Posted: September 21st, 2015

Socrates (needs thesis)

Socrates (needs thesis)

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Drawing your information from both Plato’s and Xenophon’s accounts of Socrates’s trial, what do you think it is most likely that Socrates said in his defense? For each point you make, please indicate your level of confidence (or doubt) about it and explain how you arrived at your conclusion. For instance, it seems reasonably (although not absolutely) certain that there was a man called Socrates, that he practiced philosophy, was tried for impiety in Athens in 399 BCE, spoke in his own defense at his trial and was found guilty, and I’m fairly confident about making these claims because sources from the time all agree on them (and would seem to have no motive to invent them). By contrast, I’m much less confident that Socrates said he was the wisest man in the world, because that detail appears in only one source and I have reasons to think that source’s author might have been biased. (In an essay, I would explain those reasons.)