The debate over faith and reason has existed for as long as philosophy has been in existence itself. Ancient Athenian scholars began engaged each other over matters surrounding what was good or bad right or wrong just or unjust pious or impious moral or immoral among others. Athenian scholars such as Socrates had these scholarly debates and engaged in these scholarly escapades and debates long before the coming of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and the subsequent advent of the Christian faith (Choi & Sciglitano pp 25). This is a clear indication that the human beings have always sought some basis and safe secure grounding of what they believed in and deemed to be the right thing to believe in. while most ancient societies such as the ancient roman …show more content…
The society tended to develop same inclinations towards their belief on what is good or bad. In 700 before Christ the society moved from the original mythology of good and bad and subscribe to a general belief that originally all Athenians were good pious people. This view is what historians christened Homeric’s (Choi & Sciglitano pp 25). The shared believe was that as long as one lived appropriately then they were both pious and virtuous. This means that the society had virtues and every one was believed to be pious as long as they didn’t deviate from the set virtues. As Plato came to illustrate later after the challenge pluralist cultures challenge to the Homeric’s, the beliefs that shaped the society then were customary and the challenge the pluralist nature of culture arose (Choi & Sciglitano 26). It is under such circumstances when Plato questions the adage; when you go to Rome act as romans. His question is what if the culture is unconscionable and goes against ones believes of what is right or wrong (Choi & Sciglitano 26). Owing to the societies pursuit of faith that appeals to reason the sophist approach was born (Choi & Sciglitano 27). This approach is based on the art of persuasion to prove what is right or wrong. Socrates doesn’t agree with the view that the good or bad, truth or lie can lie on ones mastery of oratory and speech skills. Since what appeals to reason is
Socrates is known to be a very wise man and speaks from the heart. Whenever he talks to a person he questions their answers. By asking several questions to test their knowledge and to see if they know what they’re talking about. He feels that people should think outside the box and theirs more than what the Gods think. People should be able to give out their opinion even if they are right or wrong. But living in Athens everyone believes in the Gods. If you do wrong the Gods will be angry and they will turn their back on you. In the chapter Euthyphro, he was surprise whenever he seen Socrates in the courthouse. Meletus did a lawsuit against Socrate because his been corrupting the youth by teaching them not to believe in gods. They
Socrates was a Greek philosopher, who is one of the founders of western philosophy. Socrates never wrote down his ideas or thoughts; his student, Plato, wrote down his ideas and thoughts. Socrates was accused of expressing there were different Gods and he was brought to trial in 399.B.C.E. Socrates character, in the different passages I read, Euthyphro, Apology and Citro are a little contradictory. Also if the act of persuading the state is the only alternative to blind obedience, why did Socrates' in both of specifically in his defense and generally in his career make so little effort to persuade the people when they were acting unjustly? In this essay I hope to demonstrate how Socrates character contradicts in these different passages and
Socrates’ actions during his life explain ideas that have always existed but not clearly understood. Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito take Socrates’s actions and create a different form of viewing decision making especially within the relationship of the state and citizen. Socrates takes the idea of what makes something pious or just and attempts to understand it as other actors are making decisions based on what they believe is pious or just. Plato’s overarching teaching is that people and states make decisions based on what they believe is pious and just based on their definitions of the words which may not be consistent with everyone else’s definition. This teaching is consistent throughout the Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito as characters and states make decisions and present arguments based on their differing views of what the correct decision and judgment is in several situations.
During the time of Socrates, religion and law should be respected and followed. In Ancient Greece, men who hold a citizenship of a city-state such as Athens must conform to all their laws and religion. Religion at that time was very important and valued. If anyone tried to change it or question it would be doomed to death. This what happened to Socrates because not only did he question the God but he was also corrupting the younger generation according to the courts (Plato 2 and 4). For a man in Ancient Greece he should be a pious person. As I mention earlier one must submit to the gods and make offering to them.
Throughout the Platonic dialogues, in which Socrates always plays an integral role, Socrates challenges the preconceived beliefs possessed by the interlocutors in regards to virtue and seeks to educate them on their misunderstandings. Socrates adopts the most conducive strategy to educate the interlocutor, tailoring his discussions to the interlocutors’ personality and the circumstances surrounding the discussion. Occasionally, this ad hoc treatment impels Socrates to contradict himself. The foundations adopted by Socrates in the Euthyphro and Crito exemplify Socrates’ tendency to contradict himself between dialogues. In the Euthyphro Socrates argues one should only concern themselves with what is pious while in the Crito, Socrates asserts
The book written by Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, contains two controversial debates between distinguished speakers of Athens. The two corresponding sides produce convincing arguments which can be taken as if produced as an honest opinion or out of self-interest. The two debates must be analyzed separately in order to conclude which one and which side was speaking out of honest opinion or self-interest, as well as which speakers are similar to each other in their approach to the situation.
Socrates was a Greek philosopher, who is one of the founders of western philosophy. Socrates never wrote down his ideas or thoughts, his students or compressors, Plato, wrote down his ideas and thoughts. Socrates was accused of expressing there were different Gods and he was brought to trial in 399.B.C.E. Socrates character, in the different passages I read, Euthyphro, Apology and Citro are a little contradictory. And if the act of persuading the state is the only alternative to blind obedience, why did Socrates' in both of specifically in his defense and generally in his career make so little effort to persuade the people when they were acting unjustly? In this essay I hope to demonstrate how Socrates character contradicts in these different passages and why didn't he persuade the people when the people were acting so unjustly.
