Socrates in Prison

23 Jan, 2025 180 Ancient, medieval, and Eastern philosophy

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato’s Crito and Phaedo, his accounts of the last days of Socrates in prison in 399 BC as he waited to be executed by drinking hemlock. Both works show Socrates preparing to die in the way he had lived: doing philosophy. In the Crito, Plato shows Socrates arguing that he is duty bound not to escape from prison even though a bribe would open the door, while in the Phaedo his argument is for the immortality of the soul which, at the point of death, might leave uncorrupted from the ‘prison’ of his body, the one escape that truly mattered to Socrates. His example in his last days has proved an inspiration to thinkers over the centuries and in no small way has helped ensure the strength of his reputation.

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Guests

  • Professor Angie Hobbs 25 episodes
    Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
  • Fiona Leigh 2 episodes
    Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University College London
  • Professor James Warren 5 episodes
    Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Reading list

  • Plato's Phaedo: Forms, Death and the Philosophical Life
    David Ebrey (Cambridge University Press, 2023) Google Books →
  • The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato's Phaedo 102a-107a
    Dorothea Frede (Phronesis, 1978)
  • A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 4, Plato: The Man and his Dialogues, Earlier Period
    W. K. C. Guthrie (Cambridge University Press, 2008) Google Books →
  • Conflicting Values in Plato's Crito
    Verity Harte (Archiv. fur Geschichte der Philosophie, 1999)
  • Why Plato Matters Now
    Angie Hobbs (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2025) Google Books →
  • Plato's Euthyphro, Apology and Crito: Critical Essays
    Rachana Kamtekar (ed.) (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) Google Books →
  • Socrates and the State
    Richard Kraut (Princeton University Press, 1984) Google Books →
  • Argument and Agreement in Plato's Crito
    Melissa Lane (History of Political Thought, 1998)
  • Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo and Phaedrus
    Plato (trans. Chris Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy) (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 2017) Google Books →
  • The Trial and Death of Socrates: Euthyphro Apology, Crito, Phaedo
    Plato (trans. G. M. A. Grube and John Cooper) (Hackett, 2001) Google Books →
  • The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo
    Plato (trans. Christopher Rowe) (Penguin, 2010) Google Books →
  • The Cambridge Companion to Socrates
    Donald R. Robinson (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
  • Plato: Meno and Phaedo
    David Sedley and Alex Long (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Google Books →
  • Forms of Agreement in Plato's Crito
    James Warren (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, April 2023)
  • Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths
    Robin Waterfield (Faber and Faber, 2010) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m00274xs

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00274xs

Auto-category: 184 (Plato)