.20381152]

Could you explain more clearly what the contradiction is here?

[Anonymous No.20381435]

>>20381059
Have you ever wondered why Plato is holding Timaeus in that painting instead of something more popular like The Republic?

[Anonymous No.20381655]

>>20381059
>He claims that every citizen is free to leave the polis
Careful, that's Socrates characterizing what *the laws* claim. The dramatic situation is: Crito, Socrates' long time friend who is not himself particularly taken with philosophy, wants to help Socrates, partly out of legit care for his friend, but partly out of concern of what others may say about him of he doesn't try to free Socrates. Crito won't quite take "no, all good lol" from Socrates, so he needs an argument he might respect even if it's not absolutely solid.

Implicitly, the laws, being responsible for the upbringing of the citizens, ought also be considered as having some share of responsibility for its failures when it doesn't produce good citizens. The arguments of "the laws" in the dialogue in fact play down any responsibility in those respects

[Anonymous No.20381663]

>>20381435
It was his best known (because most available) dialogue in the middle ages on.

[Anonymous No.20382214]

>>20381435
>zoomers don't remember when Timaeus was his most read work

[Anonymous No.20382828]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20383116]

>>20381059
I think it's almost an incredibly nihilistic--in the genuine sense, not the pop-contemporary one--realism.

Socrates is ready to die, and if the execution is how he goes, then he's made some peace with that. Maybe not entirely, but clearly enough to a degree that he's content to remain in jail until he's called to be killed.

What's more, he turns the entire ordeal into an example of upright, or debatably simply human, behavior/conduct in the face of corruption and an unjust application of what he clearly believes to be a good system. He idealizes the laws, and across the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo makes it clear that his issue is not with the laws themselves--not to say there couldn't be improvements made--but moreso with the men who are wielding them unjustly. This is teased in the Euthyphro, and really hammered in the Apology.

The problem is, and this anon >>20381655 is right, is that Crito--as a stand-in/surrogate for the audience/common people--needs a sort of logical explanation for why Socrates is willing to die. Even though that kind of sentiment is something that can only be felt, not really communicated logically, Socrates does his best to try and explain why it would be wrong to try and run from what appears to be his fate.

Imo, my reading is that his final conclusion is basically that to run from the city would prove to both his accusers and the people that he wasn't a man of virtue, that he only said what he said because it was beautiful, but he didn't really believe it. It would make him no better than a Sophist, and so he has to demonstrate conviction in his beliefs. He has to be willing to die for something greater than himself, and in a way that conveys honor and humanity. Again, I don't even think that's really why he would do it--I think he was just ready to die. But people often demand a kind of rationalization when they can't readily apprehend the motivations behind another person's actions.

Some people might make the case that this Dialogue is Plato/Socrates just making the case for passivity in the face of injustice. That if you're faced with a corrupt system, there's nothing you can or should do, and I disagree with that. I think it's clear this men would fight to defend what they believed was right--this was simply the best way, in Socrates' conception, to do it. To be put to death on the count of a sentence rendered in ill will, not good faith, by a court that was corrupting the very legal framework it was supposed to protect. It's not always the answer, but it's a pretty good example of a worst case scenario--the death of a, relative, innocent--when it comes to an abuse of power.

[Anonymous No.20383385]

>>20382214
>The 600 year old Renaissooncer

[Anonymous No.20383703]

>>20383116

The issue with your readings is that they're atheistic readings, where there is no life after the current one. This ignores a core theme in Plato/Socrates' writings - the eternality of the soul, the purpose of life being to remember the forms, and to acquire virtue in conformity with the eternal forms.

Plato/Socrates was making the case for loyalty to the conscience and virtues, even in the face of certain death - a commitment to the invisible, eternal world, over the visible, changing world, since according to their beliefs, injustice is possible in the changing world, but impossible in the eternal world. Socrates would have to disobey his conscience in order to escape death in the changing world, and value life in the changing world over afterlife in the eternal world - and he made the commitment.

[Anonymous No.20383847]

>>20383703
Yeah, okay Euthyphro, whatever you say

[Anonymous No.20383868]

>>20383703
>Socrates would have to disobey his conscience in order to escape death in the changing world, and value life in the changing world over afterlife in the eternal world - and he made the commitment.
But like doesn't Plato implicitly do this in Phaedo by taking care of himself during an illness instead of seeing Socrates die?

[Anonymous No.20383873]

I read the Last Days of Socrates as my first Plato work (and first philosophical work), where do I go from here?

[Anonymous No.20383893]

>>20383873
A bunch of faggy Egyptian scrolls about how you can your slaves with you to work your fields in the afterlife

Or the pythagorean equivalent

Either/or

[Anonymous No.20384051]

You post begs the question, retard. It remains true that any citizen is free to leave (through any means semantically congruent with the word) regardless of the consequences.

