Joseph P. Lawrence'socrates Among Strangers '

Through several dialogues Plato gives readers accounts of Socrates’ interactions with other Athenians. While some may think of him as a teacher of sorts, Socrates is adamant in rejecting any such claim (Plato, Apology 33a-b). He insists that he is not a teacher because he is not transferring any knowledge from himself to others, but rather assisting those he interacts with in reaching the truth. This assistance is the reason Socrates walks around Athens, engaging in conversation with anyone that he can convince to converse with him. An assertion he makes at his trial in Plato’s Apology is at the center of what drives Socrates in his abnormal ways, “the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being” (38a). Socrates, through aporia, looks to lead an examined life to perfect his soul and live as the best person he can be. This paper looks to examine the ‘unexamined life’ and the implications rooted in living a life like Socrates’.

In 469 B.C. a man by the name of Socrates was born. Socrates was a very wise man that cared about doing the right thing. He believed that the best ways to develop ideas was in the give and take of conversation, and that the best way to educate people was to ask them a series of questions leading in a particular direction (now named “Socrates method). Socrates had been quick to identify the drawbacks of democracy, and he had also been the teacher of two men who in different ways harmed Athens: Alcibiades and Critias. Which made the parents of the children that Socrates had taught very upset and angry. Granting all this, it lead to the Trial of Socrates 399 B.C. During this trial Socrates expressed his view of death by using his question-and-answer method, for which he was famous for and what seemed to have gotten him in trouble. Socrates did not write so we have to depend on on what others wrote, and by doing that we now get to see the diverse ways people read and understand what was written about his speech. My chosen primary source, Socrates View on Death, is important, because it gives one view of Socrates speech while my outside source, Ancient Greece, gives a slightly more in depth view.

SOCRATES Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived between 470-399 B.C. He turned Greek attention toward questions of ethics and virtue and away from those of the heavenly bodies. Socrates spent much time in the Agora (marketplace) where he held conversations with townspeople. Socrates believed that real truth could be found out through thought and collaboration with others. He was known for exposing ignorance, hypocrisy, and conceit. Despite having many followers, Socrates was disliked by most Athenians. At the age of 70, he was convicted of atheism, treason and corruption of the young. He was originally ordered to leave Athens, but chose to drink poison instead. This great man valued the law over his life, and so he chose to drank

In Apology by Plato, a man named Socrates is put on trial for trumped-up charges. These charges are, “Socrates is a criminal and meddles in matters where he has no business. He’s always poking under the earth and up in the sky. He makes the worse case look better; and he teaches this sort of stuff to others” (Plato 1). In response to this, Socrates gives his defense, which is not used for defending himself, but for saving the Athenians. Socrates does not care if he survives or not; he just wants to share his story with the Athenians. He uses many ways to convey his point.

By Characterizing himself –Socrates- as both ignorant and wise, he presents us with one of the most striking paradoxes. Like so many of the other philosophers, is provocative in that its apparent self-contradiction hides an important idea for us readers to discover. Though out this text Socrates ignorance results from his belief that he has no knowledge of moral idea, or moral properties, such as justice, virtue, piety, and beauty. He asserts that, if only he knew the relevant definitions, he would be a moral expert who could answer philosophical questions about moral properties- questions such as is a certain action just? Or is it truly good for a man to be virtuous? Socrates believes that only someone that is

In this particular essay Socrates way of exploring things along with his belief as well as perception, is compares & contrasted with Voltaire’s perception of life. To understand the essence of philosophy in life, The Apology [1], Allegory

Plato’s The Trial and Death of Socrates presents the reader with complex competing conceptions of what should be considered “the good life”. According to Socrates, “the most important thing is not life, but the good life” (Crito, 48b). The majority, who live a non-philosophical life, believes the goods of life include wealth, reputation, and honor: all things that can easily be taken away or destroyed. On the other hand, Socrates lives a philosophical life filled with self-sufficiency. He views wisdom, truth, and the best possible state of one’s soul as the goods of life. The plot in The Trial and Death of Socrates arises as Socrates challenges the minds of those around him. After being accused of “corrupting the young and of not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other new spiritual things”, Socrates faces the death penalty (Apology, 24b-c). The challenge the reader faces within The Trial and Death of Socrates stands as deciding rather the philosophical or non-philosophical life serves as the flourishing life.

