The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo (Penguin Classics)

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The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo (Penguin Classics)

by Plato, Hugh Tredennick (Translator), Harold Tarrant (Translator, Editor, Introduction)

3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 · rating details · 11,896 ratings · 290 reviews

The trial and death of Socrates (469-399 BCE) have almost as central a place in Western consciousness as the trial and death of Jesus. In four superb dialogues, Plato provides the classic account.

Paperback, 2003 Edition, 256 pages

Published April 29th 2003 by Penguin Classics (first published -400)

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Jun 12, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: all thinkers

Shelves: science-philosophy, worldliterature, history

When he was tried, convicted and ordered to death in 399 B.C.E., Socrates was already seventy years old: he had lived through the imperialistic spread of Athenian democracy and culture under Pericles, twenty-five years of first cold and then heated war with Sparta, the defeat of Athens in 404 B.C.E., the short-lived oligarchy imposed on that city by the Spartans, and finally the reestablishment of democracy in his homeland. During all of that time, the former bricklayer was known for practicing...more When he was tried, convicted and ordered to death in 399 B.C.E., Socrates was already seventy years old: he had lived through the imperialistic spread of Athenian democracy and culture under Pericles, twenty-five years of first cold and then heated war with Sparta, the defeat of Athens in 404 B.C.E., the short-lived oligarchy imposed on that city by the Spartans, and finally the reestablishment of democracy in his homeland. During all of that time, the former bricklayer was known for practicing philosophy in the public spaces of Athens using his inimitable style of questioning those in authority who feigned virtue and wisdom while in reality lacking it. This technique gradually garnered him many powerful enemies who did their best to poison public opinion against him.

Socrates was often confused with the Sophists, traveling teachers who sought to satisfy the public need for higher education generated by a democracy in which any male citizen could be called upon to serve in courts or assemblies. But Socrates was ostensibly not interested in teaching per se: his aim was to uncover the lack of virtue, honesty and wisdom in those around him and to encourage them to learn, as virtue is knowledge, and once one knows what is right, truly knows it, one is no longer capable of doing wrong. He often obliquely criticized democratic systems, and indeed, the power consolidation democracy afford the majority was exactly what did him in.

While Plato has only reported Socrates’ words (and a few said by Meletus, one of his accusers), we do get a filtered idea of the sort of argument the prosecution was making: democracy had only recently been restored in Athens, and certain elements of the population, probably motivated, as Socrates claims, by years of resentment toward the philosopher, wanted to brand his sort of “teaching” (for despite his claims to the contrary, he was indeed teaching by example, at the very least) as destructive to the democratic institutions that Socrates himself often seemed to oppose (as evidenced in his Dialogues, which Plato also transcribed).

But the prosecution is largely silent, and we can more clearly analyze what Socrates does. Throughout his defense he employs a disingenuousness that likely irked his opponents: he begins by assuming a humble excuse-my-illiteracy sort of stance, and gradually abdicates all responsibility for the message he is putting across (i.e., authority figures are hypocritical boobs), by appealing to a deus ex machina device (the oracle’s decree and god’s voice in his ear). However, there is considerable nobility and courage in his refusal to kowtow to the Assembly’s expectations that he’ll beg for mercy, and his dissection of the trumped-up charges is perfectly executed.

The shift in tone after he’s been found guilty is interesting: no longer is the prosecution the brunt of his surgical, nearly sarcastic grandstanding: those voting against him catch it full on as he with great guts demands to be rewarded for “corrupting” the youth of Athens the way winners in the Olympics were. His withering prophecies to all of Athens after he’s been sentenced to death indicate a third tone shift, short-lived as it is. He finally becomes introspective with his friends as the document closes, and his inspiring advice and requests serve as telling indicators of his real personality (as opposed to his philosopher persona): someone who loved his family and neighbors so much that he was willing to risk his life to make them good people.(less)

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Apr 22, 2013 Rowena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, ebook

I was a bit wary going in but I was pleasantly surprised that this book wasn't as difficult to understand as I'd expected it to be.

