Major Works

• Apology

  - Recommended translation: Plato. "Apology." In Four Texts on Socrates, translated by Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West, 1–33. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984; revised edition, 1998.
  Excerpt from Plato’s Apology: “How you, men of Athens, have been affected by my accusers, I do not know; but I, for my part, almost forgot my own identity, so persuasively did they talk; and yet there is hardly a word of truth in what they have… More

Other Works

• Euthyphro

  - Recommended translation: "Euthyphro" in Four Texts on Socrates,  trans. Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West (Cornell University Press: 1984, rev. 1998).  
  About the dialogue: Euthyphro (ca. 399 BCE) is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, set in the weeks leading up to Socrates’ trial and death. While awaiting a preliminary hearing near the king archon’s court, Socrates meets Euthryphro, and the two men… More

Commentary

• On Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Crito by Leo Strauss

  - Strauss, Leo. “On Plato's Apology of Socrates and Crito.” In Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, 68–97. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
  From the publisher: “One of the outstanding thinkers of our time offers in this book his final words to posterity. Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy was well underway at the time of Leo Strauss’s death in 1973. Having chosen the title for the… More

• Apology of Socrates

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "Apology of Socrates," Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  Excerpt: There are at least three principles on which the Dialogues of Plato, or some of them, can be arranged to form a general schema. The first to be employed was the ancient grouping of the dialogues in the famous tetralogies according to their perceived… More

• On the Socratic Education: An Introduction to the Shorter Platonic Dialogues

  - Bruell, Christopher, On the Socratic Education: An Introduction to the Shorter Platonic Dialogues, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
  Excerpt: Nothing is so well established in our Western democracies today as the right of each to seek happiness in his or her own way. It is as if a pass to that effect had been issued to us at birth. This much is obvious. Less obvious is the fact that… More

• The Trial and Death of Socrates

  - Zuckert, Catherine H., "The Trial and Death of Socrates," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
  Excerpt: Alfred North Whitehead’s quip that all subsequent philosophy is merely a footnote to Plato has often been repeated, but those who repeat it do not seem to have thought much about the difference between the source and the scholarship on it.… More

• The Ironic Defense of Socrates: Plato’s Apology

  - Leibowitz, David M., The Ironic Defense of Socrates: Plato's Apology, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  Excerpt: Thirty-five Platonic dialogues have come down to us as genuine. Socrates is present in at least thirty-three and the chief speaker in at least twenty-seven. Yet he is mentioned in a title only this once. Plato’s Socrates first comes to sigh,… More

Multimedia

• Leo Strauss Courses on Plato

  - Audio of courses taught by Leo Strauss, 1958 - 1973, provided by the Leo Strauss Center at the University of Chicago.
  Courses include: Plato’s Laws, Symposium, Gorgias, Meno, Apology/Crito, Protagoras, Euthydemus and Republic.

• Allan Bloom on Plato’s Apology of Socrates

  - Audio recording of Allan Bloom teaching a seminar on Plato's Apology. 9 minutes 49 seconds.

• Steven B. Smith: Introduction to Political Philosophy

  - Smith, Steven B., "Introduction to Political Philosophy," Open Yale Courses, 24 lectures, Fall 2006.
  About the course: This course is intended as an introduction to political philosophy as seen through an examination of some of the major texts and thinkers of the Western political tradition. Three broad themes that are central to understanding political life… More