Socrates's Defense In The Apology, By Plato

Plato wrote the Apology in 399 B.C. as his recollection, of his eyewitness account of his teacher Socrates’s trial and legal self-defense before the men of Athens. Plato along with Socrates, are historically known as formulators for the foundations of Western Philosophy. Plato is also noted, historically as the initiator of written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy and for providing some of the earliest ideational of political questions from a philosophical perspective. One of the importance the recollected Apology on Socrates trial, is his writing was fashioned after Socrates’s own philosophical affirmation, that he was merely an earnest philosophical inquirer seeking only truth.

The Apology has many other significant literary references

This analysis will focus on the outline of Socrates’s trial and the outline of some of the contextual history and culture of Ancient Athens used during his defense and how his teaching was displayed; philosophically and methodologically. In the opening statements, Socrates is seen before the court defending himself; knowing he was far from a corrupter of youth, a believer in unknown deities, and a promoter of atheism. Socrates opens his defense with humor and irony, not an apology, as he was never apologizing because he knew his earnest crime was embarrassing important people such as, Meletus and Anytus by his method of asking them questions in public places. Socrates would question these men as he had, historically for many years in the Agora, which was the Greek market place, and would have been the most popular, public, and busiest place in Ancient Athens at that time. Socrates, also referenced in his opening statement a historical context to language in Ancient Athens by notating that the language of his accusers; men who would have been trained in speaking would have been very eloquent, being men of prominence, they were trained in the business of speaking as political figures. Referencing