alone the wisest man. He tried to prove the oracle wrong by examining reputedly wise men and he realized that they thought that they knew things that they did not and this made them unwise. It was after these encounters that Socrates realized that the oracle “meant that human wisdom is worth little or nothing.”(19) It was this realization that made Socrates wise.Socrates knew that he would be convicted and sentenced to death, so his speech on death was not foolish. He was just addressing the inevitable. He says that a man of any worth does not think of life and death or of anything except whether he is acting as a good or bad man. Socrates does not fear death, “for no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man. But men fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils.”(24) Socrates was borderline foolish when he discussed his political career and how he was ill suited for it because was just and made his decisions accordingly. This was a thinly veiled allusion to the moral character of the politicians of Greece, which must have been insulting and would not help acquit him.After Socrates was found guilty, he accepted the death penalty by insulting the jury again. He proposed that, instead of the death penalty, he should receive a “public maintenance in the Prytaneum.”(29) Today, that would be like a convicted killer asking that, instead of execution, he be sentenced to stay at Club Med. This was not foolish in Socrates’ situation because if he had made a plea bargain, it would contradict everything that he stood for. He warns that people will question the decision to put Socrates, “a wise man,” to death. After his conviction, Socrates was given an opportunity to escape his unjust conviction. He tells his would be saviors what we call today a social contract. A social contract states, simply, that you must obey all la...
