Plato's account of Socrates's defence speech at his 399 BCE trial in Athens on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Structured in three parts — defence proper, response to the guilty verdict, and address after the death sentence — it presents the philosophical examined-life argument and Socrates's refusal to recant under threat of execution.
The dialogue has been in continuous scholarly and popular reading since antiquity. Its historical accuracy is contested: most scholars treat it as a stylized Platonic composition rather than a verbatim transcript, and Xenophon's separate Apology of Socrates offers a different account of events. The text is standard in undergraduate philosophy and classics curricula worldwide.
Contents
The Defence of Socrates (17a–35d)
The Guilty Verdict and Proposed Penalty (35e–38b)
Final Words After Sentencing (38c–42a)
Reception
Foundational text of Western philosophy as a literary form, in continuous reading since antiquity and standard in undergraduate curricula. Its historical accuracy is contested — most scholars treat it as a stylized Platonic composition rather than a verbatim transcript, and Xenophon's Apology of Socrates offers a meaningfully different account. Its martyrdom-of-reason framing has shaped every subsequent philosophical biography from Boethius to the modern era.
Frequently asked
What is the Apology about?
The Apology is Plato's account of Socrates's defence speech at his 399 BCE trial in Athens, where Socrates faced charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. The dialogue has three parts: the defence itself, Socrates's response to the guilty verdict, and his final address after the death sentence is pronounced.
Is the Apology a historically accurate account of Socrates's trial?
This is contested. Most scholars treat it as a stylized Platonic composition rather than a verbatim transcript of what Socrates said. Xenophon's separate Apology of Socrates offers a meaningfully different version of events, and Aristotle later classified dialogues of this type as a genre of fiction. The text remains the most influential ancient account of the trial.
Why is the Apology central to Western philosophy?
It is the primary source for Socrates's philosophical method — the examined life, the claim to knowing only his own ignorance, and the refusal to abandon inquiry under threat of death. Its martyrdom-of-reason framing has shaped the Western image of the philosopher from antiquity through the modern era, influencing writers from Boethius to Camus.