1 / 8

Plato's Apology

Plato's Apology. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” --Socrates. Content of the work. Socrates’s defense against charges of impiety before the Athenian court. Note: “Apology” here means defense or justification, not expression of regret for a transgression. Timeline.

duscha
Download Presentation

Plato's Apology

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Plato's Apology “The unexamined life is not worth living.” --Socrates

  2. Content of the work Socrates’s defense against charges of impiety before the Athenian court. Note: “Apology” here means defense or justification, not expression of regret for a transgression.

  3. Timeline 469 B.C.: Socrates is born 431 B.C.: Peloponnesian Wars begin 427 B.C.: Plato is born 404 B.C.: Sparta defeats Athens, imposes rule of “the Thirty” (32c) 403 B.C.: Democracy restored 399 B.C.: Socrates is prosecuted 347 B.C.: Plato dies

  4. Charges against Socrates • Formal charges: irreligion and corruption of youth • Earlier, informal charges underlying these

  5. Earlier charges • Studies things in the sky and below the earth • Makes the worse argument the stronger (like the Sophists) • Does not believe in the gods • Teaches these things to others (like the Sophists)

  6. Oracles in classical Greece • Priests or priestesses who transmit divine messages • They interpret signs, such as: • rustle of leaves or movement of objects cast into a spring • frenzied, ecstatic cries of enchanted priestesses • Their pronouncements are often cryptic.

  7. Socrates and the oracle at Delphi • “No one is wiser than Socrates.” • Socrates: He means I avoid claiming to know what I don’t know. • Socrates: He means I should expose the false conceit of knowledge by challenging people to reflective justification. • Appeals to this command in justification of his conduct.

  8. Divine command theory revisited • Contradiction with Euthyphro? • Is Socrates defining piety as what the gods approve of? • Comparison with Abraham • Role of interpretation • Another possibility: ironic interpretation of Socrates’s appeal (38a)

More Related