Review Of ' The Laches '

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’.

Socrates implies that the true nature of this charge was, in fact, vengeance carried out on the part of the power-holders of the Athenian society; the politicians, the poets, the manual artisans.  Socrates, unwillingly made fools out of these people by exposing their speeches as mere rhetoric than actual wisdom and knowledge.  These men who were seen as the wisest and the most enlightened, but in fact, by believing that they are most knowledgeble is what keeps them from real wisdom.  Socrates is also being charged with attacking the Athenian society by corrupting its citizens, mainly the youth.  He defends himself by claiming that either Meletus beleives that Socrates does not corrupt the youth or he does corrupt them but involuntarily.  Socrates bring to light that "if I corrupt them voluntarily, the law does not call upon you to procecute me for an error which is involuntary, but to take me aside privately and reprove and educate me" (33).  Socrates goes on further to say

Socrates says that the young men follow me, but not on my account they try to imitate what I say, which causes their fathers to be angry with me. Socrates says I have been accused of corrupting the youth, but I say Meletus is guilty of such things. For it is Meletus who does not believe in the gods of the city and corrupting the youth, Socrates and Meletus start to argue about the rights and wrongs of the law. Socrates proves his point by saying that Meletus contradicts himself, for he say that Socrates doesn’t believe in gods but Socrates I do believe in the gods.

In this excerpt of Plato’s Apology, Socrates question method, the Socratic Method, is shown. Socrates presents Meletus with a thesis which Meletus agrees with, and then Socrates proves it wrong. By using the case of horses, Socrates proves to Meletus that like all other citizens of Athens, Socrates is a good influence on the youth. Socrates, yet again possessing the truth in this situation, demonstrates his wisdom through his skillful speech that “others fear.”

The main focusing point of army to produce the best soldiers is their training. The selection of soldiers in their teen age years is the best policy for almost all the countries. Through these teens cognitive development it is very easy to train them according to army’s agenda or we can say that their mind can be easily washed as according to U.S Marin Drill Instructor “ I guess you could say we brainwash them a little bit .“ (Pg. 2)

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

Elenchus, as a famous Socratic method for education, uses dialogue and questions to approach philosophical truths. The method is presented in both Plato’s the Euthyphro and Aristophanes’s the Clouds. However, Socrates’s personal image and characteristics, as well as the nature of his questioning differ a lot in these two works. While the Euthyphro presents a philosopher king guiding the less wise people in discovery of truths, Socrates in the Clouds has little interest in either exploring the ethical truth or helping others get out of “Plato’s cave”. Instead, he is portrayed as a sophist who corrupts people with mysterious and useless knowledge, ignores traditional Athenian education, and debilitates Athenian men. Compared to Plato’s focus on Socrates’s wisdom reflected in the dialogue, the Clouds is a distorted interpretation of Socrates’s elenchus. Rather than justifiably criticizing Socrates, Aristophanes depicts him from a common Athenian 's perspective. It is this misunderstanding of the value of Socrates’s teaching by Athenian citizens that constitutes the failure of elenchus in both the Clouds and the Euthyphro.

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.

To illustrate this theory Socrates asks Meno to call over one of his slaves and he presents him with a geometrical problem. Socrates shows that without teaching him, but through a series of questions he can enable the slave, who had never been taught geometry before in his life, to solve the problem.

On the first charge that Meletus brought against Socrates that he, ‘corrupted the youth’, this charge could have been seen as true by many. Socrates was teaching his followers to think for themselves. The government and people may have seen this as a threat. They believed that the youth may the try to break away from the norms that were set up, which would have lead to havoc.

