For George Miller: friend, mentor, and who used to remind me, “If you haven’t read it three times, you haven’t read it.”
This essay will attempt to summarize Plato’s Apology and highlight some of the key points in the dialogue. It is one of my all-time favorite works of philosophy, and all my students read it out loud in class. For those looking to navigate the waters of philosophy, I recommend it as a first port of call.
In the preface of Bettany Hughes’s excellent biography on Socrates entitled The Hemlock Cup, she shares an amusing anecdote. Upon embarking on the project, a friend of Hughes’s told her the subject of her research was the hole in a doughnut. In other words, the best she could do was describe the doughnut. We do not know much about the historical Socrates. Our principal sources are the biographer of antiquity, Xenophon, and Plato. Some leading scholars are dismissive of Xenophon, which basically leaves us with Plato.
The Apology is a work by Plato. However, it is unique in the works of Plato due to its context. In the Apology, Plato is more or less acting as a court reporter or a journalist of sorts. The scene of this work is the trial of Socrates, and it features Socrates’s defense (apologia) against the spurious charges brought against him.
Yet, we can safely assume Plato was close in his description of the proceedings, because: (1) Plato knew Socrates; they were friends; (2) Plato was a juror at the trial and was in attendance; (3) Plato was a rather bright bulb and likely had a decent memory; and (4) many of the 501 jurors who were there that day would have read the Apology when it came out, and if Plato produced a fanciful account, it would have tarnished his reputation as a public intellectual.
So, for these reasons, we can make a strong, inductive inference that, although this is Plato’s writing, he probably at least captured the flavor of the hearing, along with Socrates’s personality. I also tend to believe, for what it’s worth, that it is peppered with verbatim wording that Socrates actually used — or tended to use.
Plato positioned Socrates in many of his dialogues as a character, and supposedly we get a glimpse into Socrates’s personality and way of operating in what are considered the early dialogues – which include the Apology.
The Apology, as mentioned, is the trial of the accused Socrates. The setting is a large, open-air courtyard. The trial’s 501 Athenian jurors — chosen by lot — are gathered around the square’s perimeter. There is a water-clock to keep time. The year is 399 BC. Socrates has decided to forgo legal representation; all he has to do is speak the truth.
Athens is in a sour mood. First off, it just lost a long and nasty war with Sparta called the Peloponnesian War (431-404 …
Read the full article which is published on Daily Philosophy (external link)
