He tells his democratic audience that he was right to have withdrawn from political life, because a good person who fights for justice in a democracy will be killed. (Xenophon, for example, dwells on the troubles of old age from which Socrates is escaping by being condemned to death, whereas Plato barely alludes to Socrates age.) Let us take up this question, from the beginning. But he would not have felt bound merely to reproduce, as best he could, the speech that Socrates delivered. The people, men of Athens, who put this story about are my most formidable accusers, since those who hear this tend to believe that whoever investigates such matters does not believe in the gods either. The Apology of Socrates (Greek: , Apologa Sokrtous; Latin: Apologia Socratis), written by Plato, is a Socratic dialogue of the speech of legal self-defence which Socrates (469-399 BC) spoke at his trial for impiety and corruption in 399 BC.. 1 translated by Harold North Fowler; Introduction by W.R.M. 21-44) INSTRUCTIONS: You must type Whether or not I am courageous in the face of death is another matter, but in view of my own reputation, and that of yourselves and the entire city, I do not think it good that I do anything like this, at my age and with the name I have, for whether this is true or false, it has been decided that Socrates 35A is somehow superior to most people. [4]For, gentlemen, each of these men has the ability to go to any city, to the young people who are allowed consort free of charge with their own fellow citizens as they please, 20A and persuade the young to abandon the company of their own people, consort with them, pay their fees, and feel grateful besides. This is the slander against me, and these are its causes, 24B and if you investigate these matters, either now or in the future, you shall find that it is so. But, men of Athens, Plato here, Crito and Critobolus and Apollodorus are encouraging me to propose thirty mina. 24E But, best of men, I did not ask you that. Nevertheless, I shall not parade any of them here before you and beg you to vote for my acquittal. Well then, why wont I do any of this? For this they deserve criticism. For this I would probably have been executed, had the regime not fallen so quickly. They agree about what the charges against Socrates were: failing to acknowledge the gods recognized by the city, introducing other new divinities, and corrupting the young. Book Review: "Apology" by Plato; Grube and Cooper (2002) Religious scandal and the coup of the oligarchs, The perceived fragility of Athenian democracy. And yet, hardly anything of what they said is true. Design Stirtingale. The text of this book is a resume of the entire body of the Platonic writings. For while he makes you seem to be blessed, I make you blessed in reality, and while he has no need of sustenance, 36E I need it. And if I also go on to say the highest good for a man is to engage in discourse every day about excellence, and the other issues on which you have heard me discoursing, and examining myself and others, and that for a human being an unexamined life is not worth living, you are even less convinced by what I say. For you have done this now, believing that you will avoid giving an account of your life, but I am telling you the very opposite will happen. In his Apology, however, Socrates says that Plato is one of several friends in the audience. Now I would have been acting terribly, men of Athens, 28E if I had remained at my post, just like anyone else, running the risk of being killed, when my commanders, chosen by yourselves, placed me in the ranks at Potidaea, Amphipolis and Delium,[10]yet deserted my post for fear 29A of death or for any other reason, when the god, as I believed and understood, positioned me where I had to live, practising philosophy and examining myself and others. 1. In effect, then, Socrates admits that his understanding of piety is radically different from the conventional conception. C. D. C. Reeve is Delta Kappa Epsilon Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The other class had a single textbook with excerpts. Apology. It goes somewhat as follows: it says that Socrates acts unjustly, by corrupting the young and believing, 24C not in the gods the city believes in, but in other novel divine forces. 19B Presumably the one Meletus relied upon when he brought this charge against me. $18.74/subscription + tax, Save 25% I shall tell you. Indeed in my opinion, men of Athens, this man is extremely arrogant and unrestrained, and has simply brought this charge in a spirit of arrogance, unrestraint and impetuosity. Is this what you are saying? Yet if, on the other hand, the divinities are illegitimate children of gods, born of nymphs or anyone else who is said to be their mother, is there any man who could believe that there are children of gods, but not believe there are gods? Well, I should read out their charge as if they were the accusers. For if that is what they mean I would accept that I am an orator, but not after their fashion. Although in none of Platos dialogues is Plato himself a conversational partner or even a witness to a conversation, in the Apology Socrates says that Plato is one of several friends in the audience. I have strong evidence for this, for the familiar sign would undoubtedly have opposed me unless I was embarking upon a good course of action. But, by Zeus, is this really what you think? Quite apart from reputation, gentlemen, it does not seem right to me either to implore 35C a juror, or to get acquitted by begging. Socrates does the opposite. No, it is a far greater evil to do what he is now doing: attempting to put a man to death in an unjust manner. Apology - The Dialogues of Plato I was not only enlightened by them, but moved as well in certain parts, more by Socrates' friends than the man himself. For this reason, philosophy may come to be seen as a dangerous and disreputable pursuit. But at the moment I do not have the money, unless of course you propose as much of a fine as I am able to pay. Well then, do you think I would have survived all these years had I taken to public life, and acting as befits a good man had sided with the just, and set that above all else, as one should? No, more than that - much more than that! 103 pages of Greek text (10 lines, 1/3 of Burnet's OCT) with vocabulary and grammatical notes on the same page 35 Greek-only pages formatted according to Burnet's OCT for classroom review As well as this, the young people follow me about of their own accord, those with the most free time who belong to the wealthiest families. For this is the very excellence of a judge, while the excellence of an orator is to speak the truth. Specifically, the Apology of Socrates is a defence against the charges of "corrupting the youth" and "not . 