Friendship, Persuasion And Irony: The Relationship Between Socrates And Crito

Friendship, Persuasion and Irony

Zhijun ( Kior ) QI

The relationship between Socrates and Crito plays a decisive role in the obligations and affections they feels toward each other. On one hand, as a loyal and genuine friend, Crito urges Socrates to flee Athens before Socrates is put to death, despite Crito’s considerable concern about his own reputation. On the other hand, Socrates argues against and succeed persuading Crito with the power of speech and irony. Crito’s friendship and worries motivate his dangerous, expensive, and effortful proposals to persuade Socrates to escape. He feels attached to Socrates. Crito visits the jails frequently and even pays the warder for the visits, as 43a suggests, “I have been here often and I have given him something”. He considers Socrates as “a friend whom I can never possibly replace,” the loss of which will be a “calamity” (44b). He is also afraid of losing reputation because people will think “I could have saved you if I were willing to spend money”. These passions and worries make Crito to run any risk to help Socrates escape. Crito presents several arguments to persuade Socrates. Crito argues that if Socrates does

Crioto’s loyalty and submissiveness is the basin for Socrates’ persuasion. Suppose Crito does not accept what Socrates says, but argues tactically, appealing to the words he knows hold enormous weight for Socrates like injustice, betrayal, hypocrisy, virtue, shame, then things would not go so smoothly. But Crito does not obtain the ability and personality, which finally Crito, somewhat bizarrely, turns out to “recognize” that his reasons are not sturdy