lty. Socrates’ friends planned his escape from prison, but he preferred to comply with the law and die for his cause. His last day was spent with his friends and admirers, and in the evening he calmly fulfilled his sentence by drinking a cup of hemlock according to a customary procedure of execution. Plato described the trial and death of Socrates in the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo. V. Apology: The Examined LifeBecause of his political associations with an earlier regime, the Athenian democracy put Socrates on trial, charging him with undermining state religion and corrupting young people. The speech he offered in his own defense, as reported in Plato's (Apology), provides us with many reminders of the central features of Socrates’ approach to philosophy and its relation to practical life. Ironic Modesty: Explaining his mission as a philosopher, Socrates reports an oracular message telling him "No one is wiser than you." (Apology 21a) He then proceeds through a series of ironic descriptions of his efforts to disprove the oracle by conversing with notable Athenians who must surely be wiser. In each case, In each case, however, Socrates concludes that he has a kind of wisdom that each of them lacks, namely, an open awareness of his own ignorance. Questioning Habit: The goal of Socratic interrogation, then, is to help individuals to achieve genuine self-knowledge, even if it often turns out to be negative in character. As his cross-examination of Meletus shows, Socrates means to turn the methods of the Sophists inside out, using logical nit picking to expose (rather than to create) illusions about reality. If the method rarely succeeds with interlocutors, it can nevertheless be effectively internalized as a dialectical mode of reasoning in an effort to understand everything. Devotion to Truth: Even after the jury has convicted him, Socrates declines to abandon his pursuit of the truth in all matters. Refusing to accept e...