Perhaps being an unprincipled idiot necessitates your conception of consequence ending at taking responsibility for your own actions?

[Anonymous No.20384138]

>>20384051
>Perhaps being an unprincipled idiot necessitates your conception of consequence ending at taking responsibility for your own actions?

[Anonymous No.20385286]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20385757]

>>20384138
Methinks the lady doth protest too much

[Anonymous No.20385836]

>>20381059
>social contract
Socrates doesn't believe in a strict "social contract" in the style of the modern political philosophers like Hobbes and Locke. Crito does not speak of something contract-like, where there are strictly delineated agreements and the possibility of voiding said contract if those agreements are not met. If Socrates spoke of a "social contract", it is something more akin to a non-negotiable sense of gratitude and obligation to the polis that spans your entire life. As Socrates explains in Crito, this is because each person will receive more from the polis as a whole than he could ever have contributed back to the pot individually.

Whether or not Socrates truly believes this is up for debate. Crito is not exactly the most philosophical character, so there is a level of Socratic irony present in the dialogue. And it is worth pointing out how the Crito social contract contrasts heavily with the "noble lies" found in Book III of the Republic. But, if I may hazard one opinion, the Crito social contract is perhaps the most soulful kind of binding of the whole category. I'd rather live in a society built on Critean social contracts than Lockeian social contracts.

[Anonymous No.20385853]

>>20383847
Euthyphro isn't an atheist dialogue. Rather, it's a dialogue about evaluating claims of divine revelation as lesser or greater.

[Anonymous No.20385900]

>>20385836
>I'd rather live in a society built on Critean social contracts than Lockeian social contracts.
So the Athens that put Socrates to death, gotcha

[Anonymous No.20385913]

>>20385900
Socrates died for what he believed in in service of the people he loved pursuing ideals that live beyond his brief temporal existence. That's not a privilege that is afforded to a Lockeian society, which actively rejects all kinds of commitments, ideals, and even the very idea that there can be a choiceworthy death while lacking any strong argument for life itself. Yeah, I would rather live in Athens.

[Anonymous No.20385918]

Why do people always talk about politics rather than metaphysics here?

[Anonymous No.20385927]

>>20385913
Real Platonic stance you got goin there shooting for honor and reputation

[Anonymous No.20385929]

>>20383847
Socrates explicitly argues for the immortality of the soul. Your interpretation just isn't plausible.

[Anonymous No.20385936]

>>20385927
Never mentioned anything about honor and reputation. But honor (imperfectly) participates in the form of the Good, which is why the timocracy is the second-best form of government after the aristocracy.

[Anonymous No.20385963]

>>20385936
>Never mentioned anything about honor and reputation
>>20385913
>even the very idea that there can be a choiceworthy death
>make me like achilles skykang, i wanna death thots'll remember me for!

[Anonymous No.20385981]

>>20385963
>Choiceworthiness is identical to honor
This doesn't merit a response.

[Anonymous No.20385983]

Plato was completely retarded.

Read Aristotle's Prior Analytics and you are done with Greek philosophy.

[Anonymous No.20385994]

>>20385963
I don't understand what you're on about. You can die for something beyond reputation. There was no guarantee that Socrates would be remembered as anything more than an eccentric intellectual for a generation or two.

[Anonymous No.20385998]

>>20385981
>b-b-b-but wanting a death i honor isn't the same as honoring
>it totally does matter how you die, that's why imma be in the elysian col-de-sac with bitches while elvis be in tartarus forever unclogging a toilet

[Anonymous No.20386006]

>>20385998
You're veering off into schizo territory. I genuinely do not understand what you're talking about. You're just vomiting random themes and projecting them onto my arguments without any basis.

[Anonymous No.20386034]

>>20385994
>>20386006
Lmao all you are is some pagan larper, idolizing Socrates and pretending you're doing something more, like you aren't another Meletus with different targets

Real schizo talk is acting like consulting bird entrails is legit religion

[Anonymous No.20386302]

>>20386034
Where are you even drawing all of these inferences? I’m not even a “Pagan”—I’m Catholic.
>inb4 pr*t copes

[Anonymous No.20386340]

>>20386302
Nice try neoplatonist shill

[Anonymous No.20387627]

>>20385918
Metaphysics is even more retarded than politics

[Anonymous No.20387655]

>>20381152
His point is that you are stuck between two choices:
>Don't like a City? Leave it.
and
>All Cities won't let people who have left another City enter

Effectively meaning that you cannot leave a City (because Greeks are naturally creatures of the citystate and die within a week of being outside of a city's walls).

[Anonymous No.20387950]

>>20381435
>>20382214
Timaeus was the only dialogue available in Latin from 100 BC until like 1500.