The edition I read covered three dialogues about Socrates (Apologia, Crito and Phaedo), who was tried for supposedly corrupting the youth of Athens as well as for encouraging worship of gods not recognized by the State. I've always heard that Socrates was a powerful orator and the way he defended himself in front of the court proves that. Even when he was sentenced t...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Fernando Álvarez rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dialogos I de Platón comprende la Apología de Sócrates y Fedón.

La Apología de Sócrates narra el juicio de muerte que se le imputa al mencionado personaje por "penetrar en los misterios del cielo y de la tierra", y enseñarlos públicamente. Sócrates es acusado de corrupción de menores y de creer en los demonios, siendo condenando a muerte. Pero para él, morir así era la suprema sanción a su doctrina y el último acto necesario de su destino. Sócrates pensaba una de dos cosas: o la muerte es un ano...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Jeremy added it

Shelves: philosophy

I wish I had read these 4 dialogues before they made us work through The Republic back in school. Plato can seem so distant and archiac so much of the time, but here there is an actual sense of human urgency: Socrates is about to die. A lot of times the dialogues feel completely neutered from any real world concern, you just see these people walking around, having their abstract little discussions as Socrates schools them all. But here you see those discussions finally grounded by a frank acknow...more

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Aug 22, 2010 Daniel Silveyra rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Socrates is a little bit like Superman. As a young man, both are very appealing for their heroism and pristine behavior. As one ages, however, they begin to dissatisfy - there is no way these people could be real.

This is obviously due to Plato's portrayal of the man, an homage so complete that Socrates becomes pure ideal and ceases to be human. He stands for intellectual honesty and curiosity, morality and justice, without any compromise.

This book is about as good an example of that as possible,...more

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May 20, 2013 Alessandro rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Socrate non credeva nella parola scritta, perché essa non era in grado di esprimere al meglio ciò che egli voleva dire o far capire o capire. La parola scritta secondo lui era limitata in quanto il lettore leggendo non ha la possibilità di rivolgere delle domande all'autore, di interagire, porre domande o esprimere dei dubbi. Proprio per questo Socrate preferiva la parola viva alla scrittura, infatti si dilettava nel dialogo tra lui e il singolo e tra lui e la platea e adorava porre quesiti e ri...more

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May 18, 2013 John Nash rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, philosophy

Basically,every dialogue goes like this:

Socrates: By golly! You wouldn't be able to help me understand a word would you, old boy?

Random: Why of course (provides terrible definition)

Socrates: Well that seems mighty fine and I fully agree. Wait a minute... I am actually just going to be insanely ironical and prove your definition false by asking ludicrous questions

Random: By Jove, Socrates, it seems as though you are the wisest man on Earth. Let me blindly follow your reasoning for a few pages!

Soc...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Erik Simon rated it 5 of 5 stars

(It seems odd to be allowed to give Plato a star rating.)

I'm not a scholar. I don't say that derisively. I have the highest admiration for scholars, their tireless and dogged pursuit, and any criticism I would level would be at their penchant to become rather narrow in their focus. But again, I'm not a scholar, I'm just a reader, and I have to say that as just a reader, I tend to surprise myself by the books I'll go ahead and read. To wit, this one. Why, at the age of forty-four, with no real re...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-general

THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF SOCRATES. (this ed. 1972) Plato. ****.
This work, although in a different version, was required reading for my first humanities course in college in 1957. Yes, there were colleges back then, and Plato was not one of my classmates. At the time, I’m not sure that I fully understood what I was reading, but made sure that I understood enough to pass any quiz – announced or unannounced. On re-reading it, I came to the realization that Socrates was not a philosopher. He was...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Alex Woods rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read the "Apology" portion of this work. My first reaction to Socrates' Apology was one of awe. I have yet to pinpoint exactly what gave me such a reaction, but the combination of Plato's writing and Socrates' ideas probably had something to do with it. On a basic level, I really enjoyed getting insights into the structure of the Ancient Greek political and social systems. For me, the genius of Socrates' Apology is that he is able to effectively apply pure logic in a world where a less logical...more

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Jun 12, 2012 theduckthief rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Such was the end of our friend, Socrates, a man who, we would say, was the best of all those we've experienced and, generally speaking, the wisest and the most just."

