Virtual Socrates Colloquium – Nicholas D. Smith & Irina Deretić: “Summoning Socrates: On Plato’s Apology 38c-42a”

The International Society for Socratic Studies is pleased to announce the schedule for the Virtual Socrates Colloquium 2025-2026.
You can see the schedule –HERE

Notice that there is no need to register and all you need to do is join the following Zoom link: https://eu01web.zoom.us/j/63132371340?pwd=nQwGxammbjajdzRSM9ZQXsCLoqfS2C.1
Meeting ID: 631 3237 1340
Passcode: 088283

The International Society for Socratic Studies is pleased to invite you to a lecture by Nicholas D. Smith (Lewis & Clark College) and Irina Deretić (University of Belgrade), on the 26th of February at 18:00 (Rome Time), entitled

Prejudice at Socrates’ Trial

Abstract:
At his trial, according to Plato’s account, Socrates has less than a single day to try to remove or at least cast doubt upon long-standing prejudices that impede his jurors’ responsiveness to rational persuasion. Faced with prejudiced jurors, Socrates must do his best to persuade them, but he does not seem to think his chances of success are good (19a5, 24a3). Even so, when the jurors reach a verdict in the case, Socrates is surprised by how close he had come to winning acquittal (36a3-6). In this presentation, we appraise the ways in which Plato represents Socrates as responding to the prejudices against him, by the measures regarded as the most effective by contemporary social scientists and journalists who seek to challenge or refute what they see as the effects of misinformation and disinformation. Our conclusion is that such contemporary assessments would find the defense Plato gives to Socrates in the Apology well-crafted and efficacious.
Our project is textual and philosophical. We take it as a given that Plato represents the defense he offered as having significant success – obviously not enough for him to be acquitted, but even more than he himself expected to achieve. Plato’s Apology is the only source that reports that the guilty verdict was by such a slim margin, so perhaps some readers may treat it with skepticism. For our purposes herein, however, we will take Plato’s account as our basis. Whatever its value as a historical source, Plato’s Apology surely deserves a close reading on its own merits.

Bio:
Irina Deretić is a Full Professor of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade, where she serves as Head of the Institute of Philosophy and leads the project The History of Serbian Philosophy. Her research focuses on Ancient Greek philosophy, German hermeneutics, Serbian philosophy, virtue ethics, and literary theory. She has authored six monographs, including How to Name Being? Logos, Plato, Aristotle; From Plato’s Philosophy; Plato’s Philosophical Mythology; and Words and Literature. She has published over 140 scholarly articles in multiple languages – including Serbian, English, German, Spanish, and Slovenian – and has edited seven academic volumes. Professor Deretić has held visiting professorships in Jena, Uppsala, and Vladimir, and is a member of the Executive Board of the Serbian Philosophical Society. Having already published several papers together with Nicholas D. Smith, they are continuing their collaboration.

Nicholas D. Smith is the James F. Miller Professor of Humanities (Emeritus) in the departments of Classics and Philosophy at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon USA. He is the co-author (with Thomas C. Brickhouse) of Socrates on Trial (Oxford and Princeton 1989), Plato’s Socrates (Oxford 1994), The Philosophy of Socrates (Westview 2000), Plato and the Trial of Socrates (Routledge 2004), and Socratic Moral Psychology (Cambridge 2010). He is the sole author of Summoning Knowledge in Plato’s Republic (Oxford 2019) Socrates on Self-Improvement (Cambridge 2021) and is in this project continuing his collaboration with Irina Deretić.