2. What do you need to know?
• The political and social background to the trial
• Socrates’ method of questioning using the correct terms to describe each
part and showing how it was used in the Euthyphro and the Crito
• The main ideas behind the set dialogues and be able to back these up
with specific detail:
– The nature of holiness (Euthyphro)
– Why Socrates was tried and convicted (Apology)
– The citizen’s duty to the state (mostly Crito, compared with Apology)
– Socrates’ attitude to death (mostly Phaedo, some Crito and Apology)
– Socrates’ ideas about religion (all four dialogues)
– The way a good man or philosopher, should live his life (all four
dialogues)
• Consider:
– How far did Socrates live up to his ideas about the right way to live?
3. Past Essay Questions
• Discuss the philosophers view of death and suicide as
it is presented in the Aploogy, Crito and Phaedo
• For what reasons was Socrates tried and condemned
to death? Use evidence from the works of Plato you
have studied to support your answer
• What do we learn from Plato about Socrates the
philosopher? Make reference to at least TWO of the
four dialogues.
4. The Apology – Part One
• Skill as an orator
• Earliest charges
• Delphic Oracle
• Questioning of politicians, poets and skilled craftsmen
• Formal charges
– Socrates guilty of corrupting the minds of the young
– Socrates is guilty of believing in supernatural things of his own invention,
instead of the gods recognised by the state
• Those who fear death ignorant
• Will not stop philosophizing
• No greater good has befallen Athenians – stinging fly
• Daimon
• Generals and Leon
• Will not resort to usual emotive arguments
5. The Apology – Part Two
• Punishment Speech
• Socrates points out vote was close
• Proposes alternative punishment – free meals
at the Prytaneum
• Socrates settles on 100 drachmae
• Jury is angry – would have expected Socrates
propose banishment
6. Apology - Part Three
• Speech after the Death Penalty
• 360 vote for the death penalty a opposed to 141 for
3000 drachmae
• Socrates says not lack of argument that has doomed
him
• Death a blessing
– Either annihilation
– Or Migration of the soul
• Ask them to look after his sons
7. Crito – Part One
• Crito has come to help Socrates escape. He tells Socrates that the boat
from Delos has been sighted and therefore Socrates will die the next day.
Socrates has had a dream and says that it will in fact be three days.
• Crito argues that he should escape
– Let down friends
– Children will not receive proper care
– Socrates giving his enemies just what they want
– Financial considerations
• Socrates replies
– Popular Opinion
– Consistency
8. Crito – Part Two
• Socrates’ dialogue with Laws of Athens
• Laws of Athens personified provide reasons for citizen’s duty to the state
– City state of Athens would not survive if each citizen failed to obey its
laws
– The laws have offered a framework which allows each citizen to grow
up and be educated under their care and protection
– By remaining in Athens, each citizen has thereby freely chosen to
abide by the laws; otherwise he could have left for another state
– Final remarks – No state would welcome him if he escaped /
Thessaly / the force behind the Laws arguments
9. The Phaedo – Part One
• Phaedo tells Echecrates he felt pleasure and pain
• Socrates dismisses wife
• Socrates tells of a dream to cultivate the arts
• Suicide wrong – possessions of the gods
• Cebes says that would want to stay with good master
• But – Socrates has positive expectation of death – able to
converse with gods after death
• Philosopher preparing for death whole life
• Avoid distractions
• Truth unattainable with body
• True philosophers make dying a profession
• Philosopher must show courage and temperance