This book is a collection of four dialogues about the last days of the philosopher, Socrates. Through them readers get to know Socrates, his friends and the people who condemned him. The philosophical arguments presented are both straightforward and complex. They address issues of death, the immortality of the soul and the purpose...more “Such was the end of our friend, Socrates, a man who, we would say, was the best of all those we've experienced and, generally speaking, the wisest and the most just."

This book is a collection of four dialogues about the last days of the philosopher, Socrates. Through them readers get to know Socrates, his friends and the people who condemned him. The philosophical arguments presented are both straightforward and complex. They address issues of death, the immortality of the soul and the purpose of being a philosopher. This was one of my first major forays into Ancient Greek literature and I was very excited to delve into Plato.

The first dialogue is called “Euthyphro” and I found it a challenge. Socrates debates the nature of holiness with Euthyphro and some of the abstractions used in his argument were difficult to picture. I had to turn them into examples just to try and visualize what Socrates was talking about. For example, one question asked whether something was holy because it was loved or was it loved because it was holy? I pictured Zeus and the oak tree. Is it holy because Zeus loves it or does he love it because it’s holy? This boggled my mind and gave me a lot to think about. It's here we learn that Socrates is accused of impiety and corrupting the young. He continually praises Euthyphro's wisdom and flatters his knowledge of religion, seemingly to the detriment of his own argument. I re-read sections several times to grasp their meaning and of all four dialogues it took the longest to finish.

In “The Apology”, Socrates defends himself against his accusers. This is essentially the dialogue that takes place inside the ‘court room’. Here we witness Socrates' arrogance. Time and again he says he is a better man than everyone else yet, in the previous dialogue he spent so much time downplaying his intelligence and supposed superiority. This multi-dimensionality of character makes him real in my eyes. His memory only lives on in books and he isn't always likeable but that's what makes me like him so much. Real people are complex, layered individuals and Plato makes Socrates come alive on the page.

It "Crito", Socrates is in prison with his friend Crito trying to convince him to escape. There are many people willing to help Socrates who could then live out the rest of his life in another city. Socrates resists, saying that fighting the will of the Athenian people would be wrong. He would rather accept death than exile. His argument seems backwards and contrary until you read the next dialogue.

“Phaedo” is the longest and most convoluted of the dialogues. In it Plato summarily deconstructs his friends' arguments against his surrender to death and logically convinces them of the immortality of the soul and life after death despite the lack of hard proof. He asks mind-blowing questions such as "when does the soul attain truth?" This is also where we get the quote "the life which is unexamined is not worth living." It’s actually very impressive to read how Socrates sets up his argument and then manipulates the conversation for his own ends. He was clearly a master with words.

The difficulty in reading these works is that they are conveying dialogue from a second-hand source. We aren’t hearing these words from Socrates himself. Instead they’re filtered through Plato to us. As such, there’s no real way to tell how much of the writing is truth, how much is embellishment or if it’s a full out lie. This is compounded by the fact that Socrates left no written record of his work. This may speak to his innocence of 'corrupting the youth of Athens' as he didn't seem interested in getting his works out into the public. '

I had a great time reading this book and despite its shortness, was challenged by the arguments within. I found it interesting that while the book was by Plato, it concerned itself with Socrates and his words. We learn more about him than we ever do about Plato and Socrates didn't seem like the nicest guy. He was arrogant and lorded it over people when it suited his argument and hid feelings of superiority when it didn't. Part of me felt that Socrates just seemed to give up and succumb to his sentence. In fact, by the time he was put on trial he was an old man and had lived a full life with a family. He even argues that no one, least of all he, should be upset at his passing. He convincingly argued and believed in life after death. Free from its earthly body, his soul would dwell amongst other true philosophers. I disagreed with his belief that a philosopher's main goal was the study of death though. I've always felt that philosophy was a study of learning how to live and why things are they way they are.