[Anonymous No.20388097]

>>20381059
>you shouldn't care about the opinion of the majority
>but don't resist if the majority condemn you to death

[Anonymous No.20388390]

Serious answers. I'm working my way through the greeks now and I'm finding great appreciation for the socratic method and the dialetic form. The theories, on the other hand, are absurd. My understanding is that later philosophers more succinctly address philosophical issues. My question is: when do these philosophical arguments start to take on a more realistic, logical form?

>posting tits because this is 4chinz

[Anonymous No.20389066]

>>20381059
>>20387655
If that is the case, then there isn't any contradiction. That which makes Socrates an 'enemy of all well-governed cities' is precisely the act of breaking the law after assenting to it, not merely the status of leaving a city out of disagreement with the laws. Most Greek cities were fairly welcoming of metics (resident foreigners) and had a strong culture of xenia (guest friendship). But in both cases these statuses were still bound by certain laws, obligations, and customs, of which were vitally important to the maintenance of the practice. The reason why Socrates, breaking the law in Athens, becomes an enemy of law everywhere is that it fundamentally undermines the concept of law itself. The law, as Plato sets out, must share a similar relation to the individual citizen as a father does to a child: that of absolute obedience. This is because, if the law is to be authoritative and bind citizens together in mutual benefit, it's mandate must be above the opinions of any individual citizen. As if any individual could disregard it at will, it would cease to exist as a binding force at all. Thus, 'well-governed' cities everywhere have an interest in the maintenance of law everywhere, and in inviting a person who considers their own opinion above that of the law, they invite someone who can never be constrained by law or any contract at all. If Socrates had left prior to his conviction or trial, he would have left a law abiding citizen on amicable terms, and would be accepted anywhere that also respects the law. As leaving on the basis of disagreement with the laws is not challenging their authority, but rather upholding it. Which distinguishes breaking the law from mere disagreement with it.
But the major theme of the dialogue isn't so much about one's obligation to the law, but one's commitment to the good life, and why someone committed to the good life should uphold the conviction even if it is unjust. Because what they are upholding isn't the common opinion (which is agreed to be meaningless) but the institution of justice and the possibility of the good life at all. Which ties into the above point about the necessity of law to bind people together in mutual benefit and the foundation of the qualified life over bare life. Thus Socrates should sacrifice his bare life (which is meaningless) for the qualified life (which is the only life worth leading), rather than sacrificing the qualified life for his bare life (which would betray everything Socrates had lived for). It is a very powerful dramatic situation. And being that this obligation is founded on the basis of the good life, the supposed contradiction between the 'ought not differ' isn't that consequential because justice, being a platonic form and therefore universal, applies the same way everywhere. Thus someone committed to the good life (with justice being the highest good) would have no disagreement with laws founded according to the form of justice.

[Anonymous No.20389363]

>>20385757
wtf is that lindy beige?

[Anonymous No.20390179]

Bump.

[Anonymous No.20391794]

>>20383847
That is phaedo

[Anonymous No.20391879]

>>20385853
>>20385929
>>20391794
>y-y-y-you're talkin bout the wrong dialogue and your interpederp is wrong >:^(
I was *calling* you Euthyphro you sped

[Anonymous No.20392021]

>>20391879
Sorry, my mistake

[Anonymous No.20392031]

>>20391879
Euthyphro means “straight thinker” in Greek. That’s a compliment.

[Anonymous No.20392466]

>>20392031
It's an ironic name

[Anonymous No.20393084]

>>20381059
Socrates doesn't disagree with the laws, that's the point of the dialogue

[Anonymous No.20393581]

>>20388390
>when do these philosophical arguments start to take on a more realistic, logical form?
Aristotle. He invented logic. He's also so dry that you're gonna miss Plato's dialogue form.

[Anonymous No.20394495]

>>20392466
How is it ironic?

[Anonymous No.20394749]

>>20394495
He is called straight thinker but falls into a circular paradox

[Anonymous No.20395436]

>>20394495
I was gonna say what >>20394749 points out, there's a joke about it at 11b

[Anonymous No.20396718]

>>20385836
There is no reason to believe that Plato presents a consistent or coherent programme over all his dialogues. A contradiction between crito and republic, and republic an laws, just represent changes in his opinions over time

[Anonymous No.20397212]

>>20396718
How far would you personally stand by that? That is, do you think he changes his mind on a dialogue to dialogue basis, or that there are definable interests linking dialogues more than a little strongly?

[Anonymous No.20398058]

>>20393084
Actually what he says is it's irrelevant if he agrees or disagrees because he chose to live his life in Athens by all of their laws so it would be conceited to just not follow the ones he personally dislikes.