Plato. The Dialogues of Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. 3rd ed. 5 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1892
The apology is Socrates’ defense of himself, his way of life. This is the original utterance of “an unimagined life is not worth living” and also its better to be at odds with the whole world than at odds with yourself. Clue that ethics has something to do with the unity of the self.
This text is also the tragic end, which is always death. The Apology is sometimes entitled The Life and Death of Socrates.
So this text addresses the questions of what is a philosophical way of life and why is it provoking this reaction from the authorities.
A thread in the history of Western Thought begins here which is —- Is there some sort of an inherent conflict between a philosophical and a political ways of life?
