It was after his introduction to the common corruption of the Athenian political world that Plato began to have second thoughts about his place in such a world; it was during this time that Plato began seriously to consider how the interests and well-being of a people could best be served by the citizens who govern them. And it was at this time in his growth as a thinker that a singular event occurred: Plato witnessed a series of politically motivated maneuvers and fabrications brought against his old friend and teacher, Socrates. Plato saw very clearly that the charges brought against Socrates were unjust; it is plain that Plato feared for the outcome of those charges. How, Plato wondered, could justice be achieved for Socrates; indeed, how might justice be achieved for every citizen of the state? It is this interest in the possibility of achieving justice for every citizen that serves as the major argument in the Republic, an interest which threads through every political dialogue that Plato wrote.
It is plain that Plato must have known and listened to Socrates during Plato’s childhood and young adulthood (Plato’s relatives, Critias and Charmides, were friends of Socrates). When Plato was 27 or 28, his friends and relatives who had invited him to join them in governing the Athenians tried to get even with some of their political enemies whom they had overthrown in their latest revolution. They tried, Plato tells us, to enlist the aid of old Socrates in helping them to arrest one of their political adversaries and to carry him off and execute him. Apparently the attempt to involve Socrates in this travesty of justice and subsequent murder in the name of the state was in order to lend the name of the great philosopher as a party to their illegal activity and to force him to share in their guilt. Socrates refused, and his refusal to ally himself with corrupt politicians was remarked and noted. But even when the political power bases shifted and a new revolution ensued, Plato was tempted to involve himself in politics, whereupon he saw the same system of political pay-backs and corruptions practiced by the “new” leaders of the state. And Socrates’ steadfast refusal to deal with corrupt politicians, no matter their party affiliation, had not gone unnoticed.
Socrates is one of the most singular men in history: He was a great teacher, but he never was employed as a teacher, never took money for the things he taught. He never wrote anything so far as we know; all we know of what he taught was recorded by his “students,” the young men of Athens whom he met on various street corners in Athens, youngsters (like Plato) whom he engaged in conversations. For Socrates was a true philosopher, a lover of learning and of truth.
As we have seen, Socrates refused to ally himself for any reason with people whom he felt clearly to be culpable of unjust acts. And Socrates would not cease asking questions of those same people: What is your understanding of justice? If you are wise, how do you know you are wise? If you are a leader of the state, where precisely are you leading the state? If you are in a position of authority, what are your credentials for that authority? In short, Socrates by his own precepts and example must have encouraged the youth of Athens, including Plato, to question authority wherever that authority might reside. In the turbulent Athens of his day, this led to Socrates’ downfall.
Socrates, known as the gadfly of Athens because of his persistent questions about the authenticity of many “truths,” was in 399 b.c. brought to trial and charged with not believing in the gods and with corrupting the youth of Athens. Socrates had made too many enemies in high places. At a time when the young Plato was still considering becoming a politician, his dear friend and dearest teacher was put to death by politicians. The story of Socrates’ trial and death is told in Plato’s dialogues, the Apology and the Phaedo.
Thus it is that Plato apparently decided that he had had enough of politics. He resolved to spend his time in the study of philosophy, like his teacher, Socrates, because Plato believed that a just and uncorrupted state (as a political reality) could not be formed until citizens arrived at an understanding of what constitutes justice and the good life as concepts. Plato resolved to dedicate his life to the study of philosophy.
After the death of Socrates, Plato left Athens and, according to Hermodorus, one of Plato’s students, he spent the next few years traveling in Greece, Egypt, and Italy. Again, the letter that Plato wrote when he was 60 (The Seventh Letter) tells us that he went to Italy and Sicily when he was 40, but the gluttony and sexual debauchery he found there disgusted him. He did make a new friend there, Dion, the brother-in-law of Dionysius I of Syracuse (in Sicily).