The writer Xenophon also has an account of Socrates' trial. It would be interesting to see how the two contrast. It would serve to illustrate what I said about second-hand information. Truth gets obscured the further you are from the source. I would recommend this book but not for anyone looking for a quick read. This is not a work to skim. I would say it requires contemplation and introspection. If you're in for a challenge and want to understand the roots of philosophy, pick this up. (less)

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Nov 14, 2011 Douglas Dalrymple rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I didn't actually read this particular volume, but it's a convenient way of reviewing my recent re-reading of The Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. It's been almost twenty years. I don't very well remember what I thought of them in college, but this time around, I loved the first, nodded off for the second, and wanted to object to the third.

My primary gripe with Socrates is his suggestion (made in the Phaedo) that the philosophic life is, essentially, learning to die; that philosophy is the practice...more

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Sep 19, 2011 Sophia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Required to read for PHL100Y1, Introduction to Philosophy.

It's not even that hard of a text, right? It's a flimsy, 58 page book and a good portion is in script format. However, its contents are rather important, because they detail the logic surrounding the final days of what I can only think of as the father of philosophy, Socrates.

In the Apology, he justifies his actions, to the point of saying, "actually, you should reward me, because I'm getting you to examine your lives," and I guess that p...more

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Sep 17, 2011 David Williamson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

In the Last Days of Socrates Plato delivers two powerful dialogues, one interesting one, and then there is the Crito, which is not so interesting. The Apology is great rhetoric, his defense (as he doesn’t apologise) for his conduct which led to his arrest, is passively aggressive, nonchalant and full of irony. Developing his Socratic method, you can read Socrates as a sharp deconstructionist, mocking those who claim authority and knowledge over him (given the option to offer the court an alterna...more

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Sep 29, 2011 A.Rahman Al Balawi added it · review of another edition

The strengths of Socrates’ argument, it is not wise to fear death, are the tow expectations that death can be; either a great advantage or an adventure. First, it can be a great advantage if death is no more than an end of life. It is just one restful sleep with no waking up. Second, death can be an adventure of testing, examining and comparing experiences and thoughts. In another words, there can be a life after death were normal and wise people live. Therefore, meeting them is a way to share t...more

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Apr 23, 2009 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This should be mandatory reading for all in the Western World. This is Plato's account of Socrates' trial and subsequent death. I thought the courtroom drama was fantastic; however, after the death sentence was pronounced on Socrates, his dialogue with his followers regarding death got too philosophic at points for my taste. Socrates seems to be at peace with death and the destination of his soul.

One thing I found to be humorous and profound was that after Socrates gave his dissertation on deat...more

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Mar 02, 2011 Eric rated it 2 of 5 stars

When your Introduction to Philosophy (or to Humanities, or to Rhetoric, or to...) course had you read this your first semester of college, it was presented as the origins of Western thought. With all that reverence paid, reading it a decade and a half later, I either didn't remember or didn't understand that "The Apology" is downright funny. Socrates is a man daring a court to put him to death and he is very keen on putting them in their place.

Alas, the other dialogues aren't nearly as engaging,...more

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Oct 18, 2012 Killthepopular rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

To paraphrase a Phillip Larkin poem: Socrates has no time to show what logic is like. He makes it seem a superior way of getting what one wants. It isn't at all.

This pretty much summarises my reservations about this book. Soccy is a tricky little scamp, always using his cross-questioning technique to make people do complete 180 turns on their own strongly held beliefs. It's just that whilst his arguments obey their own internal logic, they don't really seem to correspond to the real world in any...more To paraphrase a Phillip Larkin poem: Socrates has no time to show what logic is like. He makes it seem a superior way of getting what one wants. It isn't at all.

