Apology

It's immediately evident why the Apology is situated at the beginning of Plato's works.  It provides the crucial backstory to the literary character of Socrates.  I'm guessing this may be the only time we really find out much about the man himself, as opposed to his questions or views.  Of course, there don't seem to be a whole lot of other sources describing the historical Socrates, so we should take Plato's account with a grain of salt.  But I doubt there's much point in questioning the now classic descriptions.  Socrates is only wise because he knows that he is not wise; he believes that the pursuit of virtue is more urgent than the pursuit of money or fame or pleasure; he thinks the unexamined life is not worth living; he has no fear of death because he cannot know what it's like; etc ...

Plato is able to present all this background because the Apology is not really a dialog.  There's some back and forth with Meletus, who has brought Socrates to trial on charges not believing in the gods of Athens and for corrupting its youth.  But basically it's just Socrates' long soliloquy defending himself.   And since the charges are a bit vague, it gives Socrates a chance to talk about what he's been doing all these years and why he's caught flak for it, not for the first time.  In fact, there's quite a lot of autobiography here, and since it is presented with a rhetorical flourish (however ironic) intended to convince the jury, it's a bit flowery compared to his usual speech.  So I'll just focus on what I consider the crucial bits.

Socrates got started in the philosophy business after he went to see the Oracle at Delphi.  He asked the Oracle if any man was wiser than he, and was told that "no one is wiser".  Since then, he's gone around talking to people who claim to be wise, asking them questions and discovering from their replies that they don't have the deepest questions any better figured out that he does.  Doing this publicly is enough to make a fella unpopular, which is why he's on trial.

I went to one of those reputed wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I could refute the oracle and say to it: "This man is wiser than I, but you said I was." Then, when I examined this man — there is no need for me to tell you his name, he was one of our public men—my experience was something like this: I thought that he appeared wise to many people and especially to himself, but he was not. I then tried to show him that he thought himself wise, but that he was not. As a result he came to dislike me, and so did many of the bystanders. So I withdrew and thought to myself: "I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know." After this I approached another man, one of those thought to be wiser than he, and I thought the same thing, and so I came to be disliked both by him and by many others.

So Socrates is the original speaker of truth to power.  A gadfly as he describes himself.  Though the only truth he has to offer is that power is ignorant.  Philosophy begins with this circularity -- the paradoxical wisdom of ignorance.  Even though this is phrased, like pretty much all paradoxes, as a negation, it immediately implies some positive content.  We move in the direction of wisdom when we acknowledge and confront our ignorance.  Knowing that you know nothing still places a value on the pursuit of knowledge.  Socrates makes this positive content clear when he tells the jury that he's so convinced of this one thing he does know that he would rather die than give it up.

... if you said to me in this regard: "Socrates, we do not believe Anytus now; we acquit you, but only on condition that you spend no more time on this investigation and do not practice philosophy, and if you are caught doing so you will die;" if, as I say, you were to acquit me on those terms, I would say to you: "Men of Athens, I am grateful and I am your friend, but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy, to exhort you and in my usual way to point out to any one of you whom I happen to meet: 'Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?'

Still, I think it's not clear from this how consistent Socrates is being with his convictions.  He only knows that inquiry or the pursuit of knowledge stands above all else, because it provides the only means for overcoming our ignorant belief that we know something.  However, is this the same thing as caring for our soul in preference to wealth, reputation, and honors?  Or has he slipped in another assumption on the sly?  If we're totally ignorant, why bother to even pursue wisdom or truth or justice?  How do we even know what to aim at or what should be secondary?  How do we become aware that our ignorance is ignorance?  At this point, I'm not sure whether this is a separate question from the central circularity, or really just a restatement of it.  

On the other hand, Socrates is clearly consistent about one thing, even though it makes his impassioned commitment to philosophy a bit less dramatic -- he could care less about death.  He reasons that we really don't know anything about death, so it is pure ignorance to fear it.  He suggests perhaps we simply return to ashes, in which case there is no one there to suffer the death.  Or perhaps our soul is transported to some wonderful heaven.  Either way, Socrates is clearly committed to the counterintuitive idea that living well is more important than living, or that there's more to life than being alive.  I'm already tempted to interpret this as asking, "why fear death when we don't even know what the good life is yet?"  As in, "who am I and what makes whatever that thing is live?"  But this may be projecting Spinoza, Deleuze, and Zen back onto Socrates.

The same ironic or questioning attitude shows up in a few other comments Socrates makes in his defense.  First, in accord with his knowing nothing, he has never presented himself as a teacher of anything.  In particular, his is a purely public discourse, free to all, and he has never charged anyone a fee for any sort of private instruction.  On the other hand, he has also never sought any position of public political power that would enable him to impress his views on others.  He is thus the founder of a lineage that has mostly died out today -- the public intellectual who inspires us to think without having any specific expertise or authority.  As a private citizen, Sorcates did serve in the army, and on various citizen councils, but found that these posts were incompatible with his unbroken commitment to following his questions towards truth and justice and wisdom.  The way he explains how he discovered this incompatibility is curious enough to bear mentioning; the guy hears voices.

It may seem strange that while I go around and give this advice privately and interfere in private affairs, I do not venture to go to the assembly and there advise the city. You have heard me give the reason for this in many places. I have a divine or spiritual sign which Meletus has ridiculed in his deposition. This began when I was a child. It is a voice, and whenever it speaks it turns me away from something I am about to do, but it never encourages me to do anything. This is what has prevented me from taking part in public affairs, and I think it was quite right to prevent me. Be sure, men of Athens, that if I had long ago attempted to take part in politics, I should have died long ago, and benefited neither you nor myself. Do not be angry with me for speaking the truth; no man will survive who genuinely opposes you or any other crowd and prevents the occurrence of many unjust and illegal happenings in the city. A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time.

It seems important to note that even these voices preserve the open-endedness of Socrates' character.  They never tell him to do anything particular, only what not to do.  Even the guy's inner voice is only wise in recognizing he made a mistake.  I don't know how often Socrates' voices will appear in the dialogs, but they make a dramatic entrance at the end of the Apology by not appearing.  Even when the jury convicts him and sentences him to death, he tells them that he must have made the right decision in defending himself as he did because his voices never spoke up to warn him as they always have in the past.  In a sense the death of Socrates is divinely blessed.