Socrates knew very well what was coming to him. Ironically, his way of life and his relentless questioning led to him being accused of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens. He was not a responsible father to his children, as he was often outside the house, devoted to conversing about philosophy with other people. He never accepted money from those who offered it to him. He exerted his utmost to devote himself to the service of his friends by conversing with them about the philosophical way of life. In his efforts to live his life around what he believed to be the right way to live it, Socrates earned the hatred of his fellow Athenians. These people lived in self-contentment and never saw any reason to question themselves or their beliefs. He compared the people of Athens to a sleepy horse, content with their beliefs which they do not examine and scrutinize. In the end, Socrates described himself as a gadfly, a bug that bites a sleepy horse and annoys it.

This is what prompted Socrates to say that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates reminded those around him to always use their intellect to scrutinize their lives and ask themselves whether they are living their lives truthfully. He looked at philosophy as an instrument to be used by people in their search for justice and truth. He did not even treat it as a profession.

Socrates did not treat philosophy as an amusement. In Socrates’ view, philosophy is not about the simple act of hoarding knowledge, but instead, it is about questioning what is already accepted as common knowledge. In doing so, he made an impression that he is different from these types of people in that he lives his life based on his philosophy.

He also compared himself with the politicians of his time. In the early stages of the trial, Socrates compared himself with the sophists and other philosophers that came before him. During the trial, Socrates was around seventy years old, and he not only countered the accusations set against him but also explained his life, which he led around his philosophy. The Apology is one of Plato’s most famous works and is one of the most moving accounts of a man’s philosophical sentiments. The work represents the events of Socrates’s legal defense against the accusations laid out by the Athenian court against him. The Apology is a dialogue written by Plato around 399 B.C. The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David

Plato's apology of socrates