Beloved today, reviled during his lifetime, the story of Socrates is full of paradoxes. Fitting, given he essentially invented the paradox. Adopting the garb, lifestyle, and odour of the Athenian homeless, Socrates built his reputation drifting in and out, often uninvited, of the intimate conversations of local Athenians, like an unwelcomed fart, interjecting to question (read: harass) the underlying assumptions of any and every claim, small or big, common or noble. Oftentimes, he would identify irreconcilable paradoxes in the arguments of others, triggering the complete collapse of arguments, even of belief systems – no matter if they were sacred or not. Today, we call this mode of inquiry the Socratic Method in honour of the man who invented it, and two and half thousand years late, it is still taught in academic circles as the pre-eminent mode of epistemic inquiry. It made Socrates famous. Back then, it made him infamous. It even cost him his life.
In 399 BC, Socrates was accused of corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and for asebeia (impiety); i.e. worshipping false gods and failing to worship the gods of Athens. In some of his speeches, which he pontificated from atop donkey carts and dirt piles, Socrates critiqued the legitimacy of the Athenian Gods and claimed that an inner voice, his daimonon (i.e., intuition), guided his behaviour, as opposed to a political authority. Both acts were enough to have him stand trial in front of a jury who took all but a day to sentence him to death. Socrates opted to defend himself but rather than persuade the jury of his innocence, which he was more than skilled at doing, he instead offered an irreverent ramble of lazy arguments and loose aphorisms about life and death, even going so far as to say that people who fear death are showing their ignorance, because death might be a good thing. He totally bombed. The jury was furious. They sentenced him to death. Shortly after, he drank a draught of hemlock and died.
Most historians interpret Socrates’ disastrous self-defence as intentional. He could have easily used his expert rhetorical skills to persuade the jury he was innocent. He chose not to do that. After all, it was true that Socrates had critiqued the legitimacy of the Athenian Gods. It was true that Socrates had claimed that an inner voice guided his behaviour. To deny these truths, even when his life was on the line, would, for Socrates, violate a sacred oath he took to the pursuit of truth in general. It would have made Socrates a Sophist – someone who values rhetoric over reason. And Socrates was not a Sophist. Socrates dedicated his life to truth. His friends, followers, and students begged him to save himself and flee Athens. He refused, instead submitting himself to the fate of his honest actions and the Athenian judicial system’s interpretation of them. For Socrates, truth was placed above all else – even above death.
Socrates’ death made him immortal. He martyred his life for the idea that adhering to the truth was more important than any outcome the truth produced. This principle proved profound for human civilization. Through Socrates’ sacrifice, we now had a precedent through which others could risk their lives in pursuit of revolutionary goals. We could now attempt to overthrow despotic regimes, confront exploitative overlords, or shrug the chains of repressive religions. Through Socrates’ sacrifice, courageous acts like Martin Luther King’s protest, the French Revolution, and Civil Rights Movement became possible, in that they pivoted on the newfound stability of ideological conviction – a cognitive condition first piloted be Socrates.
It's easy to forget the idea of truth was indeed “invented” at one point in time. Just as the concepts “blue” or “tree” seem timeless and universal, they too were invented – named – by ancient humans who found it useful to incorporate them into their conceptual lexicon. The Golden Era of Athens saw the invention of many other influential concepts. For example, in the year 507 BC, Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or “rule by the people” (from demos, “the people,” and kratos, or “power”), which revolutionized the way power was distributed throughout society. In 622 BC, the legislators Draco and Solon drafted the earliest known constitution, laying the foundation for the modern judicial system. Each of these new concepts – truth, democracy, justice – proved to be well-springs of further theorizing. For example, the scientific method, a mode of epistemic inquiry refined by René Descarte, is an interpolation of the Socratic method. Or the concept of plebiscite, which can be seen as a “one off” instance of democracy. Even a concept as simple as a judgment – the cognitive act of arriving at a conclusion about a person or an event – is a consequence of the invention of the judicial system. The Ancient Greeks refined the practice by using a jury of 500 citizens to hear evidence and vote, each at a time, on whether an accused was guilty or not; i.e., to pass judgment. Moreover, and unlike judicial systems pre-dating those of 500 BC Athens, these judgments were final. Arguments closed afterwards and the accused were forced through the executive branches (the military) to accept their verdict. Through this mechanism, a judgment came to produce a predicted outcome.
