I found this brief history very useful and informative. To what extent do you think it was Socrates' epistemic skepticism that annoyed Athenian society rather than his corruption of the youth and atheism? Or did they see the corruption and atheism as following from his skepticism?
Thanks! I'm not an expert in Ancient Greece, but I would imagine that they wouldn't have seen much difference between his skepticism and atheism. He was questioning the gods and denying that they could have the attributes that the civic religion said they had - which I think they saw as atheism. And undermining the civic religion was undermining society and corrupting the youth. To put it differently, I think Athenian society interpreted his epistemic skepticism as a form of atheism.
I found this brief history very useful and informative. To what extent do you think it was Socrates' epistemic skepticism that annoyed Athenian society rather than his corruption of the youth and atheism? Or did they see the corruption and atheism as following from his skepticism?
Thanks! I'm not an expert in Ancient Greece, but I would imagine that they wouldn't have seen much difference between his skepticism and atheism. He was questioning the gods and denying that they could have the attributes that the civic religion said they had - which I think they saw as atheism. And undermining the civic religion was undermining society and corrupting the youth. To put it differently, I think Athenian society interpreted his epistemic skepticism as a form of atheism.