To demonstrate this Socrates states that he feels as though most men assume that they were correct despite the lack of vital evidence to prove their case. That being said this argument cannot be seen in terms of morality. For an example, if one were to carry out this argument any further, an act of kindness is morally good in God’s eyes. The contradictions comes in to play when people question as to why God considers such acts as this good. This perspective of thinking has lead people to believe that morality is necessary to be arbitrarily assigned by God, than being good in itself therefore making it moral.
Socrates discovered that men of good repute were not wise in their moral values and were foolish., while those of lesser means were more knowledgeable. The argument here is that Socrates earned a poor reputation because he publicly exposed the wealthy men of Athens in their ignorance and lack of knowledge. This inquisition led Socrates to have many enemies. (Apology, 3) During the trial Socrates referred several times to the force of truth. He is implying that he wants Athenians to accept logical conclusions even if they may not want to. Socrates also claims that obsession with wealth and material things must never take precedence over the care of one's soul. Socrates challenges their values and asks if they are not ashamed of their eagerness to possess wealth, honor, and reputation and caring little about wisdom and truth and enriching their souls? Socrates is attempting to reveal to the jury that the soul is forever and is more important then physical obsession. Furthermore, he says that "this is the command of God and that my service to you is to show you that I'm here to improve your soul." (Apology, 6) Wealth and prestige, for most Athenians, was very important and hearing these claims and the commands from god further fueled the anger against Socrates. Later he identifies himself as a gadfly sent by god to awaken and arouse the people and to show them the way to enlightment and improve their soul. To prove his mission that he was given by god, he
Socrates was a moral philosopher who was accused of impiety and was about to be tried for a crime, the nature of which no one seemed to understand. The trial and death of Socrates has four dialogs known as the Euthyphro, the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo which describes the process of Socrates’ controversial and insightful trial that raises the questions about human morality. Within the story we learned that the relationship between morality and religion might not be as clear-cut as some might think, Socrates forces the witnesses of his trial as well as ourselves to come to conclusions which result in a paradox that conflicts with the individual beliefs of his audience. In the event in which, Socrates poses a question to himself and Euthyphro, an attempt to answer the question "What is piety?" It has a specific tie to the events in “The Trial and Death of Socrates”, for Socrates had been accused of impiety and was about to be tried for the crime of heresy. The Euthyphro dialogue was written twenty-four centuries ago, and its conclusion is devastating for the whole idea that holiness and morality are very well connected. The idea that, “if God does not make something good by commanding it, but rather instead identifies that which is good, what measurement of morality does he use to make this judgment?” If something is right because god commands it, then it follows that something would be just as right if God instructed differently. If god declares that it is right to
Characters in the texts experience tension between whether their moral beliefs rest with the state or with their religious beliefs. Torn between the two channels for ethical reasoning, the characters are aware that they must choose allegiance with the one that best mirrors their vision of the ideal society. In The Trial and Death of Socrates, Socrates ideal society is based predominantly upon his faith in the state of Athens. Because Athenian culture employed a collectivist political structure, Socrates was more moved to romanticize the state’s welfare. His upbringing in the Greco-Roman world founded his Western philosophical beliefs about the power of the
In life, there is a constant battle ensuing over faith and reason. Those two things are constantly feeding off of each other in someone’s mind when making a decision. Over time in which some say is a great conversation about history this battle is changing. The Great Conversation of history spans over many eras where the questions of faith and reason are always things battling for a spot in our minds, but they shouldn’t be in battle because they are very much dependent on the other. Among the time periods from Ancient Greece, the Enlightenment, and the 19th century, writers such as Socrates, Kant, and Martin Luther King Jr have looked at the issue of faith and reason.
Faith and reason were two modes of belief that dominated the history of Western Civilization. Both faith and reason were popularized as tools to understand the universe in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian eras. By conflicting with each other, these two modes of belief sparked a lot of controversy. Reason or rationality is belief based on concrete evidence and logic. The development of one’s reason relies heavily on observation and questioning. Greco-Roman philosophers believed in the power of the human mind to understand the world. So in order to find ultimate truth, Greco-Roman philosophers dedicated their lives to perfecting their reasoning skills and encouraged those around them to do the same. Contradictory to reason, faith is the
From this, he deduced that “those who had the highest reputation were nearly the most deficient, while those who were thought to be inferior were more knowledgeable" (Plato 25). Now, to achieve this society in which being wrong is accepted would require man to graciously accept the bespoken of one’s wrongs by another. This should occur naturally, because as Socrates recognizes, someone pointing out somebody’s wrong is the equivalent to that person saving him or her. On the contrary, a wrong may not be wrong merely due to someone saying that such is the case. Often, something will be viewed as wrong for being different from what is standard. Aside from all of this, Socrates believed in highlighting justness rather than ever focusing on being right or being wrong. Knowing that wisdom and being right are worthless is the somewhat paradoxical product of wisdom. Being right should not be glorifying.
one essential conviction, expressed in the word democracy itself: that power should be in the hands of the people. Although democracy today has been slightly inefficient in this idea, with the wealthy, elite class challenging this right, “it nevertheless claims for itself a fundamental validity that no other kind of society shares….” To completely understand the structure of democracy, one must return to the roots of the practice itself, and examine the origins in ancient Greece, the expansion in the Roman Empire, and how these practices combined make what we recognize as today’s democratic government.