Wednesday, October 21, 2026 · 5:15 PM – 6:45 PM
Brenner Room — 17 School St., Rockport, MA
This reading and discussion group, led by Rebecca Hartnett, will meet every other week for a total of eight sessions on: The Trials of Socrates: Six Classic Texts . Why did ancient Athens — the most politically and culturally enlightened society of the age to which many of the social, political, intellectual, legal, moral and even aesthetic values of Western civilization can be traced — prosecute and execute the man now universally viewed as the archetype of, at the very least, the West’s philosophical and rational moral tradition? This discussion group will read and consider the extant contemporary writings about Socrates and his trial to understand the man, his mission, the charges against him, whether or not the verdict and sentence were just, and the relevance of it all. About Rebecca Hartnett Rebecca Hartnett is an independent researcher/scholar with eight years of teaching at the secondary and college levels and more than thirty years as a computer applications developer and instructor. She received a philosophy M.A. from Boston College where she taught the subject for two years. This was followed by six years teaching secondary math and science at high schools in…