The Education of Socrates: The Three Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of the Apology

I discuss a view derived from philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida, which sees language as presenting reality itself rather than representing things distinct from it. I give a reading of the Apology according to this Presentational Model of Language, organized around the three prophecies that it gives and that itself is the fulfillment of. All three prophecies bring about that which they predict in their very predicting of it. This reading finds the dialogue to be self-referentially about the nature of interpretation and about Plato’s writing of it. Its climax comes in the only recorded dialogue between Socrates and Plato, which I accord far more significance than most. Presentational language avoids Plato’s criticisms of language in general and writing in particular, allowing them to speak philosophy by his own lights.