Socrates in Prison

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside The UK. Make their holiday unforgettable with a gift that says it all from Pandora Jewelry. A gift that tells a story and shows you know theirs. That doesn't just sparkle, but speaks. From new festive charms to forever rings and personal engravings. This season, give a gift that's perfectly theirs. Whether you're shopping for a shiny surprise for your significant other, matching bracelets to celebrate your friendship, or a heartfelt gift for a family member, say more this holiday season with Pandora. Shop now at pandora.net or visit your closest Pandora store. Here's a holiday giving hack. Don't wrap your giving in paperwork. The biggest banks in the country trust us to run their charitable giving programs. I'm a charitable strategist at Wren. We specialize in donor advised funds and send over $25,000,000,000 to charities each year. We make giving easy for financial advisors, family offices, and philanthropists. Think less paperwork, more mission. Wren just makes giving season a lot less taxing. Learn more at reninc.com. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. This is In Our Time from BBC Radio four, and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website. If you scroll down the page for this edition, you find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello. In March, Socrates' friends were pleading for him to escape from prison in Athens where he was awaiting his death by hemlock. Plato recounted this in two works, the Crito, in which Socrates shows his respect for the laws under which he'd been convicted, and the Phaedo, where he embraced death as the immortal soul's release from the prison of the body. In both, Socrates remains calm and keeps working on his philosophy, so consoling his friends and, for the last two and a half thousand years, inspiring others by his example. When we need to discuss Plato's Crito and Phaedo are Fiona Lee, associate professor in the department of philosophy at University College London, James Warren, professor of ancient philosophy at the University of Cambridge and fellow of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, and Angie Hobbs, professor of the public understanding of philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Angie Hobbs, what had just happened in the life of Socrates? Why was he in prison? Yes. He's just been convicted of refusing to believe in the city's gods, of believing in new divine beings, and of corrupting the young. And he's been sentenced to death. And he's awaiting the hemlock. The hemlock can't be administered while the Athenians have sent a sacred mission to the island of Delos in honor of Apollo. And they do this every year, and the boat was sanctified the day before the trial, and they have to wait for the return of the boat from Delos, before the hemlock can be administered. So that just adds to the drama. And Crito is …