Plato’s Apology
The Apology is the first of three dialogues on
trial & death of Socrates
 Apology - an account of the trial
 Crito - the day before Socrates’
execution
 Phaedo - the day of the execution
 These three dialogues were probably
written in the 390s B.C.
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Plato’s Apology
Most of the dialogue is Socrates’ long speech
to the jury at his trial
1. A special kind of wisdom
• Socrates’ survey
• His conclusion (21d)
– Knowing the limits of one’s
genuine knowledge
– Being able to distinguish between
opinion and genuine knowledge
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Plato’s Apology
2. The formal indictment (24 b-c)
• Not the real reason that Socrates
was brought to trial
• What was the real reason?
– Some debate but probably his
hostility to the leaders of the
government and to the
democratic form of government see 31e.
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Plato’s Apology
• Some secondary factors
– By their persistent questioning,
Socrates and his students
annoyed many prominent
Athenians
– Socrates’ refusal to lend his
support to the government’s
prosecution of 10 generals after
the Peloponnesian War (32b).
See Tarrant’s note 55 on p. 220.
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Plato’s Apology
3. Socrates’ apology
• The sense of the word “apology”
here
 Are two apologies (closely related)
• (1) Care for the soul (30b)
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Plato’s Apology
• (2) The classic passage: “. . . The
unexamined life is not worth living .
. .” (Grube trans. 38a) [Tredennick
& Tarrant: “. . . Life without this
sort of examination is not worth
living . . .”]
• Cf. The analogy to a fly buzzing
around a lethargic horse (30e-31a)
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Plato’s Apology
4. The conviction & sentencing
 Convicted initially by a vote of 281 to
220 & sentenced to death
• Socrates is invited to propose an
alternative penalty
• His response
• The second vote for the death
penalty
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Plato’s Apology
5. Closing comments on death
• Death is one of two things:
annihilation or change; Socrates
does not argue for one or the other
here
• The latter is a form of immortality
• In either case, it is nothing to fear
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Plato’s Crito
Plato’s Crito
An account of the day before Socrates’
execution
1. Socrates & Plato on the opinions of the
masses (44d)
• Socrates & Plato's elitism
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Plato’s Crito
2. Socrates’ reasons for refusing to
escape
 Some secondary reasons
• fate
• old age
• is immoral to do wrong in response
to wrong (49b & 49d)
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Plato’s Crito

The primary reason: The social contract
theory
• main elements
– an agreement (49e, 51e)
analogy of state to parents (51b-d)
– tacit
– when made? (51d)
– emigrate (51d)
– no violence (51c)
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Plato’s Crito
– What if one disagrees with the
laws and rules of one’s state?
(51c)
Only 2 options (51b-c, 52a)
 A secondary reason for refusing to
escape
• A consequentialist argument (50b &
53b)
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Plato’s Crito
A critique of Socrates’ arguments in the Crito
If one disagrees with the laws of one’s
state, are there only 2 options?
Difficulties with the right to emigrate
The scope of the contract - how does it
include non-participants?
 Joseph Tussman’s surrogate theory
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Plato’s Crito
Critique (cont’d)
What if one makes an agreement to an evil
government? Socrates tries to cover
(49e). Does he succeed?
 The paradox
 Hanna Pitkin’s theory of hypothetical
consent
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Plato’s Crito
Critique (cont’d)
In his death, was Socrates a martyr for
free speech? Was he “the first martyr of
free speech”? (I.F. Stone)
A brief history of the social contract theory
after Plato
 Plato’s Crito is the locus classicus
 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)
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Plato’s Crito
 John Locke (English, 1632-1704) Two Treatises of Government (167983)
 Jean Jacques Rousseau (French, 17121778) - Du Contrat Social (1762)
 Thomas Jefferson (United States,
1743-1826) - Declaration of
Independence (1776)
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Plato’s Crito
 John Rawls (United States, b. 1921) A Theory of Justice (1971)
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