Socrates, The Apology
The Apology is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato, in which Socrates delivers his defence against accusations of impiety and corruption.
More precisely, The Apology of Socrates addresses the charges of corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods of the city. Read more…
The following passage is an excerpt from The Apology where the quote “the unexamined life is not worth living” appears:
Perhaps you think that I am braving you in what I am saying now, as in what I said before about the tears and prayers. But this is not so. I speak rather because I am convinced that I never intentionally wronged any one, although I cannot convince you—the time has been too short; if there were a law at Athens, as there is in other cities, that a capital cause should not be decided in one day, then I believe that I should have convinced you.
But I cannot in a moment refute great slanders; and, as I am convinced that I never wronged another, I will assuredly not wrong myself. I will not say of myself that I deserve any evil, or propose any penalty. Why should I? because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes? When I do not know whether death is a good or an evil, why should I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil?
Shall I say imprisonment? And why should I live in prison, and be the slave of the magistrates of the year—of the Eleven? Or shall the penalty be a fine, and imprisonment until the fine is paid? There is the same objection. I should have to lie in prison, for money I have none, and cannot pay.
And if I say exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix), I must indeed be blinded by the love of life, if I am so irrational as to expect that when you, who are my own citizens, cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you will have no more of them, others are likely to endure me.
No indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely. And what a life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to city, ever changing my place of exile, and always being driven out! For I am quite sure that wherever I go, there, as here, the young men will flock to me; and if I drive them away, their elders will drive me out at their request; and if I let them come, their fathers and friends will drive me out for their sakes.
Some one will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that to do as you say would be a disobedience to the God, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me.
Yet I say what is true, although a thing of which it is hard for me to persuade you. Also, I have never been accustomed to think that I deserve to suffer any harm. Had I money I might have estimated the offence at what I was able to pay, and not have been much the worse. But I have none, and therefore I must ask you to proportion the fine to my means.
Well, perhaps I could afford a mina, and therefore I propose that penalty: Plato, Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus, my friends here, bid me say thirty minæ, and they will be the sureties. Let thirty minæ be the penalty; for which sum they will be ample security to you.
Historical Context
It’s often the way that powerful people with vested interests don’t like it when someone rises to prominence by asking difficult questions, and the situation with Socrates was no different.
In 5th-century BCE Athens, three men formally accused Socrates of impiety and corruption, representing the interests of politicians, craftsmen, scholars, poets, and rhetoricians.
Socrates stood trial before an assembly of approximately 500 Athenians to defend himself. Despite being given the chance to appease the jury by making minor concessions to the charges of corruption and impiety, Socrates refused to compromise his integrity to avoid the death penalty. Ultimately, the jury sentenced him to death. Read more…
About Socrates
Socrates (c. 470 BCE, Athens – 399 BCE, Athens) was an ancient Greek philosopher whose life, character, and ideas profoundly shaped Classical antiquity and Western philosophy. A well-known and controversial figure in Athens, Socrates was often the target of satire in comic plays, most famously in Aristophanes’ The Clouds (423 BCE).
Though Socrates left no writings of his own, his philosophy and conversations were preserved by his admirers, most notably Plato and Xenophon. These works depict him as a man of remarkable insight, integrity, self-control, and mastery of argument. His influence was further amplified by the dramatic circumstances of his death. At the age of 70, Socrates was tried on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Refusing to compromise his principles, he was sentenced to death by poisoning, likely with hemlock, by a jury of his fellow Athenians.
Plato’s Apology of Socrates claims to recount Socrates’ defense during his trial. It offers a compelling argument for the examined life and a critique of Athenian democracy, making it one of the foundational texts of Western thought and culture.