In your plan: Week 10, Wed, 23 Dec 2026.
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Overview
Plato's Apology is his version of the speech Socrates gave at his trial in Athens in 399 BCE, where he was charged with impiety and with corrupting the young. Apology here means a defence, not an expression of regret. Socrates refuses to flatter the jury, explains why he questions his fellow citizens, and accepts a death sentence rather than give up philosophy. The work matters because it is the founding portrait of a person who treats honest inquiry and integrity as more important than survival.
Context
Athens in 399 BCE had recently lost the Peloponnesian War, endured a brief oligarchic regime called the Thirty, and restored democracy. Socrates had been associated with men who harmed the city, such as Critias and Alcibiades. A jury of several hundred citizens heard the case. Socrates left no writings, so we depend on Plato, Xenophon and others, whose accounts differ.
Read the full guide: chapter summaries, competing interpretations, key terms
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Curator's notes
- Why it matters
- Socrates dies for philosophy. Justice, the soul, and the Cave allegory of education.
- Use in training and coaching
- Socratic questioning as a coaching method; the Cave as a model of learning
- Connects to
- Aristotle; Augustine; all Western philosophy
- What to read
- Apology whole; Republic Books 1, 7 (the Cave)
- Text (date)
- Plato, Apology, Republic, Symposium (c. 380 BCE)
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