Socrates, like Jesus, never wrote anything. So his thoughts come down to us in other people's writings, mostly Plato's. And Plato is remarkable among the major western philosophers in that all his works seem like little plays. They're dialogues, with sometimes two, sometimes many, characters, but they always have Socrates in the starring role. Plato's work starts out with a series of four dialogues, which tell the story of the trial and death of Socrates. These are Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. The first of these depicts Socrates on his way to the courthouse for his fateful trial. In case you never took Philosophy 101, he lost. He was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth. The Apology is his unsuccessful defense, and the final two dialogues show him in his imprisonment and on his final day when he faces death with profound philosophical equanimity.

Euthyphro is kind of a comedy before the more serious material that follows, and it gives a neat picture of the gently assaultive style of questioning that Socrates perfected, and which made him so brilliantly annoying. When you realize that he made a life's work out of ripping apart the received wisdom of his fellow Athenians, you might wonder why it took them so long to slip him the hemlock. But then again, Euthyphro seems to really like Socrates, at least at the beginning, and although Aristophanes takes frequent pokes at the old gadfly in his plays, Athens seems to have taken a perverse pride in him, and certainly in the great tradition of Greek philosophy of which he was the center.

Performance:
MONDAY
August 23 at 7:30 P.M.

Multimedia Center
DIRECTIONS: Enter Curson Gurad gate & turn left to the end.
Go right on Alandale Ave. to Stop sign at Lindenhurst Ave.
Go right on Lindenhurst to Activities Center

PLB Activities Center:
(323) 549-5458