Socrates turns last to the artisans. Unlike the politicians and poets, they truly know their trades, and he admits they are wiser than he is in that respect. Yet even the best workmen repeat the same mistake: because they excel at one craft, they assume they understand high matters far beyond it. That false confidence overshadows their real skill. On behalf of the oracle, Socrates asks whether he would rather keep his ignorance without pretense or share both their knowledge and their blindness. He chooses to stay as he is.
The investigation has made him many dangerous enemies and spread calumny across Athens. People call him wise because he exposes ignorance in others, but he insists only God is truly wise. The oracle was not praising Socrates. It used his name to teach that human wisdom is worth little, and that the wisest person knows how little he knows. Obedient to the god, he keeps questioning anyone who seems wise, has no time for public affairs or private gain, and lives in utter poverty because of the work.
Wealthy young men gather to watch these examinations and begin imitating them. When pretenders are exposed, they do not blame themselves. They blame Socrates: this confounded misleader of youth. Asked what evil he teaches, they cannot say. They repeat the standard charges against philosophers: things in the clouds and under the earth, no gods, making the worse appear the better cause. They refuse to admit their pose of knowledge has been found out. Numerous, ambitious, and persuasive, they have filled Athens with loud calumny for years.
That is why Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon have set upon him, speaking for poets, craftsmen and politicians, and rhetoricians. Socrates says he cannot clear away such a mass of slander in a moment. He has concealed nothing. His plainness of speech makes them hate him, and he treats their hatred as proof that he is telling the truth.
