philosophy assignments

In the Apology, Socrates is in court and accused of three things:

1. Corrupting the Youth

2. Not believing in the gods of Athens

3. Inventing new gods/deities

For each of these Socrates defends himself with an argument (one for each). Your task is to write a short paper (2-3 pages) explaining and evaluating one of these arguments (which could be seen as excuses). You need to:

1. Identify which accusation Socrates is replying to. (5pts)

2. Reconstruct and explain in your own words his argument. (10pts)

3. Evaluate the argument (tell me whether you think the argument was good or bad and why). (5pts)

As a reminder, you only need to write about one of these accusations, not all three. So, if you choose to write about the corruption of the youth, you do not need to write about the atheism or neologism accusations. Each of these should take you around a paragraph to answer, though the second may take two. Since this is worth 20pts, this is worth 5% of your total grade.