Stability mattered. Back then, judgments about the state of the world were rarely stable entities. Human civilization had yet to develop rigorous epistemologies that accessed reality in and of itself and provide rational cause-and-effect explanations of real-world phenomena. Rather, the world turned on the whim of Gods. Thunder, lighting, rain, and wind came from the emotional sways of Zeus, Poseidon controlled the temper of the seas, even love was outsourced to the God Aphrodite. On one hand, there is more social cohesion when everyone can agree on which God was responsible for different events, personal, social, political, or ecological. On the other hand, outsourcing explanations to the realm of the supernatural abrogates the need to develop more rigorous epistemologies that access reality in and of itself. Early attempts at doing so were, understandably, insecure, and faulty. It took time to formalize a rigorous epistemology into civil society. The Athenian judicial system that convicted Socrates was one such early attempt. And despite not being without its own faults, many Athenians were thrilled at the newfound sense of power now that they could play a part in adjudicating reality.
Accessing power, of course, is not the same as accessing reality, and the two are often conflated. This is judgment’s flaw. To adjudicate reality is intoxicating to hubris-prone man. Through judgment, for once, it feels as though we, not the Gods, are in charge. In this way, judgment fortifies a sense of self amid a chaotic world. It’s the type of thing empires have been built off. Throughout history, demagogue politicians have used simplistic judgments of events (and groups of people) to appear as though they have firm grasp of reality. Agentic woman in the 17th century? Witch! Jewish in Europe in the middle of the 20th century? Evil! Transgender in any Western country today? Impossible! In each case, the physics of judgment are exploited to give demagogues the illusion of control in a chaotic world. It does not matter if these judgments accurately reflect reality (they do not). What matters is the conviction, the certitude, the confidence of it all. It’s as close to a war-cry as we have in the modern world. And goodness does it ever work. If the public believes a demagogue politician has a firm grasp of reality, they will propel him into the halls of power. Reality, off over there sulking in the corner, is the loser. The thrill of power will override any concern of inaccuracy. Even in our personal lives we deploy judgment with the mania of a tyrannical despot. Friend isn’t replying? Jerk! Old clothes? Basic! Uncouth political post on Instagram? Racist! Judgments provide a conviction and certitude humans desperately crave. It’s the same thrill that compelled the Athenian citizens to judge Socrates worthy of the death penalty. Were the laws used against Socrates reasonable? It didn’t matter. Nuance be damned. He’s guilty and it’s our right to seal his fate. Even on the greatest thinker of the era.
From the day of his arrest to the day of his death, Socrates was housed in a prison located on the eastern slopes of Philopappos Hill, at the foot of the Acropolis. The prison was simple; three iron bars lattices placed in three entryways of a cave about 10-feet deep and 20-feet high. A notable quality of Socrates’ prison was how visible it was to the public. Philopappos Hill and the surrounding area was the political, religious, cultural, and geographic centre point of Athens. The Pnyx was just to the south, the Panathenaic Way and the Parthenon, a short walk north, and the Agora was down the hill toward the west. This meant that over the course of Socrates six-week imprisonment, thousands of Athenians passed by and saw him lazing about, awaiting his trial. In effect, this public display of impotence was, in and of itself, a damning punishment to Socrates’ reputation. No longer the free-floating thinker, confinement render him unthreatening to the Athenian populous. The theatre stage was set and Socrates was cast in the role of enfeebled, non-threatening elder.
