Book · -399
Apology
by Plato
A 70-year-old Athenian stands trial for corrupting the youth, defends himself by refusing to grovel, and picks execution over exile.
What does Reddit think of Apology?
Forty-five recognized mentions across seven years, thirty-four of them on r/askphilosophy. One thread (↑67) drifts from that question into whether studying philosophy makes people act superior, with the Apology cited only in passing. r/philosophy's two top entries (↑155, ↑51) both read like pasted essay abstracts, explaining that 'apology' doesn't mean sorry, a point nobody in the thread disputes. r/Stoicism mentions it three times without a single scored comment. None of the displayed excerpts argue the text is weak. None argue it's essential in any urgent sense either. It gets cited the way scaffolding gets cited: the thing people mention while explaining Plato's three periods (↑53), rarely the thing anyone is actually arguing about.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Socrates' trial and defense speech
- · Beginner philosophy reading order
- · Plato's early versus middle dialogues
- · What counts as doing philosophy versus performing it
Common praise
- + r/askphilosophy regulars point newcomers here before the Republic, not after.
- + The essay-abstract posts on r/philosophy (↑155, ↑51) bother to unpack the apology/sorry pun instead of skating past it.
- + Nobody in the displayed excerpts disputes that the defense speech holds up as a piece of writing.
Common criticism
- − The three-periods-of-Plato explainer (↑53) uses this text as a supporting citation, not the subject of its own thread.
- − r/Stoicism's three mentions carry no sentiment score, so the page can't say Stoics actually rate it.
- − The ↑67 thread reduces the Apology to a passing reference while arguing about whether philosophy majors act superior.
Who it's for
Start here if the Republic looks too long to trust before you've read Plato's version of an origin story. r/askphilosophy treats this as the answer to 'did Socrates actually write anything,' so if that's a real question for you, an hour of reading resolves it. Stoics barely show up in the data, three mentions with no comment attached, so don't expect a modern self-help angle. Want the courtroom scene over the metaphysics? This gives you the scene and defers the metaphysics to later books.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Apology?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“**ABSTRACT**: > The Apology of Socrates is not about saying sorry but it is one of the great speeches in the history of philosophy. The Greek philosopher defends himself against his accusers and ultimately invites them to condemn him to death. But why does he do that?
“Socrates was a philosopher in Athens, Greece about 2400 years ago. One of his students, Plato, wrote a number of texts which went on to pretty much be the foundation of Western philosophy. Socrates didn't write anything himself (that we know about), but Plato used him as a character in his works. I…
“Well, the short answer is that we don't know which opinions are Socrates' and which are Plato's. Socrates himself never wrote down his own opinions for us, so it all come down to how much we can trust what other people say about him. The three contemporary-ish accounts of Socrates' philosophic prac…
“I'd be very interested to see if many philosophers on here recommend *against* reading classics, especially the work of the aforementioned Greek philosophers. The roots of many long-standing dialectics can be found in these works, touching on ethics, epistemology, politics etc. many of the ideas tha…
“I think there’s a lot of confusion here. I personally did find more people *like me* in college, but that doesn’t mean I ever thought I was *better* than people who aren’t like me. A lot of philosophers I know are, well, quirky. It doesn’t means we think we’re superior! As for Aristotle, he think…
“Plato used Socrates as a voice for his ideas in the republic. There are three periods of Plato. In the first period we have a Plato who is mostly voicing Socrates opinions, this includes the apology and Crito which portray the trial and execution of Socrates. These are not so much philosophical …
“Abstract: Plato's apology is anything but an apology. It's Socrates rigorous defense of his conduct as well as his thoughts on death and wickedness. To Socrates, it is better to face death as a righteous person than live as a wicked one. Death could be one of two possibilities: One, it could be lik…
“So I recently recommended *The Republic*, and that might’ve been what you saw on here. Basically, I was thinking that it deals with a central moral problem—why bother being moral at all? Glaucon and Adeimantus bring up a central problem with the Ring of Gyges. At the same time, the crappy arguments …
“I started my journey in philosophy, when I was about 19 years old, with a very short book, The Apology of Socrates. Before this book I was never interested in reading philosophy, but after I read it I became hooked. I also enjoyed the Symposium and the Republic by Plato. Then I found it quite hard,…
“Sure, Socrates gives a lot of good arguments. > For example, in the apology there is a sequence where he argues that those who do not corrupt the youth must be improving the youth. Which is the argument that you're thinking of here? He does ask Meletus about improvers, but I don't recall him mak…
“Just about every philosophy program begins with Platonic dialogues in some way, particularly the Republic, the Apology, Meno, Euthyphro, Crito, and Phaedo. Though normally not all of them. Dialogues tend to be more engaging than your run of the mill academic tome and Plato more or less discusses eve…
“There is no strict order to read Plato in. It also depends on what you are interested in. However, I wouldn't start with something like the Timaeus, Parmenides or the Laws. Even the Sophist might be a bit too much to get started. Usually, I like to get students started with the Apology, since it off…
“Plato's Apology is one of the most famous works of not just philosophy, but world literature in general. It depicts the trial of Socrates, who was charged with impiety and corrupting the young, and sentenced to death for it. Instead of begging for mercy, Socrates gives a powerful defense of his prac…
“That was awful! By taking Plato's Apology and *helpfully*(!) vulgarising it into some platitudinous business transaction, the video completely dilutes the power of Socrates' poignant reasoning, almost making it seem trite. The salient part of Socrates' argument can contextually be paraphrased as s…
“If you're new, you should probably start out with the Greeks. Plato's Apology is a good start. Consult 3rd party sources if you cant seem to wrap your head around a concept. You'll find yourself discouraged if you jump into Nietzsche and Kierkegaard immediately. The Very Short Introductions are goo…
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Apology — frequently asked
Is Apology of Socrates worth reading before The Republic?+
Yes, on the evidence here. r/askphilosophy's recurring newcomer questions (34 of the 45 mentions) treat it as the natural first stop, the place where Plato's Socrates gets introduced before he's turned into a mouthpiece for arguments he probably never made. No displayed excerpt argues for reading it after the Republic, and one (↑46) treats it as background for understanding why anyone bothers with the Ring of Gyges problem later.
Did Socrates actually write Apology of Socrates?+
No, and this comes up often enough on r/askphilosophy to be a recurring question. The ↑128 comment is direct about it: Socrates never wrote down his own opinions, and Plato used him as a character in dialogues composed after Socrates was already dead. The ↑113 reply adds that separating Socrates' actual views from Plato's is still an open scholarly problem.
Is Apology of Socrates just a defense speech, or a proper philosophical text?+
Both, according to the two highest-upvoted r/philosophy posts (↑155, ↑51). Each is written as an essay abstract arguing that 'apology' isn't an apology at all, it's Socrates building a case for facing death rather than living dishonestly. Neither commenter treats the courtroom framing as separate from the philosophical argument; the trial is the argument.
What does r/askphilosophy actually say about Apology of Socrates?+
Mostly logistics, not verdicts. Most of the 34 r/askphilosophy mentions clarify which parts reflect Socrates' actual views versus Plato's invention, or use it to explain Plato's three writing periods (↑53). One high-upvoted thread (↑67) barely engages with the book itself, using it as a launching point for a tangent about whether studying philosophy makes people insufferable.