The Trial and Death of Socrates

For those of you who must have it all, buy PLATO COMPLETE WORKS, edited by John M. Cooper. Personally, I would save your [money] and just buy this. I have read and reviewed many other Platonic texts, but I really don't think you need anything else. This is the irreducible core of Platonic Goodness.
THE TRIAL AND DEATH OF SOCRATES is a compilation four dialogues: the "Euthyphro," the "Apology," "Crito," and the "Phaedo". As the title clearly states, these four dialogues convey the story - and philosophical debate - that surrounded Socates' trial and death. In these dialogues we find Socrates defending the righteousness of his actions and views, and tearing away at his prosecutors with the skill of expert lawyer. His only weapon being the truth.
In spite of, or perhaps because these four dialogues were written while Plato was still a middle-aged man (as opposed to the "Republic" and the "Laws," which are thought to be his more formulated philosophical expressions), they absolutely sizzle. The text bleeds with life, and so-called Socratic method of endless penetrating questions is here exemplified in the most dire of occasions - Socrates defense against the State of Athens.
It is in these dialogues that Plato expresses the core of philosopohy: a committment to truth, beauty and justice, and the the supreme tenent: "The unexamined life is not worth living." That said, if you still yearn for more Plato after reading these dialogues, grab a copy of Allan Bloom's translation of THE REPUBLIC. It is currently the best English translation available, and you will still be saving [money] over an edition of Plato's complete works.

i did not read the reviews closely enough, but i would have figured this wouldn't be a problem: the book does NOT include the entire phaedo!!! why would they do that??? this slim little number is only just under sixty pages as is. i can't see how it would have affected anything negatively and can only see how it would have been a good thing to just have included the entire phaedo. it probably would have been a more convenient book if they'd just included it, the book is too thin to comfortably hold and turn pages. what you get instead is a book that leaves out basically an entire dialogue. useless!!!

i direct everyone interested in the entire hackett translations of these four dialogues to get the five dialogues. it includes an extra dialogue, the meno, placed in the middle of these dialogues. i was hoping to avoid that with this edition, and read about the trial and death of socrates, my personal hero, in a more literary way, but life could not oblige. thanks, hackett!

please help the negative reviews get more exposure! they seem to be more on point than the positive reviews

The Trial and Death of Socrates, by Plato, is a timeless piece dealing with themes that are applicable to the generations of then, now and those to come. Written in the classic, observant, style of Plato, the book is a compilation of four dialogues that the main character, Socrates, engages in at various times with different people. Each dialogue is didactic in style and although they don't always end conclusively, they do provoke one to reflect upon that which is discussed. Throughout the book Socrates deals with such subjects as pious versus the impious, wise versus the unwise, and just versus the unjust. The book is set in Athens, in the year 399 B.C.E., and is written so that each section revolves around Socrates' trial as described in the section entitled "The Apology". The book focuses much attention on the trial in which Socrates is being tried for corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods recognized by the state. Aside from the philosophical side of Socrates, the reader is also introduced to his family and friends, thus observing the person who Socrates really was. Many readers are introduced to various sections of this book at some point in their education, yet those who never read the entire book miss altogether the importance of the relationships that Socrates has with others. It is through study of these relationships that the reader begins to view Socrates as a real human and develop a sympathetic connection with him. While the conversations are occasionally difficult to follow, the thoughts and philosophies of Socrates are profound and worth the invested time to understand. Each debate that Socrates partakes in introduces to the reader a new piece of knowledge or moral question to ponder. It is through the answers to these questions that the reader reaps the true benefit of tackling The Death and Trial of Socrates. Wisdom gained is worth more than the time invested.

Required reading for every living person.

