Socrates' Human Wisdom

By: Dylan Futter (Wits)

The concept of “human wisdom” (anthr?pin? sophia) is fundamental to Socrates’ defence speech in the Apology. But it has not yet been properly understood. The present essay offers an analysis of human wisdom as aporia, and, on this basis, proposes solutions to several fundamental problems in the interpretation of the Apology. The proposed analysis of human wisdom is confirmed by its facilitating a coherent reading of a text that “gets more difficult every time one looks at it” (Stokes 1992, 28).