Socrates Apology

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The Apology The Apology is by no means a literal apology delivered by Socrates to the people of Athens, but rather Socrates’s defense during his trial. Therefore, his goals are not to admit his guilt for his past, but to plead his innocence and expand upon his way of life. The first of his goals is to derail and prove wrong the old charges; not the official charges but concepts that people have been accusing him of for years. Socrates, at the time of the trial, is seventy years old, which is around double the average life span, leading the reader to assume people have been hearing the lies about Socrates their whole lives. The entire point of disproving the old charges is so that he can start the trial with a clean slate and no bias even though …show more content…
This signifies that Socrates entered the trial with very little chance of being proven innocent. At the very beginning of the trial, Socrates reminds the jurors that their oath requires them to leave all of their personal opinions at the door and bring no bias. This frustrated and offended many of them, setting the trial off to a bad start. The first old charge that he begins to disprove is the accusation that he is a natural philosopher. He discredits this by stating that natural philosophy is not the same as atheism. He encourages anyone who has ever heard him speak to get up under oath and speak about it. He says that if anyone has ever heard him mention anything under natural philosophy to get up and tell the rest of the jury no one takes him up on this offer. Socrates himself does not have a problem with natural philosophy, but he never was and never will be one. He had to get rid of this accusation because a large fraction of the Athenian population associated natural philosophy with atheism. The second of the old charges he addresses was that many considered him a sophist. He had many arguments against these accusations, …show more content…
He also proves the atheist charge wrong by mentioning his divine mission from Apollo (who is a god of the city). He brings up his time during the war when he obeyed his officers and risked his life for mortals. He also obeys Apollo because if he had just led a normal life he could’ve been accused of Impiety because he wouldn’t have been listening to Apollo. Either way, he will face death because if he disobeys the gods he has a corrupted soul, but if he obeys the gods then he has a pure soul but is put to death because of this trial. In the end, Socrates was found guilty despite his arguments and was punished with death. He was given the option to offer up an alternative to death, but if he did pick a penalty he basically would’ve been admitting his guilt. He finished the apology with a speech consoling and comforting those who found him innocent and his divine mission was worth dying for. He also says that once a person determines what they’re going to do, and they’re in a situation that needs moral action, then do it. Don’t talk yourself out of
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