Postawa Sokratesa wobec śmierci w platońskiej Obronie Sokratesa

Artur Pacewicz

The aim of the paper is a (re)construction of Socrates’ attitude to death as seen in Platos literary work Apology of Socrates. It appears that Socrates does not take into consideration the possibility of being sentenced to death immediately after the trial starts, but only when he reaches that part of the work called ' digression’. After Socrates has taken it into account, perhaps because of the response o f the judges in the court to his speech, his attitude to death seems at first to be in accordance with the generał plan of his defense and views: he has no knowledge, he is searching for wisdom in other people and dissociating himself from defining death and appraising its significance. Keeping aloof from the topie in this way makes death something which can be faced without fear, but the same cannot yet be said about heroic conduct towards it. This is so, because death is not the highest in the hierarchy of values, which are assumed by the defendant. Virtue is, for example, far more important than self-preservation. A elear turn in the discourse takes place after Socrates has been sentenced to death. Firstly, he tries to justify at least the claim that death is something good for him in times and conditions like these. Secondly, he takes pains to make credible on the ground of the common views the thesis that death could be something good for everyone who is distinguished by virtue.

Theologica Wratislaviensia 3 (2008)