Good Life And Death In Socrates 'The Apology'

To Socrates the connection of the good life and death are very important, and he talks about what a good life is in The Apology. So, what is a good life according to Socrates? And what is a good life’s relation to death? What do these two very opposing ideas have to do with each other? Well they have a lot more to do with each other than one would immediately think. First in order to understand the connection between these two antithetical concepts we have to understand what exactly Socrates means when he says, “a good life.” So, what is “a good life”? A good life as defined by Socrates himself is a life in which you are constantly questioning and thinking about things, deep philosophical things usually like questioning the status quo. Things
Socrates thought those things were of little importance even though most of his countrymen were occupied by these material wants and needs rather than self-examination. These things had little meaning to him in the long run, and they would not help to further the life of Athens as a whole, he was not satisfied with the ideology as everyone else was and that was why was accused of being impious and attempting to corrupt the youth. He questioned the gods and their ideas and what the gods thought of as impious and pious. He wanted to understand these ideas and to question them. Of course, because of this Socrates was put on trial and sentenced to death for crimes against the state of Athens. When asked to stop philosophizing in order to be able to live Socrates refused. He said that it was his order from the gods to keep questioning and philosophizing and that he would rather die a philosopher rather than live out the rest of his life unable to continue questioning and examining himself. Socrates is not afraid of death, he in fact prefers death to the alternative of living what he sees as a bad life and disobeying the order of the gods and not continuing to be a philosopher like he feels he is