Comparing Phaedo and Ecclesiastes

The city of Jerusalem has been recognized as the holy city throughout the history of three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During the time of Judaism, Biblical writers presented Jerusalem as the most sacred space, the center of the world, and the city of the Lord. A leading interpreter of religious texts, Mircea Eliade, in his book The Sacred and The Profane, defined several religious experiences with specific terminologies, such as hierophany, which means the sign of sacredness, and axis mundi, which is the center of the world. These terminologies will help us in interpreting how the biblical writers promote Jerusalem as the holy city. In the Hebrew Bible Genesis 1-3, 22, 2 Samuel 6-8, 1 King 6-8, the writers reveal Jerusalem

The ancient Greeks with their brilliant and imaginative spirit created a complete order of things that functioned harmoniously in the infinite world that contained them. Although its exact origins are lost in time, Greek religion is thought to date from about the 2d millenium B.C., when the culture of Aryan invaders fused with those of the Aegean and Minoan peoples who had inhabited the region of Greece from Neolithic times [1]. The beginning and the genesis of this world occupied the ancient Greeks in much the same way it did the early people of every civilization. Greek religion was at the beginning a blend of Minoan, Egyptian, Asian, and other elements, but it subsequently evolved along with Greek thought.

Judaism and Christianity are key religions in the history of our world, and are still around today. Both of these religions are monotheistic, believing in only YHWH, the God of Abraham. However, if we look deeper, there are many more similarities and differences in these two religions. Some things that are comparable are their political figures, their holy works, and social beliefs.

In Apology, Socrates is confronted with questioning of why he thinks people slander him the way they do. To answer, Socrates brings up the term of “human wisdom.” This is a type of wisdom that is not godly, and Socrates expresses that he is not wise at all. Human wisdom composes the notion that having great wisdom is having the ability to not think he knows what he does not know. In order to support his claim, Socrates brings up the Oracle story. Here, Chaerephon asked the Oracle if anyone was wiser then Socrates and “Pythian replied that no one was wiser.” In Socrates understanding of how he was most wiser, he told a story about going to three different types of people: politicians, poets, and craftsmen. Out of these three, it was understood that the hierarchy is reversed and the craftsmen are truly wise in their craft but felt this made them speak in other fields, when if fact they knew nothing about. These cases bring up the human wisdom and why Socrates is exploited as very wise, because he does not try to think and speak on something he does not know. The oracle brings up the “form” of what human wisdom is and uses Socrates as an example. In the end, the person who is wisest knows that his wisdom is worthless.

As you can see even though Judaism and Christianity have the closest relationship there are many very important differences. Their different views on Jesus and God, Heaven and hell, and the notion of sin are what separate these two great but different

When you look back on history there were many defining religions, beliefs and values among different cultures and societies. The beliefs varied from believing in one single God to multiple gods, from being patriarchal to matriarchal. When discussing difference you can see numerous among the Ancient Hebrew culture and the Archaic Greeks. Greeks believed in multiple gods, the Olympians and the Chthonian whereas Ancient Hebrew’s believed in one God whose name shouldn’t even be pronounced it was so sacred. These two cultures perceived the world and their surrounds in a completely different way.

Plato encouraged in his writings that the view that sophists were concerned with was “the manipulative aspects of how humans acquire knowledge.” (Lecture) Sophists believed that only provisional or probable knowledge was available to humans but both Plato and Isocrates did not agree with a lot of what the Sophists had to say. They both believed in wisdom and having a connection with rhetoric but vary in defining wisdom in itself. Wisdom for Socrates and Plato is having an understanding of speech, knowledge of truth and being able to question the speaker in order to seek and reveal truth. Isocrates defined wisdom as having a sense of integrity and character along with the ambition and ability to speak well with others.

Socrates thinks that it requires wisdom to know the difference between the knowledge and an opinion. And what he means by that is knowledge is based on reasoned ideas beliefs, and can be proved and confirmed by rational arguments, where’s other opinion is not proved. For Socrates, the reason is the bigger way to show the truth. Socrates explained that role model is how to act well for example an equivalent way, knowledge is in an unqualified manner, according to Socrates statement beauty and wealth could benefit us sometimes if we used correctly, however, also harm to us if we did not use it the right way. This is means with knowledge we know how to act well. Socrates explained of wisdom and knowledge, as expressed by Plato in The Apology (StevenM. Cahn 29p-30), is sometimes interpreted as an example of a humility theory of wisdom Socrates and his friend Chaerephon visit the oracle at Delphi. As the story goes Chaerephon asks the oracle