Socrates was born in 470 BCE and was the son of Sophronicus and Phaenarete. In his youth he studied music, gymnastics and grammar, then followed his father’s profession as a sculptor. He was also a very great artist whereby he decorated a statue of Graces on the Acropolis road and was admired by many people into the 2nd century. Socrates played a major role in the development of philosophy (Irwin, 2008).

Plato was one the Socrates’ greatest admirers. Socrates was a brilliant Greek philosopher at that time, whose philosophical works stand at the foundation of modern Western philosophy. Unfortunately, he never recorded his works. Nevertheless, most of our current knowledge about Socrates stems from Plato’s work. We find Plato’s thought mostly in the form of fictional dialogues, a very common literary style in ancient Greece. Most of these dialogues have Socrates as the protagonist, and primary interlocutor. Plato uses Socrates as a mouthpiece of his own views, and philosophical ideals.

Socrates could undeniably be described as one of the most influential philosophers and greatest thinker of his time. His views can be interpreted many different ways, but most would agree that he sought out wisdom and truth for the betterment of himself and his community. Though Socrates was one of the most intelligent men of his time, he was very foolish to never write his own book. For this reason, after his passing, one of his students, Plato, began to write a book about his teachings and ideas called Plato: Five Dialogues. In this book, we examined Plato’s Meno in which Meno asks Socrates “can virtue be taught?” but, Socrates quickly transforms this question into “what is virtue?”. This questions ultimately consumes the entirety of this dialogue, and in the end, Meno proves to lack originality in his arguments by simply agreeing with each thing Socrates states. While Meno thought he knew the answer to this question, Socrates provides a different opinion. Although Meno does not learn anything in the course of this dialogue, Socrates still remains one of the most influential teachers and philosophers of his time. In this essay I shall focus on the question of who is Socrates, next I will examine what teaching and learning really mean, and finally I will conclude with the fact that Meno does not actually learn anything from Socrates.

With this allegory, Plato is not only stressing the idea that specialization is key to the running of the Republic, but also that philosophers were unappreciated in 420 BC Athens, and thus useless because the world would not use them and their knowledge. It also stresses the dangers of liberty and equality, as well as the unnaturalness of

Socrates, an Ancient Greek philosopher, had great philosophical influence on Ancient Greece from 470BCE with this significant impact upon the Greek way of thinking being paired with the fact that he is widely regarded as the ‘Father of Western Philosophy’, meaning that his influence has still proved significant even today. This potent influence remains relevant still today because of the significance of his teachings and the way he both changed philosophy in Ancient Greece influenced on the youth of Greece through his different and unexplored way of thinking (Danzig 2003). Socrates himself was an extremely enigmatic figure, as he is regarded as essentially creating and shaping western philosophy whilst he had never written anything of his own

Around the 6th century B.C.E small group of Greek philosopher stating to change their view or ideas from the supernatural explanations to intellectual alternatives. Many Greek philosophers lived in the city of Miletus. In this essay I will write about one of the earliest philosophers in Athens Socrates. Before I write about his life I would talk about his panel. Panel death of Socrates painted in oil in 1787 by French painter Jacques-Louis David. The panel shows that Socrates surrounded by few people and they were not happy about the government decision on Socrates. The people around him were crying and Socrates was not afraid to face the death.

“‘The ‘real’ Socrates we have not: what we have is a set of interpretations each of which represents a ‘theoretically possible’ Socrates’”(Cornelia de Vogel). Unfortunately, historians today can only base Socrates upon what others have written, and because so many wrote about an obviously different person, it is hard to come up with who he really was. “‘There is, and always will be, a ‘Socratic Problem’. This is inevitable’”(W.K.C Guthrie). The true Socrates might never be unveiled.

(A discussion of Socrates’ characteristics, in Plato’s The Republic, that make him so enthralling as an individual)