A Socratic Worldview Essay

“it is time for me to die, and for you to live- though which of us has the better destiny is unclear to everyone, save only to God.” So with this statement, Socrates seems to contradict himself and admits that nobody really knows whether it is better to be alive than dead. This statement also clearly identifies the fact that he believes in a supreme being so there is no way he could believe that there is no life after death. He in fact several times speaks about how his obedience to his God is of the utmost importance. Essentially this whole argument about death with no after life being a favorable outcome is completely preposterous. He would be abandoning his family, friends and his principles further contradicting

Socrates is believed to be one of the greatest philosophers of all time and he is credited as being the founder of western philosophy. This paper will explain some of his views to the most fundamental questions of today’s age. These questions will include topics about morality, the human condition, solution, and death. After Socrates’ views on these topics are explained, a critique will be done on his answers. I will start out by explaining exactly who Socrates is, and the time that he lived in. To start out, we will first examine Socrates’ view on morality.

The phrase “worldview” is a mental framework of all people and groups to interpret the nature of reality and the world we live in. It is philosophical, metaphysical or an ideological reality of the world we live in. The worldview is also used in understanding the law governing relationships among human beings, nature and the purpose of human life. They are attitudes and ideas about the world we live in and a thorough understanding of the systems of all the beliefs which hope will provide all the answers to the range of questions within ourselves as human beings. In most cases, worldviews are as a result of our human life experiences, and they subsequently shape as individuals in the approach we have to live. This paper

Socrates put one’s quest for wisdom and the instruction of others above everything else in life. A simple man both in the way he talked and the wealth he owned, he believed that simplicity in whatever one did was the best way of acquiring knowledge and passing it unto others. He is famous for saying that “the unexplained life is not worth living.” He endeavored therefore to break down the arguments of those who talked with a flowery language and boasted of being experts in given subjects (Rhees 30). His aim was to show that the person making a claim on wisdom and knowledge was in fact a confused one whose clarity about a given subject was far from what they claimed. Socrates, in all his simplicity never advanced any theories of his own

As the wisest man in all of ancient Greece, Socrates believed that the purpose of life was both personal and spiritual growth. He establishes this conviction in what is arguably his most renowned statement: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Buddhism is very different from the Christian worldview. The first question ask about the origin of Buddhism. The Buddhism faith could be viewed as being atheistic. According to Buddha life was never here to begin with so it is a waste of time to think of where we came from. Also Buddha says if God exists then it is irrelevant, impersonal, and agnostic. However, the Christians faith believes the opposite. Christians believe that life began when God created life. “In the beginning God created everything in the world. God has an image and created all of what we see today. (King James Version, Gen 1:1-31)

In Phaedo, Socrates defines what he believes the life of a philosopher is. When discussing this topic with his followers, he establishes that “being serious about the so-called pleasures, such as those of food and drink, goes [least] with being a philosophical man” (Phaedo 64D). Instead, he states that “those who philosophize rightly make dying their care” (Phaedo 68A). Through these claims, Socrates establishes that ideal philosophers isolate themselves from certain concepts, such as pleasure, that we associate with being human. Socrates’s views on what happens after death give insight into why he promotes this nature of a philosophical life. He believes that death is the “release and separation of soul from body” (Phaedo 67D). He further uses the argument of contraries to contend that there are opposites in nature and these opposites have “becoming[s] from each member of the

My personal worldview explains the way I view and live life through the assumptions and beliefs I hold in response to the world around me. I believe I was created for a specific reason and purpose.

One of the positive effects of such a belief regarding the soul and its existence after the body's physical death is that it can serve as motivation to lead a virtuous life. This fact is readily demonstrated within the speech and actions of Socrates, who attempted to lead a high life of virtue, reasoning, and thinking in order to protect his soul from any sort of debauchery which might affect it in the afterlife. Socrates' conception of the afterlife was somewhat as muddled as Plato's, during The Apology he claimed he knew nothing about it, yet he also asserts that it will either be a restful, lasting slumber or a state in which one has an enjoyable degree of communication with the

Socrates values his arguments and beliefs over his life, as he states in Crito, “… for I am still what I always have been – a man who will accept no argument but that which on reflection I find the truest. I cannot cast aside my former arguments because this misfortune has come to me” (Church, 55). Socrates is wiser than I, but I possess the basic human instinct to survive at almost any

For Socrates, the truth and dying for doing the right think is the good life, and a life worth living and philosophy is an art of persuasion with which men are challenged to look to themselves and seek wisdom and not look to their interests. Philosophy is not a tool to crush and humiliate others with, but to improve ourselves. When that is achieved, the obligation from the Allegory of the Cave is the next step: to improve others.

He claims that Death is not the end of all, being released from ones evil by death, for after death the soul is carried away to judgment. After getting a punishment, it returns to earth in the sequence of ages. The wise soul is directed through the world below, where as the impure soul wanders without a guide and is carried at last to its own place. The distinction between good souls and evil ones, Socrates recognizes that freedom of choice is given to each individual. Because he believes in the fairness of God, he is assured that a different fate for good and evil souls. Socrates is not certain but the idea of reincarnation in the teachings of the unknown religions offers a solution that he believes is at least something that will take place.

Socrates was considered by many to be the wisest man in ancient Greece. While he was eventually condemned for his wisdom, his spoken words are still listened to and followed today. When, during his trial, Socrates stated that, “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato 45), people began to question his theory. They began to wonder what Socrates meant with his statement, why he would feel that a life would not be worth living. To them, life was above all else, and choosing to give up life would be out of the picture. They did not understand how one would choose not to live life just because he would be unable to examine it.

"An unexamined life is not worth living."  (Plato, trans. 1871, pa.68)   As Socrates stands against the court, on his final moments, he stands against his firm beliefs, and his insubordinate teachings.  He feels that it is his mission, by God, and his purpose, to seek for this truth within both himself, and other men.  It is often asked what makes life worth living?  In the eyes of Socrates, this 'unexamined life' is one who lives with ignorance, and is not willing to live through experiences, and constantly searches for the truth.  Both self-reflective and self-critical, they walk on a path that seeks for answers to the bigger (and sometimes smaller) questions.  The thirst for knowledge and, through examining his own life, encouraging and reflecting on others' lives, and being critical of those who do not examine their own, Socrates drew to the assumption that an unexamined life is certainly just not worth living.

In this dialogue Socrates and the philosophers explore several arguments for this idea of an immortal soul. These arguments were to illustrate and verify that death is not the dying of body and soul collectively, but when the body dies the soul continues to live on. Socrates offers readers four main arguments: The Cyclical Argument, which is the idea that forms are fixed and external. The soul is the sole purpose of life in this argument, and therefore cannot die and it is also to be seen as virtually never-ending. Next is The Theory of Recollection, which insists that at birth everyone has knowledge that the soul experienced in another life. Meaning that the soul would have had to be existent before birth to bear this said knowledge.