Philosophers are known to question, analyze and evaluate everything but do not always end with concrete conclusions. Plato’s Euthyphro and Apology, to no surprise, highlight one of such debate: the human characteristics of wisdom. Though Plato was one of the earliest philosophers, the topic of wisdom is still debated by modern philosophers today, contemplating questions such as “What are the classifications of ‘wisdom’?” According to Plato’s two dialogues, the characteristics of wisdom have a strong correlation with the characteristics of “being a good person”. This concept highlights the values of virtue and selflessness and at the same time juxtapose views on virtue while taking into account the different forms of rationality. In this paper, I will highlight how Plato uses his two dialogues to enforce his own opinion about the relationship between being wise and being a good person, and evaluate the inconsistencies within this claim.

The Epistles talk about wisdom in other ways too. In the letters to the Corinthians we lean much about wisdom and knowledge. They say the wisdom of God is a mystery. It being so great that man cannot understand the amount. It tells us to be wise in the knowledge of God's word because Satan will take advantage of our ignorance of his ways. If a foolish

Greece and Persia’s religion is one factor that makes both of these empires so diverse from each other. During the Achaemenid Period, the main religion of Persia at the time was Zoroastrianism, which the Iranian prophet and reformer Zoroaster founded in the 6th century B.C.E. At the time the royal family brought in Zoroastrianism to Persia, and since the royal family believed in it, most of the people of the Persian Empire choose to believe in it too. Greece on the other hand, did not have a religion until 146 B.C.E when Christianity entered the empire. Before Christianity had entered Greece, they believed in their mythological stories. Each myth or story had a lesson to be learned by the reader.

In order to determine whether or not Socrates was wise about God, we must first define the term “wise” in this context. What is the definition of wisdom? What makes someone wise? The literal meaning, or etymology, of the word is derived from the Indo-European stem woid which means to see. It also relates to similar words such as the Greek idein and the Latin videre, both also meaning “to see” (Mohr, pg. 3). Whereas, in English and Germanic languages the verb “wit” took on the meaning of knowing, because of the likeness to knowing to seeing, and thus resulting in the modern word “wisdom” which is defined as a type of knowledge (Mohr, pg. 3). So, the literal meaning of wisdom is to see and to know, which typically means same they are substitute of each other. As I mentioned above that wisdom is a type of knowledge, then what is knowledge? It is defined as a union of the consciousness of a subject, the knower, and an object, the thing known by means of an idea. Similarly, vision is a union between a seer and a thing seen by means of an image. (Mohr, Pg. 3). But, there are two kinds of knowledge. There is theoretical knowledge, such as knowledge of what love is, and there is practical knowledge, such as knowing how to love somebody. Wisdom could be described as a union between these two kinds of knowledge.

In order to do this, he goes about Athens questioning those he believes to be wiser than him, including politicians, poets, and craftsmen. Upon this questioning, he discovers that even those perceived as the wisest actually know far less than one would expect. Even the craftsmen, who have much practical wisdom in their respective fields, see their success as merely a tribute to their vast knowledge of many subjects. This, Socrates claims, is not true wisdom. Human wisdom can be described as the acknowledgement and acceptance that one does not know everything, nor is one capable of knowing everything. This, however, does not mean that people should sit idly by, never pursuing wisdom, for it is still vital to the attainment of a good life, which should be the ultimate goal of mankind.

This, I believe, is what Socrates viewed wisdom as in Plato’s Apology. While it can be inferred that Socrates viewed wisdom as humility, knowledge, and self-knowledge through his examinations of the politicians, poets, and craftsmen, this is not Socrates’ complete view of wisdom. The more comprehensive view Socrates held of wisdom lies in his belief

Socrates, in skepticism, began a search for those with a reputation of wisdom. After studying men and their knowledge, he reasoned that the only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing. Although one may have extensive understanding in one area, there is way too much knowledge in the world to be contained by one man. Socrates stated, “I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish, and that some inferior men were really wiser and better” (Plato, 23). Those who believed that they knew it all could not be more ignorant, and those who admitted ignorance achieved the highest wisdom attainable on earth. Socrates accepted the idea that he, just like all men, contained very little or no wisdom at all. He was content with knowing this, and upon meeting others that lacked this philosophy, felt he was superior to them. He was unsure of the limitations the afterlife had on wisdom, but he was aware of it’s constraints on earth. This self awareness is what gifted him with the highest sense of enlightenment.