Socrates’ second argument is an attempt to show that Callicles admiration of courageous men is inconsistent with the view that all pleasures are good regardless of their source or the character of those who experience them. Socrates provides the example of cowards in war, who are pained by the advance of the enemy and rejoice upon their retreat by at least as much as the courageous (498a5-ca). Therefore if pleasure is good then the coward who is happy by the enemy’s retreat is as good as the courageous, something which Callicles doesn’t want to portray as he believes the cowardly and foolish are bad. In the end Callicles is forced to admit a distinction between good and bad pleasures and this distinction in turn allows Socrates to condemn contemporary Athenian politicians for ministering to the pleasures rather than the welfare of their people. From that point on Callicles so disgusted by the outcome only replies to Socrates in a formal manner thereby allowing Socrates to engage in a lengthy monologue in which the choice between philosophy and a public life is examined in the light of conclusions already established.9 Socrates argues that contemporary statesman are like poets pandering to the pleasures of the masses however Callicles thinks this only sensible for the ‘”leviathan” will kill you if you don’t humour it.’10 Callicles may well have been right in asserting that Socrates would be at the mercy of anyone who chooses to kill or injure him however immunity from

Unlike the others, Nicias is not easily persuaded by words of victory, and does not favor the war due to his Aristocratic soul where his logistikon governs his thumos and epithumeticon. In Nicias' speech he produces sound arguments that show protest to their irrationality and quick decision- making of the Athenians. First he makes sensible suggestion to the assembly when says ."..not to draw on ourselves a war that is no business of ours, after so short a deliberation on so weighty affair...." Nicia's directly addresses their hastiness when he said `I will let you know that your haste is unseasonable, and you will not easily achieve your goals" and he reminds Athenians that "the least success comes by way of desire, and the most by planning ahead." Hence

He goes on to tell the story of why he began to challenge the intellectuals of society in the first place. Socrates tells of a deceased friend by the name of Chaerephon who “… went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether… there was anyone wiser than I [Socrates] was, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser.” This troubles Socrates, and he contemplates what this statement really means. Unable to come to a sound conclusion, he devises a plan to get the answer he seeks: “I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, ‘Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.’” After meeting with a man who had a reputation for being wise, however, Socrates departed without the man wiser than he. He left the man, thinking to himself: “Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows.” After encounters with multiple men who possess supposed wisdom, Socrates realizes the prophecy must be correct: “… but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing…” Socrates proceeds to question Meletus in front of the councilmen. He questions Meletus about the charges he has brought against him and his reasons

Though defeated on this point, he's not yet satisfied with Socrates' argument, and sticks by one of his previously stated views which held that injustice is more profitable than justice. However, he shrinks back and seems no longer able to speak for himself after Socrates refuted his argument on justice. Despite his withdrawal from the argument throughout the rest of the Republic, his early ideas help lead Socrates farther on his search for justice through the construction of a hypothetical just city. In describing the education of the guardians of this city, Socrates discusses the need for a balance between gymnastics and poetry. He relates how too much gymnastics lead the spirited part of someone to be overtightened and hard. "He'll be museless and hate discussion" explains Socrates. This hardness and hate for discussion reminds us of the actions of Thrasymachus at the beginning of the argument defining justice. Thrasymachus becomes an example of a "badly tuned soul" that Socrates goes on to describe.

Socrates had a unique way of teaching and expressing his thoughts and ideas. He taught by constantly posing questions with the assumption that any person could approach the truth through logic if he set aside ingrained prejudice and received knowledge (Hattersley 17,18). His dialectic method of questioning consisted of a subject being broken down by one or more people, in search of the same truth but with differing views. Instead of merely trying to convince listeners, Socrates would approach others by questioning what they felt to be true and therefore would be able to determine that person’s true feelings and the basis for those feelings. Socrates was open to receive knowledge wherever he could find it, yet when he approached people who claimed to be wise, he found they really knew nothing. He would challenge preconceived opinions, based on the words of others and fallacious logic. Many felt that he was attacking their identity and security causing them to resent Socrates when he pointed this out. Due to his search for truth, Socrates would, eventually, pay the ultimate price. Socrates teaches us to assume nothing and to question everything. In scientific study today, this is a fundamental element of scientific study, starting with a theory and afterward refining it to the point of when a decisive conclusion is made.