Plato, Apology

     Please read over this text very carefully, TWICE.
We have to discuss it in detail.

     NOTE: We'll use the Penguin edition, which is in the
bookstore, for the class. But you can download the entire text 
here, in text form, or read it in
HTML format 

here.

     Please do not read any "commentaries" on it -- either from
the Penguin edition you may be using, or from any other source. 

     The reason is this: this is one of the fundamental texts of what
is often called "Western culture." Like Homer; the Bible; and perhaps
a couple of dozen other texts, the Apology is so basic
to this culture that most people "see what they have been taught they
will see" in it. We don't read "the text itself", but a text which has
already been "interpreted" for us, and we "see" in it just what
we have been told beforehand we ought to see, what it is
acceptable to see.

     We cannot escape this entirely. But let us try to read this text
without preconceived ideas about what it "means".

     After you have studied this text carefully, please write 300
words on one of the subjects below. Each group will write on a
different question.

     Group 1: Specifically, what does Socrates -- the person in whose
mouth the Apology, which is really a long speech -- say
he is being accused of? There are several charges; identify them very
carefully. Do not use direct quotes, but paraphrase accurately,
using your own words.

     Group 2: Specifically, who are Socrates' accusers? Who are
the people - specifically, again -- to whom Socrates claims he has
gone to seek wisdom, and whom he claims to be wiser than?

     Group 3: Who are Socrates' students and followers? What kind of
men are they? 

     Group 4: What reasons does Socrates give for his actions, and
what are those actions? What does he think the Athenians should do to
or for him?

     Group 5: What is Socrates' attitude towards his conviction?
Summarize what he says about it. Can you account for this attitude?
What is the evidence in the text?

     Please email to your group, and to me.