See also: Apology for Socrate (homonymy)
In the Apologie for Socrate (subtitled ethical Kind ) Plato brings back the pleas of Socrate in three parts, having a whole a direct link with death. Socrate is defended in front of the judges but also in front of all the city of Athens. It is shown to corrupt youth and to lead it thereafter to disavow the gods of the city.
Characters: Socrat,
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First speech, on the culpability of Socrate
He refutes L `idea that the education which he offer is with a lucrative aim and then explains that he cannot not accept the gods because according to him they are these gods, in particular Apollon (by a returned oracle with Chéréphon), who incited it to be Philosophe.
At the end of this part the judges vote and do not accept with a small majority (60 votes out of 500 judges) the arguments of Socrate, it is thus recognized guilty of the facts which are reproached to him. Mélétos in the name of all the indicters claims the capital punishment, Socrate must propose another sorrow according to the Athénien legal system. The judges will vote thereafter one of the two judgments which Socrate will undergo.
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Second speech, proposal for a sorrow
Socrat sees himself in the obligation to propose a sorrow, but he refuses at the beginning to propose a sorrow because according to him would be to admit its culpability. As in the first part he proclaims that he did nothing but render service to the Cité and in deduced that the city owes him recognition for these services. With end of this part Socrate, which estimates that it can continue to be useful to Athens, proposes to the judges a light sorrow compared to that Mélétos had proposed but proportional to its fortune: a money mine. His/her friends propose to him to give him thirty mines. The capital punishment falls and Socrate is condemned to died…
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Third speech, conversation with the judges
In this part Socrate S `addresses initially to the judges who condemned it. Then he proposes to the judges who supported it to discuss with him. He starts a discussion on death. He proposes two visions of death, one pessimistic which he rejects and the other optimist. In the latter, it gives a report on a paradise open to all the men, where it would have the possibility of questioning all the great men of the Histoire of its country and where, he is ironical, it will not be condemned to not died for that.
Let us notice that it is easy for us, with the proper perspective, to immediately perceive the injustice of this lawsuit. Socrat was distinguished little from the sophists and there was in its entourage of the rather opportunist individuals even of the traitors (cf Alcibiade)
If Socrate brings defense not very convincing and ironic (even scorning with regard to the judges whom he refuses with apitoyer), perhaps it is due to its will to show that the ideas are more important than the life, or, according to some, the fact that he is already 69 years old and more nothing to lose and thus die with honor.
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