Meta Description: Join Ad Navseam Ep. 192 as Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle explore Part Three of Plato’s Apology, Socratic piety, the afterlife, and the trial of Socrates.
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to episode 192 of the Ad Navseam podcast! Prepare to get your fill with another delectable discussion of Greco-Roman civilization, tracing the profound depths of antiquitas straight through to the present day.
Broadcasting directly from Parnassus Vomitorium Central—the true belly button of the world—your devoted hosts return to the microphones. Dr. David C. Noe (where the “C” stands for Contagious, as his love for the auctores classici is highly catching) and Dr. Jeffrey T. Winkle (taking the “T” for Tergiversation today) are ready to delve into the heavy lifting of ancient philosophy.
With the fall semester kicking into gear, the hosts open with some classic banter. Jeff is sporting a new t-shirt bearing the phrase Vocatus Atque Non Vocatus Deus Aderit (Called or not called, God is present)—a profound sentiment updated by Carl Jung from Erasmus. Meanwhile, Dave has been expanding his linguistic repertoire, studying the 60% of our daily English vocabulary that derives from Anglo-Saxon roots. He even jokes about combining this with his love for music by learning to play the “Anglo-Saxophone.”
This naturally leads to an anecdote about a student paper where an author was described as using a “Segway” to transition between topics. With our mental image of an author awkwardly rolling between paragraphs on an electric scooter firmly established, the hosts smoothly roll into the main topic: Part Three of Plato’s Apology.
Defining the Soul: T.M. Robinson
Before opening the Greek text, Dave introduces a monumental piece of scholarship: Plato’s Psychology by T.M. Robinson (1970). This superb book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand what Plato actually meant by the “soul.”
Robinson points out that the core of Socrates’ teaching in the early dialogues is the care of the soul—making it as good as possible. However, the Apology doesn’t give us a systematic breakdown of the soul’s anatomy. Instead, it offers a foundational look at “soul-maxing.” As Jeff notes, Socrates’ insistence that pursuing virtue will naturally align one’s material needs sounds remarkably similar to the biblical injunction in Matthew to “seek first the kingdom of God.”
Cornering Meletus and the Fear of the Novel
Jumping into the text at Stephanus 27c, Socrates completely corners his accuser, Meletus. One of the primary charges against Socrates is that he is an atheist. Yet, in the very same indictment, Meletus claims Socrates teaches about new daimonia (demigods or divine activities).
Socrates masterfully exposes the contradiction: How can one believe in the children of the gods without believing in the gods themselves? It makes Meletus look utterly foolish.
Dave points out a fascinating linguistic detail. Meletus accuses Socrates of introducing kaina (newfangled or novel) divine activities. Unlike modern society, which worships the new and innovative, the ancient Greeks were deeply conservative. Labeling an idea as kaina carried an immediate, heavy prejudice. While Socrates may not have been a traditionalist regarding the Homeric pantheon, he was certainly no atheist.
Duty, Shame, and Achilles
At Stephanus 28b, Socrates employs a masterful rhetorical refutatio. He anticipates the jury asking, “Aren’t you ashamed, Socrates, to have engaged in an occupation that puts you at risk of death?”
Socrates responds by linking his philosophical mission to the ultimate standard of Greek heroism: Achilles. Just as Achilles chose to avenge Patroclus on the plains of Troy rather than live a long, shameful life, Socrates chooses his duty over his safety. Furthermore, Socrates grounds this in his own military record. He served bravely as a hoplite at Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium. Just as human generals stationed him in those battles, the god Apollo has stationed him in the Athenian Agora to practice philosophy. To abandon that post out of a fear of death would be the true shame.
As Dave notes, quoting an old Puritan maxim: “Mind your duty, not your circumstances.”
The Socratic Daimon vs. The Conscience
The conversation then turns to one of the most mysterious aspects of Socratic theology: his personal daimon. At 31d, Socrates explains that since childhood, a divine voice has come to him. Crucially, this voice only restrains him from doing wrong; it never actively urges him forward. This divine sign is precisely what kept him out of the corrupting sphere of Athenian politics.
