Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro & Crito

This collection of texts attributed to Plato are perhaps some of the most significant blobs of words in the history of western philosophy. Honestly - having never actually read anything by Plato before, when working my way through these (which only actually took a couple of days as I found them so gripping) I was seized with a sense of spiritual reverence that I have never felt in reading anything but holy texts. There is a specialness in these ancient dialogues.

   In reverse order then:

• Crito: this is a dialogue with Socrates, having been condemned and now languishing in prison, debating with someone attempting to release him what exactly is the proper relationship between an individual and the state in the moral order.
• Euthyphro: this is a dialogue between Socrates and a young aristocrat about what is the proper obligation of a human being to the gods; where morality comes from, whether we could ever owe it to the gods to do something evil, or if they would be gods were they to demand such a thing.
• Defence of Socrates: in here Socrates, accused of atheism and corrupting the youth of Athens, stands trial amongst his peers, and has to offer a coherent rational defence of his thinking, behaviours, ideas and their impacts on wider society - he knows he will be put to death should this trial not go his way, but he is not concerned with self-defence so much as he is with pursuit of absolute truth.

   I know these summaries are barely scratching the surface. If the Socrates that Plato sketches in these texts is half as wise as the real man they were based on then I must agree he was probably the wisest man in history. Anyway. So that's the book. Exactly who determined that these three should be collated together I do not know - certainly not Socrates, and probably not Plato, but it cannot be denied there is a pure and sheer brilliance of deep overlap between the ideas herein. If you like philosophy and you've not read these, you must. If you don't like philosophy but you wonder why philosophers think you should - you should read these.