Please read over this text very carefully, TWICE. We have to discuss it in detail.
NOTE: We'll use the Penguin edition in The Last Days of Socrates, which is in the bookstore, for the class.
Please do not read any "commentaries" on it -- either from the Penguin edition you may be using, or from any other source.
The reason is this: this is one of the fundamental texts of what is often called "Western culture." Like Homer; the Bible; and perhaps a couple of dozen other texts, the Apology is so basic to this culture that most people "see what they have been taught they will see" in it. We don't read "the text itself", but a text which has already been "interpreted" for us, and we "see" in it just what we have been told beforehand we ought to see, what it is acceptable to see.
We cannot escape this entirely. But let us try to read this text without preconceived ideas about what it "means".
After you have studied this text carefully, please write 300-350 words on one of the subjects below. Each group will write on a different question.
Group 1: Specifically, what does Socrates -- the person in whose mouth the Apology, which is really a long speech -- say he is being accused of? There are several charges; identify them very carefully. Do not use direct quotes, but paraphrase accurately, using your own words.
Group 2: Specifically, who are Socrates' accusers? Who are the people - specifically, again -- to whom Socrates claims he has gone to seek wisdom, and whom he claims to be wiser than?
Group 3: Who are Socrates' students and followers? What kind of men are they?
Please consider the following questions as well:
What is the evidence in the text?
Please email to your group, and to me.