This pretty much summarises my reservations about this book. Soccy is a tricky little scamp, always using his cross-questioning technique to make people do complete 180 turns on their own strongly held beliefs. It's just that whilst his arguments obey their own internal logic, they don't really seem to correspond to the real world in any meaningful way. Take for example the way he argues the case for the immortal soul. He takes a previous point he has argued, that human beings already know everything, they have simply forgotten it and that learning is actually a form of remembering, and therefore points out that we need to have existed before birth in order to have forgotten something after birth. As i say, his arguments obey a certain internal logic, but they don't necessarily follow when you apply them to reality... Or maybe his reasoning is just a little too screwy for me.

And this is how i felt about much of the book. The arguments were very clever and well presented, but they tend to be getting us closer, not to an objective view of reality, but a view that socrates wants to believe in. I think it was mainly the final section (phaedo) i didn't like, the one about the soul and the afterlife. I actually really enjoyed his "apology". The stuff he said seemed pretty reasonable. More than anything i liked the audacity with which he phrases and presents things. But the Phaedo section was about very abstract principles for which there is little or no physical evidence to base your arguments around, so it all seemed a little too wishy-washy to me.

So i admire socrates and what he stood for and i find him a fascinating and endearing figure. I was even quite moved by the death scene: not the sort of reaction you'd normally expect from a philosophical text. I like his method, i just don't think it's a terribly reliable way of attaining the truth. Not an objective truth anyway.(less)

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Sep 17, 2010 Anom Astika rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Aku sedang membaca buku ini dan sedang menerjemahkannya. Ada empat teks Plato di sana yaitu Euthyphro, Apology, Crito dan Phaedo. Semuanya teks teks yang luar biasa, dan jika direnung-renungkan ada banyak hal yang tetap relevan hingga saat ini. Lebih lebih jika kita kini sedang sibuk sibuk punya perhatian terhadap kekerasan berbasis agama, maka teks Euthyphro sangat menarik untuk dibaca. Pada teks ini Socrates berdebat dengan Euthyphro, salah seorang jaksa pemeriksa untuk Pengadilan Socrates. In...more

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Oct 13, 2012 David Sarkies rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Lovers of Wisdom

