Book · -399
Apology
by Plato
A philosopher on trial chooses death over silence, defending a life of relentless questioning before the jury that will kill him.
What does Reddit think of Apology?
The recurring question there is authorship: how much of the text is Socrates speaking and how much is Plato writing through him? The sub is blunt — we don't know, and probably can't know. The ↑113 comment is categorical: Socrates wrote nothing, and the three near-contemporary accounts of his views often conflict. The Apology gets grouped with Crito as historical documents of the trial and execution rather than philosophical treatises proper; the ↑53 comment spelling out Plato's three periods makes this explicit, placing both texts in the early period closest to the historical Socrates. r/philosophy's 8 mentions take a more rhetorical angle. The ↑155 abstract notes that the Apology is not an apology at all — Socrates doesn't ask forgiveness but defends his conduct and invites condemnation. The ↑51 comment distills his position: better to die as a righteous person than live as a wicked one. Three mentions in r/Stoicism round out the data. Sentiment sits flat across all three subs.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · The Socratic method as civic provocation
- · Authorship — Plato's voice versus Socrates' views
- · Death as philosophically neutral or preferable to moral compromise
- · The Apology as historical document of Athens' trial against philosophy
- · The early Platonic dialogues versus Plato's later metaphysical work
Common praise
- + r/askphilosophy (34 mentions) treats it as the standard entry point to Socratic thought before the Republic.
- + The trial structure makes the abstract problem of living ethically feel concrete and immediate.
- + At under 50 pages, it forces sustained attention rather than inviting skimming.
- + r/philosophy's ↑155 abstract calls it one of the great speeches in the history of philosophy — not just a dialogue exercise.
Common criticism
- − r/askphilosophy is consistent that the Socrates-versus-Plato problem never resolves — you can't cite the Apology as Socratic doctrine without hedging.
- − The ↑53 comment explicitly categorizes it as less philosophically substantive than the later dialogues, closer to historical narrative than argument.
- − Readers expecting the dialectical density of the Republic or the Meno will find the Apology thin on argumentation and heavy on rhetorical self-presentation.
- − Three mentions in r/Stoicism suggest it gets absorbed into adjacent traditions more than it gets read on its own terms.
Who it's for
Read this if your entry point to philosophy runs through ethics rather than metaphysics — the trial framing makes the stakes immediate without requiring prior philosophical background. If you want Plato's systematic thought, the Republic comes later; if you want to understand why Socrates became the central figure of Western philosophy rather than just another Athenian thinker, start here. History students studying Athens' democratic crisis get specific use out of it that many philosophy undergrads miss. r/askphilosophy consistently pairs it with Crito as a unit before recommending anything else in the Platonic corpus.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Apology?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. 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 …
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Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with Apology — counted from the comments, not curated.
Phaedo
Plato
Socrates spends his final hours arguing that the soul survives death — and inviting his friends to find the holes in his logic.
Symposium
Plato
Seven Athenians take turns defining love at a dinner party, and Socrates closes by reporting what a priestess taught him about desire and immortality.
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
The Roman emperor's private notebook — written to himself in Greek, never meant to be published — became the Stoic canon's most-cited text 1,800 years later.
Apology — frequently asked
Is the Apology of Socrates actually by Plato or by Socrates?+
Plato wrote it. Whether it reflects what Socrates actually said is the central scholarly problem — r/askphilosophy's ↑113 comment is unambiguous: Socrates wrote nothing, and the three near-contemporary accounts of his views often conflict. The Apology belongs to Plato's early period, generally considered closer to the historical Socrates than the later dialogues, but that's a scholarly convention, not a certainty.
Where does the Apology of Socrates fit in a Plato reading order?+
First, alongside Crito. The ↑53 r/askphilosophy comment groups them as a pair covering the trial and execution before Plato's philosophical project really begins. They're not dense arguments — they're scene-setting. r/askphilosophy treats them as prerequisites before recommending the Republic to beginners.
What does Reddit actually say about the Apology of Socrates?+
Mostly that it's essential and short. Across 45 mentions, r/askphilosophy (34 of them) references it as a foundation text rather than a subject of active debate. The ↑155 r/philosophy abstract praises the speech itself; the ↑51 comment distills Socrates' position on death in a paragraph. Nobody argues against reading it — the debates are about what it proves and who actually wrote it.
Is the Apology of Socrates worth reading if you're not a philosophy student?+
Depends on what you want from it. At roughly 40 pages it costs almost nothing. The r/philosophy framing — a man choosing death over compromise — lands outside academic contexts. r/Stoicism pulls it in for exactly that reason. What it won't give you is sustained philosophical argument; it's a speech, and reads like one.