Quotation
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“I go about persuading you, young and old, not to care for your bodies or your money as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul.”
Socrates · Socratic · Ancient · 399 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that Socrates states his actual occupation: persuading Athens to rank the condition of the soul above body and money. A competing reading hears Plato's later psychology being read back into the trial, so 'soul' may be heavier here than Socrates's own word would have been. The lines come just before the gadfly image, in the speech where he refuses to stop. Care, in the Greek, is a matter of degree, not a ban on food or wages.
Did Socrates really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Plato's report of Socrates in the Apology, not a transcript. The English is close to G. M. A. Grube's translation of 30a–b.
Where it comes from
Plato, Apology 30a–b
Approximate date: 399 BCE.
How to use it
A pay rise and a gym plan can both be sensible and still be the things you watch more closely than how you treat people at home. The comparison he wants is of strength of care, not a vow of poverty. Look at which worry gets the last half-hour of the evening, and that ranking is the practice, on a British weekday as much as in Athens.
A mindset reading
The habit is to notice the stronger care, not to denounce the weaker one. Body and money remain real. The question is whether they have been allowed to outrank the kind of person the choices are making, and persuasion, in his picture, is aimed at that order.
Understand the philosophy
Socrates is answering what he has been doing in the city, against the charge that he corrupts the young. Psyche, soul, here means the living person as a moral agent, not yet a full Platonic metaphysics of immortality. The best possible state of it is virtue and wisdom. He says he will not stop the persuasion even if they acquit him on condition of silence.
- ethics
- self
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that Socrates states his actual occupation: persuading Athens to rank the condition of the soul above body and money. A competing reading hears Plato's later psychology being read back into the trial, so 'soul' may be heavier here than Socrates's own word would have been. The lines come just before the gadfly image, in the speech where he refuses to stop. Care, in the Greek, is a matter of degree, not a ban on food or wages.
Did Socrates really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Plato's report of Socrates in the Apology, not a transcript. The English is close to G. M. A. Grube's translation of 30a–b.
Which work is it in?
Plato, Apology 30a–b Approximate date: 399 BCE.