A beginner’s reading route through Plato’s Apology

Start with the kind of book in your hands

The title can mislead a first reader. Here apology means a defence, not an expression of regret. Plato presents Socrates speaking at his trial in Athens in 399 BCE. You are reading a composed philosophical text, not a certified word-for-word courtroom transcript.

That distinction does not make the work useless as evidence or unimportant as literature. It changes the question you bring to it. Ask how this presentation makes its case, and keep separate the further question of how closely it preserves what the historical Socrates said.

Keep the changing situation in view

The text moves through a defence before judgment, a discussion of the penalty after conviction, and an address after the death sentence. A statement can serve a different purpose at each stage. Note what has happened in the proceeding before deciding what the speaker is trying to accomplish.

Our reading route selects three short starting points across that structure. You can stop after a few paragraphs at each one. The links use opening-word highlights where your browser supports them; otherwise, search for the words in the full text. The cues identify Jowett’s English, not universal page numbers.

Three places to begin

Let the translator remain visible

The linked complete text is Benjamin Jowett’s English translation in the Internet Classics Archive. Its older vocabulary may slow a first encounter. If a sentence sounds obvious or strange, read the surrounding paragraph before deciding that a familiar modern meaning is the only possible one.

For comparison with another edition, many readers use the Stephanus page letters and numbers printed alongside Plato’s texts. This web edition does not print those reference markers, so the route above uses headings and opening words. Keep a note of the point you are comparing rather than assuming two translations divide the speech into the same paragraphs.

The historical distance deserves similar care. Socrates did not leave writings of his own. Debra Nails and S. Sara Monoson’s scholarly account explains the difficulty of separating the historical person from the different surviving presentations of him. One vivid speech cannot remove that problem.

Admiration should not end the examination

A famous defendant can make disagreement feel disloyal. Resist the temptation to treat every effective line as a conclusion you must adopt. Write down the claim, the reason and a possible objection. If the reason does not convince you, explain the gap rather than substituting a judgment about the speaker’s courage.

Nor should the trial become a script for ordinary disagreements. A team meeting, a family discussion and an Athenian capital trial have different stakes and responsibilities. The useful reading habit here is examining an argument; it is not deliberately provoking others to resemble a heroic image.

You can also notice the audience’s position. What would they have to believe for the argument to work? Which premises are being disputed, and which are treated as shared? Asking that question can make a difficult paragraph more intelligible without requiring you to accept its assumptions.

Leave one question for your next reading

After one short selection, write three lines: the task facing the speaker at that moment; one reason he gives; one question you would ask about it. Keep an uncertainty if the passage has not answered it.

On returning to the text, check whether the next paragraph changes your interpretation. This original reading exercise is a way to stay with an argument instead of collecting a slogan. Finishing the whole work in one sitting is not a requirement.