Socrates Rhetorical Analysis

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Socrates appeared to almost respond with humor or at the very least with a dry retort, certainly not apologizing for his positions. He calls the acquisitions slander, which seems to me that he uses an offensive rhetorical position, rather than a purely defensive or cowering posture. Socrates tells his audience, the accusers that Aristophanes is a place of comedy, again a rather offensive position to take against these accusers. This is particularly compelling in light of the potential for extreme punishment. Socrates underscores how little he thinks of these charges by suggesting that his sentence be free meals in the city center and one silver coin. Again confounding in light of the prosecution's offer of death as the sentence.
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Socrates this time uses Meletos instead of horses as his rhetorical foil. Socrates points out that Meletos never paid attention to the youth. He invites the Meletos to tell the court what exactly Socrates did to corrupt the youth making the point that someone who has little care for youth cannot charge another with neglect thus Meletos is contradicting himself and his charges are therefore baseless.
Finally Socrates says that no matter which way Meletos tries to accuse him the claims are without merit. If Socrates is corrupting youth is not intentional, therefore, he cannot be charged with committing an overt crime. "Either I have not a bad influence, or it is unintentional; so in either case what you (Meletos) claim is false." Since anything Socrates may have done to the youth was purely without intention and therefore totally innocent.
It appears that Socrates builds his arguments one upon another to a conclusion based on a logical progression of the arguments: Philosophers do not corrupt youth, Meletos contradicts himself, corruption by omission is not a crime, since Socrates is a Philosopher and not a teacher of youth he did not intend to corrupt youth and was falsely accused, and Socrates is not guilty and should not be

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