Recommended to David by: David Hester

Shelves: philosophy

While I have written commentaries on collections before I have since tried to steer away from that to write about the individual pieces therein. Okay, in one way it does help to bump up the number of books on my shelf, but then again that is irrelevant. Generally I find it better to comment on the individual pieces because each of those pieces will have their own points and purposes (such as say a collection of Sophoclean plays) and to write on the books (such as Three Theban Plays) ends up der...more While I have written commentaries on collections before I have since tried to steer away from that to write about the individual pieces therein. Okay, in one way it does help to bump up the number of books on my shelf, but then again that is irrelevant. Generally I find it better to comment on the individual pieces because each of those pieces will have their own points and purposes (such as say a collection of Sophoclean plays) and to write on the books (such as Three Theban Plays) ends up dertracting from the individual pieces therein. Sometimes I will though (such as with Henry VI and this particular book) namely because the individual pecies share a common theme, or because it is helpful to look at the works as a whole.
The common theme with these particular works of Plato is that they all deal with the trial and death of Socrates. It is believe by some (me included) that their of the pieces are Socratic while the fourth piece (the Phaedo) is clearly Platonic. I will not go into detail with that here as I have done so elsewhere. Anyway, one piece is a discussion Socrates has at the door to the courthouse, one of them involves the trial, and the last two deal with a discussion that Socrates had prior to his death. Furthermore of these four, two of them simply have the trial and death as a background to other philosophic discourses.
What I want to look at here is the trail and death itself as a broader picture. Many have said (and I am once again included) that there are similarities to the death of Jesus and the death of Socrates. That is one sense is true but in another sense it isn't. Some of us (not me) believe that Jesus was simply a wise teacher, much like Socrates, however many other believe that he is either God or a representation of God. Taking the second idea, the difference is striking because where as Socrates is simply a martyr, Jesus is much more than a martyr. In fact there is an awful lot of literature outlining the significance of Jesus' death. If Jesus was simply a man who was executed because he said things that upset the ruling class, and gained a following as such, then there is little point in us worshipping him as God.
However, that does not necessarily mean that we should ignore the fact that Jesus, like Socrates, was matryed because of his revolutionary speech. In fact, Jesus was much more of a revolutionary than was Socrates. Socrates simply challenged the traditional thinking of his day and attacked the individualistic and licentious attitudes of the Greeks. Socrates basically stated that there was an absolute morality, and that people should be seeking to discover what this morality said. It is clear in two of these texts that he is outlining some form of absolute morality, and further more, accepting the judgement of what was little more than a kangaroo court on the grounds that he had not desire to undermine his teachings.
Jesus is many cases is similar, however he does not use the trial as another venue for his teaching, which is not surprising since, unlike Socrates, Jesus was tried in secret surrounded pretty much by a group of people who had already made up their minds about him. This was not the case with Socrates, since the three hundred members of the jury were present, and a number of them could still be challenged by his views. Granted he was found guilty, and executed, however it is necessary to remember that Socrates did have a fair trial, Jesus did not.
However, Jesus was much more revolutionary than Socrates since Socrates only sought to reform a system that needed reform, whereas Jesus came to pretty much demolish the previous system to lay the groundwork of a new. Okay, he did say that he had not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, but he also indicated that the period of worshipping God in the temple has come to an end, and the priesthood had become obselete. What Jesus had effectively done was to take access to God out of the hands of the priesthood and to put it into the hands of the people. This is a similar thing that we see with Joan of Arc and with Martin Luther. The people had been oppressed by the Church and the truth of God had been obfuscated by a priesthood who were using religion as a means of oppressing the masses. This was something that Jesus never intended.
So, the question that should be raised is why did it not remain as such after the establishment of the early church, why did we have to go through another, and quite bloody reformation to be freed from the power of the church, and did the reformation work. The simple answer is that the ruling elite do not like people to think for themselves, and seek to place themselves above and to lord themselves over the masses. Notice that Paul seems to rile against idol worship. The reason for this is that like the Jewish Temple, the pagan temples were also an extension of the government and the ruling elite to oppress the masses. The idols were instruments of oppression and fear, as well as means of enriching the ruling class from the irrational fears of the populace. However Jesus came along not only the break the rule of the Jewish priestly class, but to also destroy the power that the pagan gods held over the masses.
However that was not to last, and while it did last for about three hundred years, we also see the church being attacked from all quarters. The emperors attacked the church because they could not use the fear of the gods to rule the lives of the Christians. The Christians no longer feared the pagan gods, nor did they fear the emperors, and no matter how hard they tried, they could not scare them. Further, people from within attempted to seduce and confuse many of the followers through teachings that would once again place them under the power of others, such was the idea of gnosticism. The Christians had access to the truth through the Gospel, but by adding to the Gospel, they could once again empower themselves.
I could write much more upon this subject, but I think I will bring it to an end at this stage, however I will mention that the Catholic Church arose from the period when the government decided that since it could not destroy the church, they would instead take over the church. There were constant battles between the clergy and the emperors, and in the end the emperor's lost. However, what happened was that Constantine legitimised the church, and in doing so empowered the leadership of the church. As the saying goes, first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they attack you, and then they try to corrupt you (and if you pass through that you have won). However, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so when the church was legitimised by Constantine, the clergy was empowered, and in being empowered, it became corrupt. As for today, while the church as lost a lot of its power from those days, it is still a strong influence over people's lives, and in many cases not a democratic institution. When others begin to believe that they know what is good for us, and because to bully us and coerce us into a certain direction, then the seduction of power becomes absolute.(less)

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Jun 23, 2012 Tan Yi Han rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm still on the last chapter (Phaedo), but I've run out of time. Have to return the book. So let me review based on the first 3 chapters.

This book uses a very original style of writing to give readers an inside look into the life and wisdom of Socrates in his last days.

Socrates liked to examine people. But he wasn't concerned about their appearance. He liked to examine people who thought themselves wise/clever and see if they really are.

