Is there any source on how Plato wrote the Apology?

[Anonymous No.16920472]

I know a lot of his later dialogues were written long after the death of Socrates. But was Apology written during the court preceding? Apology just reads differently from the rest of the dialogues, even through translation. Socrates comes off as much more of a smart ass. It feels like Plato was actually writing while the trial was occurring. Any source on this?

[Anonymous No.16920495]

He was there.

[Anonymous No.16920506]

He was there but he didn't write what we have then and there.
Every dialogue is written 'late' in Plato's life, long after having established his school.

[Anonymous No.16920549]

>>16920506
That’s so fucking gay.
So apology could have just been written up as Plato’s larp 20+ years after the trial?

[Anonymous No.16920564]

According to the usual chronology and analysis of style, the Apology is generally considered to be both truer to the real Socrates than the dialogues (especially the middle and later ones), and truer to real events. But as far as I know there is no consensus and no obvious smoking gun that demonstrates this. Just surmises. If you dug around in the literature you could probably find older analyses mustering all the available
data. Sadly this kind of work is rarely done anymore and people in Classics rarely have the talent or training for it anymore.

>>16920506
That's not true, the usual chronology is split into early middle and late dialogues. There has been endless debate over which are which, but it's generally agreed that the metaphysical dialogues (especially those that use a barely recognisable Socrates or barely use him at all) are quite late, written after Plato's second or third return from Syracuse. This is when the Academy was well-established and probably famous and receiving visitors, and when Plato turned (so it seems anyway) to a more systematic working out of the metaphysical implications of his philosophy, evident for example in attempts to clarify the nature and function of methexis, and the geometrical and mathematical focus of the late school.

The early dialogues are generally considered truer to the real Socrates, although again this is based on surmises - Plato presumably used him for a reason, was still young and clearly viewed him as a father (see the line in Phaedo where Socrates is described like a father), and he was still vividly remembered and known by many Athenians, of whom many were Plato's close friends. Structurally they are also less metaphysical or only implicitly metaphysical, more consistent in their application of the "Socratic" or "elenchic" method to the problem of essences/identities. The general consensus is usually that this is the real Socrates, the Socrates of the elenchus, the gadfly with muted metaphysics or perhaps no metaphysics at all.

I favour a more metaphysical Socrates myself (see The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, by Findlay).

Also OP of course read Xenophon's account of Socrates for contrast.

[Anonymous No.16920570]

>>16920564
I forgot to mention, also read Aristophanes' parody of Socrates in The Clouds. That's another famous locus classicus people use to get an idea of Socrates' real character - remember, it's a parody, so presumably it had to be immediately recognisable as embodying Socrates. Personally I find this evidence decisive in dismissing theories that Socrates was not at all interested in metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.16920595]

>>16920564
Beautiful answer. Thanks for taking the time anon. Good karma to you.

[Anonymous No.16922039]

>>16920564
>>16920570
Thank you, fren.