5 out of 5 stars 4.8 out of 5.0 5 Stars 277 4 Stars 21 3 Stars . Isnt this the case, Meletus, both with horses and all animals? 40E And indeed if death is like this, I say it is a boon, for in that case its entire duration is apparently no longer than a single night. For if I 33D am indeed corrupting some young people, and have already corrupted others, surely some of them now grown older, realising that I once gave them evil counsel when they were young, should come forward at this stage to accuse me and get their revenge. "Symposium" reflects on the ultimate manifestation of the love that controls the world, and "Republic" ponders society and the philosopher's role within it. Westacott, Emrys. The background against which this question is explored is a re-interpretation of Platos Phaedo, Augustines Confessions, and Descartes Discourse on Method. Rather, I am convinced that I have never intentionally wronged anyone. The other account we have of the trial, that of Xenophon, a contemporary of Socrates, is of a very different character. You have heard me describing the reason for this on many occasions, in many places. You should answer our questions, Meletus, while you gentlemen should recall the favour I asked of you at the beginning. Indeed I presume you knew Chaerophon. Suppose someone had to select that night wherein he slept beholding no dream, and compare the other days and nights of his own life to this one and say, on reflection, how many days and nights more pleasant than this one he had lived through during his life. (one code per order). The Socrates of the Republic therefore suggests that in an ideal society the young should not be exposed to ethical doubt until they are well into their maturity. I then went to someone else, to one of the people who seemed wiser than that man, and I came to the very same conclusions, and in this case too I was hated by him, and by many others. Now someone might perhaps say, Are you not ashamed, Socrates, that you have followed such a course as this, and now risk being executed as a result? To him I would respond, justifiably, What you are saying is not right, sir, if you think a man of any merit at all should reckon his chances of living or dying whenever he engages in action, and not consider this alone: whether he is acting justly or unjustly, doing the work of a good 28C man or a bad man. For, according to your argument, all of the demi-gods who met their death at Troy would be worthless, including the son of Thetis, who was so contemptuous of danger once the alternative was disgrace, that when his mother, a goddess, said to him when he was eager to slay Hector she said something like this I think My son, if you are going to avenge the murder of your friend, Patroclus, and slay Hector, you yourself shall be slain, says she, for straightaway after Hectors death, destiny awaits you too. But when he heard this he set death and danger at naught, and was much more afraid of living as a bad 28D man who does not avenge his friends, so he says, May I die straightaway, as soon as I have inflicted justice upon this unjust man, so that I remain not here by the curved ships, a laughingstock and a burden to the earth.[9]Do you imagine that he thought about death or danger? Unfortunately, there is no way to prove that Plato was striving to achieve this kind and degree of accuracy. Perhaps in response to the urgings of his friends, Socrates eventually proposes a fine, but the damage was done. There is one person, or very few, the horse-trainers, who can make them better, while most people corrupt the horses if they deal with them or use them? But he stuck to his mission throughout his life. You do not care about the issues on which you are prosecuting me. And in fact I think you will profit from listening, for I am now going to tell you something else at which you will probably make an outcry, but please do not do so, not at all. Or again, wouldnt any of you give anything to meet with Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod and Homer? Gorgias and Hippias each have their own eponymous Platonic dialogue. And by the Dog, men of Athens, for I must speak the truth to you, my experience was something like this. In fact, not one of them is true, and if you have heard from anyone that I undertake to educate people and charge money 19E for doing so, that is not true either, although I would regard this too as a fine accomplishment, if someone were able to educate people, as Gorgias of Leontini does, Prodicus of Ceos too, and Hippias of Elis. And in fact he once went to Delphi and dared to consult the oracle about this, and as I said, please do not raise a clamour, gentlemen yes, he asked if anyone was wiser than me. For death is one of two things: either it is like being nothing, and the dead have no awareness of anything or, as we are told, it is a change, and relocation of the soul from this place here to another place. And as they are younger, they will be more severe, and you will be more troubled. Now you claim that I believe in, and teach, divine forces, never mind if they are novel or ancient. But, as any reader of the work can see, Plato is at the same time using the trial and death of Socrates to condemn Athens, to call upon his readers to reject the conventional life that Athens would have preferred Socrates to lead, and to choose instead the life of a Socratic philosopher.