Socrates’ prison is still visible today. Like other architectural creations from Athens’ Golden Era – the Panathenaic Stadium, the Agora, the Parthenon – Socrates’ prison survived two and a half thousand years and is now protected by Greek’s Ministry of Culture. Located on a well-traveled path that bisects Philopappos Hill, connecting the inner-city neighbourhoods of Psyri with Koukaki, thousands of tourists and locals pass by every day. On my visit to Athens, I made it my mission to see the prison myself. I had heard so much about it. The fact that, today, as a pale-faced tourist from a Canadian prairie town, I could see where the infamous once resided, albeit as a convicted criminal awaiting trial, was riveting.
My journey began at square, a large public square in the centre of Athens where tourists and locals both gather. I walked westward toward Philopappos Hill, down Adrianou Street, one of Athens’ oldest, which today is a mix of flea markets and Greek tavernas. Adrianou Street eventually connects to Apostolou Pavlou, a wide, cobblestone pedestrian pathway that runs alongside the ancient Agora and cuts a straight line in between the Acropolis and Philopappos Hill. The mood changes considerably between Adrianou Street and Apostolou Pavlou. There are no buildings or cars on Apostolou Pavlou, and Parthenon stands in full view atop the Acropolis and above the grounds of the ancient Agora. Apostolou Pavlou tracks a portion of the Panathenaic Way, the ancient road that pilgrims used during the Golden Era to summit the Acropolis and leave offerings for the God Athena in the Parthenon. Today, Apostolou Pavlou is filled with tourists, many of which are themselves on their way to visit the Parthenon. As I walked the path, I was on the search for something different.
“Wow!” I gasped, audibly, when I saw the three, massive, iron-clad holes emerge from the side of Philopappos Hill. There it was. Socrates’ Prison.
It looked just like the pictures showed. I couldn’t believe it. You could even walk right up to it! The interior chambers were only about ten feet deep and were all connected to one another. I imagined what it must have been like for Socrates to await his fate here, in full view of the entire Athenian populace – a humiliating act of political theatre. I took a step back to process the magnitude of what I was seeing. It was here – right here – where Western thought pivoted from superstition to stable conviction. I felt like I had uncovered an ancient treasure. I remember feeling a sense of confident superiority to the throngs of tourists passing over the site, ignoring it on their way to the Parthenon. I devoured what was written on the informational plaque below, which gave a detailed account of the cave’s overall layout and the construction methods the Ancient Athenians used to build it. Then I read the following lines:
“The preserved back part of the structure is a complex of three-rooms, carefully cut into bedrock, with doorways at the east and a cistern at the back. The use of the rooms is unknown. Its cave-like structure, however, and its proximity to the Athenian Agora must have led to the popular tradition that the building was the “Prison of Socrates” or an “ancient bath”, as guidebooks and history books inform us.”
“Wait, what?” I said aloud. The use of the rooms is unknown? Popular tradition? I thought it was fact? Has my conviction been misguided? Have I been wrong all along?
I pulled out my cell phone and Googled “Socrates prison real location”. A dozen page hits came up corroborating the plaque, saying that it was nothing but an urban myth that this spot was where Socrates spent his final days. The true location of Socrates’ prison was unknown, with the best guesses positioning it on the outskirts of the Agora, about a kilometre walk back down Apostolou Pavlou. I couldn’t believe this new information. For months, I had believed that this was the spot. For months, I had planned my visit. And for a brief period before reading the plaque, I stood in smug conviction that this was the spot. I even pictured Socrates spending his final days languishing about in front of the gawking public. But these ideas were all wrong. He was never here! This is not Socrates’ prison, and it was near impossible for me to believe this new information. The obstinance of my previous judgment felt heavy, as if they were locked away, shackled from free movement. But it was true, the prison did not belong to Socrates. And by judging it so, it was me who was imprisoned!
Not Socrates’ Prison (2022). Taken by author.