Jeff and Dave discuss whether this is merely an ancient description of the human conscience. Dave draws a fascinating contrast with the Apostle Paul in Romans 2. Paul writes that the natural law is written on the hearts of Gentiles, and their conscience “accuses or even excuses them.” A standard human conscience operates in both directions—warning against evil and encouraging good. Yet Socrates’ daimon only issues prohibitions. This suggests that Socrates experienced something highly singular and intensely personal, rather than just a universal moral intuition.
The Verdict, the Penalty, and the Shawshank Disagreement
Ultimately, the 501-person jury returns a guilty verdict. During the penalty phase, Socrates refuses to beg for his life. Instead, he boldly suggests that his “punishment” should be receiving free meals in the Prytaneum at the state’s expense—an honor usually reserved for Olympic victors.
While his friends, including Plato, frantically scrape together a massive sum of 30 minas (roughly equivalent to a million dollars today, or ten years’ salary for a public worker) to offer as a fine, the jury is insulted by Socrates’ defiance and sentences him to death.
This prompts Dave to express his intense dislike for the beloved film The Shawshank Redemption. While Tim Robbins’ character, Andy Dufresne, suffers unjustly, he ultimately cheats the system by digging his way out of prison. Socrates, by contrast, demonstrates true nobility. He refuses to shade the truth or escape his fate, choosing to die rather than compromise the integrity of his soul.
Prophecy and the Afterlife
In his final address (40c), Socrates speculates on the nature of death, presenting what Dave identifies as a false dichotomy. Socrates claims death is either a dreamless sleep (oblivion) or a migration of the soul. Jeff astutely points out that a dreamless sleep is only comforting if you eventually wake up to appreciate it; pure nothingness is hardly a consolation.
If death is a migration, however, Socrates is thrilled. He imagines arriving in Hades and interrogating the great heroes and poets of Greece—Orpheus, Hesiod, Homer, and Agamemnon. Even in the afterlife, the Socratic questioning will never cease! Conspicuously absent from his speculation is any mention of a place of punishment, a concept well-established in Homeric poetry.
Before departing, Socrates leaves the jury with a chilling prophecy: by killing him, they have not silenced philosophy. Instead, a new generation of thinkers (the Platonists, Aristotelians, and Stoics) will rise up to test the city even more harshly.
Vlastos and Radical Piety
To wrap up the philosophical deep dive, Dave reads an exceptional quote from Gregory Vlastos’s Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Vlastos explains the radical nature of Socratic piety: Socrates believed that because God is perfectly wise, God must be perfectly good, and therefore incapable of causing evil.
While this sounds standard to those raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, it was an earth-shattering concept for the ancient Greeks. Traditional Greek myths are filled with divine capriciousness—such as the goddess Hera relentlessly tormenting Heracles and driving him to murder his own family. Socrates’ insistence on a purely benevolent divine realm fundamentally undermined the entire edifice of traditional state religion.
Sponsors and Support
Before closing the doors of the bunker, a massive thank you goes out to the sponsors keeping the Ad Navseam podcast fully operational!
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For those wanting to learn Latin or explore ancient Greek, head over to latinperdiem.com for self-paced language courses. Let Dr. Noe serve as your psychopompos through MossMethod for Greek or the LLPSI program for Latin. Use the code 10PLUS for 10% off any order. Additionally, do not forget to download the free Calvin’s Latin Bible App to practice restored classical pronunciation!
Credits & Gustatory Parting Shot
A huge thank you to the podcast’s audio wizard, Mishka, for her top-tier engineering. Special thanks to Jeff Scheetz for bringing the ultimate rock energy to the intro with his track, Thrillseeker.
The hosts are also running a giveaway for a Hackett Plato reader! To enter, simply email Dave at dave@adnavseam.com with the subject line “PLATO”.
We leave you today with our Gustatory Parting Shot, pulled from B.E.E. Wilson’s The First Bite: How We Learn to Eat:
“You are unlikely to eat something if you don’t know what it is.”
Thanks for reading, and be sure to catch the next episode as the hosts move from philosophy to a review of introductory Greek textbooks!
