πίστις (Faith/Conviction) In Plato's Apology

Question

In Plato's Apology, a main question is that between belief and knowledge, between the pretense of Socrates' accusers and the simple truth of Socrates, between the laws of men and the laws that transcend men.

My question is however, how much of Socrates is grounded in faith/conviction (πίστις) rather than logic or reason. Is it a faith in those things? Where does faith fit into the belief/knowledge picture?

Because in Apology he talks about the Oracle of Delphi and says...

“...that God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”.

Socrates also says,

“Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid upon me,–the word of God, I thought, ought to be considered first.”

So I guess my question is when Socrates professes this kind of faith in God which he never justifies, is he really saying that man can know nothing and that an extreme skepticism is the only tenable position? How does this square with Plato's assertion of metaphysical truth in the Forms and in cultivating virtues and reason?

In Antigone the eponymous heroine makes a similar argument about the laws of God being greater than the laws of men. She seems to be saying that faith in the laws of the gods is greater than belief, with the obvious question being how can you delineate between the two. Is there where reason comes in?

Edit: In Apology as well as Antigone the epistemic word πίστις is not used anywhere, but rather derivatives of the word νόμος are used (see the discussion in the answer below). In the aforementioned answer, a point was made that this is a sociological and political word, not necessarily part of an epistemic assertion. But it seems in the translations of both Apology and Antigone the characters are making epistemic assertions that rest on their gods/gods' laws.

Answer 1

Well after looking at this and reading a lot of commentaries over the past few days, I think I can venture an answer.

As was said before, πίστις is not used in the early Platonic dialogues. When referring to belief in the gods, you will most often find a derivative of νόμος such as νομίζω (in Euthyphro for example) which means law or custom. This is very interesting because it sets up the conflict that is central to both Apology and Antigone that is, whose law is higher, the law of the gods or the law of men? This has been a recurring theme throughout philosophy.

I went to the Euthyphro because it is a dialogue in which Socrates is conversing with someone who should be learned in the gods, that is the soothsayer Euthyphro himself. Euthyphro confuses piety - sanctioned by the gods (ὅσιος) - with justice - sanctioned by men (δίκη).

Throughout the course of Euthyphro Socrates demonstrates that these two are not the same thing, and hints that justice is greater than piety, especially at the end when he reduces piety to mere bartering between gods and men. What Socrates seems to be refuting is a blind belief in the gods without critical inquiry into justice, that is, what is right and wrong for men here on the mortal plane.

How does this square with his appeals to the gods in Apology? It could merely be a turn of phrase or be used in an ironic way, but also I think it is meant to be ambiguous. A key point is that in the case of Socrates, his gods do not tell him what to do in the way that Euthyphro believes he is instructed by the gods to bring a charge against his own father. Rather, Socrates asks questions and inquires after others, he knows only that he knows nothing. This makes his knowledge quite different from that of Euthyphro. When Socrates does make claims about what is true in the Apology he does so without appeal to the gods, but instead by appealing to a sense of δίκη...

I do know that it is evil and disgraceful to do wrong and to disobey him who is better than I, whether he be god or man.

Here evil is (κακός) and disgraceful is (αἰσχρός) neither of which (as far as I can tell) are specific to transgressions against either gods or men, as Socrates says. Note then that he doesn't use a negative of ὅσιος to say evil, rather he just uses a word that means generally reprehensible.

In short, just because Socrates appeals to the gods does not mean he doesn't want us to pursue critical inquiry or that he will suddenly make claims as supported by the gods, instead he is motivated by an oracle to ask questions and search not for ὅσιος but for δίκη.

Answer 2

Regarding gods, we can see the discussion of the accusation that Socrates does not believe in the “the gods the city believes in”, in :

• Thomas Brickhouse & Nicholas Smith, Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates (2004), Ch.2.5.3. Not believing in the gods the city believes in and introducing new divinities (26b8–28a2), page 111.

In the relevant passages of Apology (see 24b-c and 26b), Plato does not use πίστις in speaking about Socrates' "belief in (city) gods".

The verb translated with "belief" is nomizein (νομίζει), nomizo, directly derived from nomos : law, custom.

It has nothing to do with faith, nor with theology, and Socrates' crime has nothing to do with heresy.

πίστις is a Platonic term, used into Republic, Book VI, 511d-e in the context of the "classification" of knowledge:

• νόησις (the highest form : intellectual understanding, intuition),

• διάνοια (the second form : reasoning),

• πίστις (belief)

• and εἰκασία (visual imagination).

πίστις is of course not “faith” in Plato, but Neoplatonists, Christians, and commentators have confused the two ideas.