Skip to content
Home/ Plato and the Apology
Plato and the Apology

Plato and the Apology

No customer reviews yet ISBN 9789873729201

In 399 BCE an Athenian jury sentenced Socrates to death. The speech he gave in his defense, as Plato preserved it, became one of the founding texts of Western philosophy and one of its most contested.

Plato and the Apology guides the reader through that text and the trial behind it. Claudia Marsico, a leading scholar of Socratic philosophy, places Plato's account beside the rival versions of antiquity. Xenophon composed a competing defense. The sophist Polycrates, in a pamphlet now lost, turned the charge toward Socrates' political responsibility and his closeness to the city's worst men. Other Socratics claimed the master for themselves. The result is a portrait of a trial shot through with politics from the start.

Marsico reconstructs the world of the verdict. An amnesty had been sworn to bury the civil war, and it left the prosecution unable to name the thing it most resented, Socrates' ties to Critias and Alcibiades. She then follows Socrates beyond his death, into the afterlife that made an executed citizen the model of the examined life.

Rigorous and accessible, this is an entry point for students of ancient philosophy and for anyone who has wondered why Athens killed Socrates, and why we are still reading his defense.

About the author

Product details

Pub dateJun 26, 2026
ISBN-109873729208
ISBN-139789873729201
LanguageEnglish
Last updated 2026-09-07 16:17
$19.35 $21.99 12% off
You save $2.64 · list price $21.99
In stock — ships in 24 hours with free tracking
Delivery by Monday, September 14, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Individual Philosophers
See all
Oxford Handbook of American and British Women Philosophers in the Nineteenth Century
<em>The Oxford Handbook of American and British Women Philosophers in the Nineteenth Century</em> disrupts the widespread impression that there were no women philosophers in this period. Building on feminist histories of philosophy that cover other eras, this volume includes chapters on a wide range of women philosophers: those who wrote explicitly philosophical texts for academic audiences, others who philosophized in novels or pamphlets, and still others who philosophized through journalism or activist writings. Through fifty newly commissioned chapters, it examines the philosophical thought of individual women, including women of color, as well as chronicling women's contributions to philosophical movements such as Romanticism, Utilitarianism, Idealism, and Positivism. It also traces the philosophical arguments women used to contribute to topics in social philosophy such as socialism, feminism, abolitionism, and the philosophy of education. It outlines the history of writing and publishing in the nineteenth century, showing that circumstances were more hospitable to women authors during this time than is often assumed. It clarifies ways in which race and class affected women's philosophizing and analyzes the influence of women philosophers on their male contemporaries. <br>By chronicling this wealth of women's philosophy, this handbook corrects the philosophical record and enriches our understanding of philosophy. If we assume there are no women philosophers in the nineteenth century, we will not look for them&#x3b; if we do not look for them, they will remain obscure, limiting our understanding of what philosophy is and can be.
$145.14