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What Are The Charges Against Socrates?

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Maria Suleman
Professor Nathan Poage
Introduction to philosophy PHIL 1301
30 October 2015
What are the charges against Socrates as recorded in the Apology. Is he guilty of them? Why or why not?
The Apology is assumed to be the most realistic account that has been conserved of Socrates ' defense of himself as it was presented before the Athenian Council. It is in essential agreement with the references to the trial that occur in Plato 's other dialogs. We may determine that Apology is not written by Socrates and only contains the words of Socrates that were memorized by Plato, since he was present at the time of the trial. However, we know that Socrates was Plato’s teacher and had been admired by him a lot. We should bear in mind that Plato’s views about Socrates’s trial could be biased. But on the other hand it is quite possible that Socrates ' defense of himself was even convincing than what has been reported by Plato. The charges against Socrates were brought by two type of accusers, the older and ancient ones and the later brought by Anytus, Meletus and others who were present at the time of trial. We’ll discuss all the charges one by one and what did Socrates say in his defense.
The first charge that he summed up in his speech was “Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better” (Plato 18). Socrates defended these accusations by saying that they were based entirely on falsehoods, and

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