Buyer beware: this version contains only the final "death scene" from Phaedo, not the full text. The other texts (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito) are complete. I can't speak for the faithfulness of the translation, but I prefer Jowett's translation to Grube's. For instance, Jowett opens Apology thus:

"How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that they almost made me forget who I was--so persuasively did they speak; and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth. But of the many falsehoods told by them, there was one which quite amazed me--I mean when they said that you should be on your guard and not allow yourselves to be deceived by the force of my eloquence. To say this, when they were certain to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and proved myself to be anything but a great speaker, did indeed appear to me most shameless--unless by force of eloquence they mean the force of truth; for if such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent. But in how different a way from theirs!"

Now Grube:

"I do not know, men of Athens, how my accusers have affected you; as for myself, I was almost carried away in spite of myself, so persuasively did they speak. And yet, hardly anything of what they said is true. Of the many lies they told, one in particular surprised me, namely that you should be careful not to be deceived by an accomplished speaker like me. That they were not ashamed to be immediately proved wrong by the facts, when I show myself not to be an accomplished speaker at all, that I thought most shameless on their part--unless indeed they call an accomplished speaker the man who speaks the truth. If they mean that, I would agree that I am an orator, but not after their manner..."

I know I sound like a King James purist, but the Jowett translation feels more poetic to me, perhaps in part due its mere familiarity or its more antiquated language. Secondly, taking the passage above, it seems to me that Socrates' humor is lost in the Grube translation--the joke about his accusers speaking so persuasively that he almost forgot who he was almost disappears and seems diluted by trite, modern colloquialisms like "carried away" and "in spite of myself," and by such an emotionally-charged and presumptuously accusatory term as "lies" (which seems out-of-character for Socrates and singularly unphilosophical). Thirdly, I think Grube does a disservice to Plato, and to his figure of Socrates, by having the latter state in simple terms that he "speaks the truth," which (by its apparent preposterous arrogance) is apt to mislead and preemptively repulse readers who are new to Plato and new to philosophy. Socrates (Plato's Socrates anyway) was a skeptic and consistently denied any positive knowledge of "the truth". His pursuit of wisdom consisted largely in helping to discover error in the supposed reasoning of others who themselves arrogantly claimed to possess and dispense wisdom. And whatever "truth" was discovered in this negative sense, Socrates did not claim credit for it, but attributed its source to forms existing independently of himself and to a sort of guiding spirit within all human beings (similar to common notions of "reason" and "conscience", if blended together) that he merely served to facilitate. Jowett captures, or at least allows for, this nuanced way of seeing things by speaking instead of "the force of truth," as if it were some irresistible force of nature akin to gravity or mathematics, which any person might utilize but no person might own.

I purchased this book for a young man with an incipient interest in philosophy and now I am hesitant to give it to him, lest it turn him away by causing him to judge it dismissively from the start.

This was the book necessary for my introduction to political philosophy @ Harvard. My professor said we needed it for the next week and thanks to the next day shipping guarante I received it the next day mid afternoon. This book was only useful to us for Plato's "The Apology" but I'm sure to keep this on my shelf and read the rest od Socrates's trial. Overall it's worth the 6 dollars it's just like buying a big Mac, but you get to enjoy this one longer.

The book looks awful. It has brown things that could be dried mucus, oatmeal, etc. Terrible!

Good item
Thank you

With Socrates and Plato, you've got to start somewhere. The challenge is that most of us don't start. We take one look at what appears impenetrable, and quit. I've done that a number of times!

So I'm grateful to have this 58-page version. It was short enough that I could keep plugging along, and hit the highlights of the work.

Socrates answers the question above ("Is life worth living"?) in the positive, several times.
And this short work is worth reading!
My only regret is that it took me these many years to do it.
This is another one of those works about which I have said, "I wish I had read this when I was still teaching."

By the way, Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen asked whether life is worth living many times, and came to the same conclusion, but through different means.

Just as an aside, when I was teaching, the students (and I) often needed help in remembering the order in which Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle came in history. The mnemonic device we came up with is "SPA." Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (SPA) are like a spa for the mind.

I'm guessing most of these people leaving reviews didn't even read the book because hardly anyone mentions that this book is incomplete. It leaves out most of Phaedo. The rest is good, but this is basically 3.25 dialogues.