His tool? A method of argument called the elenchus. Unlik...more

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May 18, 2010 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Last Days of Socrates consists of four dialogues that, while discussing different philosophical issues, cover the end of Socrates' life from just before his trial to his condemnation and death of poison by drinking hemlock. In the end, the philosopher's pupil Crito says, "Such, Echecrates, was the end of our comrade, who was, we may fairly say, of all those whom we knew in our time, the bravest and also the wisest and most upright man."

Euthyphro and Crito are the lesser of the four dialogues...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Bilal Hasankhel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Now one thing that everyone should know about this book is that it is a hard read. It is not the kind of book that one can read in one go and would understand it. The ideas in this book are kind of mathematical. I had to go over paragraphs twice and thrice to understand the concept being discussed. I have to say that the ideas presented in this book are old (if I may say). However, that doesn't really matter, because it is more important to understand how those ideas are presented rather than wh...more

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Jan 06, 2010 Jesse Grove rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've probably read these three dialogues more than any other philosophical text. Almost every intro and ancient Greek philosophy class will have you read some or all of these texts and it's for a reason. This is the perfect intro to what philosophy is and what it fights against. Against complacency and against assumptions, for life and for death. Whenever I need to feel more impassioned about philosophy, this is the place I go. I strongly suggest it to anyone thinking of getting into philosophy...more

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Sep 02, 2010 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Read this for my Intro to Philosophy class at UNCC (perk of the job - for 2 1/2 hours each week, I get to pretend that I'm young again and not jaded with the big Disappointment that is called Life After College - for free!). I am in all ways a philosophy novice. So, Socrates ended up surprising me, for all his preceding reputation. He seemed quite absolutist, which is a bit at odds with my belief system in general I suppose (and, apparently, most modern humans..), but it was 400 BC, so I'll give...more

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Oct 09, 2009 Matthew Reed rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I bought this book years ago, though I wish I hadn’t. The Dialogs themselves were good, but this edition isn’t. There is no scholarly apparatus at all: no introductions, no footnotes, and no references to the Greek text, only a paragraph of unhelpful biography. The translation seemed off, too, but I haven’t read any other versions of these dialogs so I have no basis of comparison. Still, I’m never going to buy another book from Prometheus Books’ Greek Books in Philosophy.

I liked the Crito and t...more

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Mar 19, 2009 Kevin Slater rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wish I could give this a 5 star rating but I'm just not that good a person. I read this after my friend attempted suicide, I was searching for meaning in life that I no longer understood and I guess I felt Plato was in there. Reasoning out our connection to the gods and how a pantheon of gods doesn't work. How if a person was doing good for one god might be doing bad for another and why judge Socrates for corrupting the youth when he may very well have been doing the bidding of one of the gods...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Vijay rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the fine and rare collection of works by Plato. And yes, Socrates, the man who sowed the seeds of western philosophy, a man of unparalleled reason, whose words and arguments offer a sheer treat to the mind throughout the book! The most astonishing thing about Socrates that I found after reading the book was how prudent he is, while dealing with the metaphysical entities. He even goes to the extent of arguing the existence of souls with his shrill reasoning and makes one think twice before...more

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Feb 23, 2010 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, reading-through-history

You know, Socrates was kindof a dick.

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Dec 18, 2009 Bram rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, philosophical-dilettantism

Euthyphro: Tricky. May need to reread this one a couple times.

Apology: Here we get an impassioned plea for intellectual freedom plus the promotion of ethical and civil disobedience. Great stuff.

Crito: A little too much law and authority worship.

Phaedo: This is the ultimate existential dialogue. Plato's Socrates makes death seem even more enticing than do the monotheists (who seem to have taken a good deal from Plato). I find it easy to like a work that relates such optimism about immortality.

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About Plato

Birth c. 428–427 BC, Athens
Death c. 348–347 BC, Athens

Plato was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science.

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Five Dialogues: Euthyphro/Apology/Crito/Meno/Phaedo

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The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo (Penguin Classics)

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