Rhetorical Analysis Of Socrates's Speech

In his defense, Socrates claims over and again that he is innocent and is not at all wise, “…for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great.” Throughout the rest of his oration he seems to act the opposite as if he is better than every man, and later he even claims that, “At any rate, the world has decided that Socrates is in some way superior to other

     Socrates’ argument was unique in that he tried to convince the jury he was just an average man and not to be feared, but in actuality demonstrated how clever and tenacious he was. He begins with an anecdote of his visit to the Oracle of Delphi, which told him that there was no man smarter than he. He, being as humble as he is, could not take the Oracle’s answer for granted and went about questioning Athenians he felt surpassed his intelligence. However, in questioning

Towards the end of Socrates' defense he states, " They enjoy hearing these being questioned who think they are wise, but are not." Socrates is telling the jury that he has been honest with them and that he does not corrupt the youth, the youth and others follow him around for the reason in quotations. This was Socrates' defense.

Socrates, knowing that he needed ethos in any statement that the jury themselves had not witnessed, used the credibility of other well-respected individuals within the Athenian community. While describing what he does that makes so may dislike him, Socrates told the jury that Chairephon, a man who was a friend of most people in the jury, asked the oracle of a god if there was anyone wiser that Socrates. The answer was that no one on earth was wiser than him, so Socrates set out to find someone wiser than himself. Because Chairephon was dead he could not be a witness, but Socrates stated that Chairephon’s brother would testify to this story, thus validating

Socrates was a great thinker and debater dedicated to truth. He spent his golden years walking the streets of Athens in pursuit of wisdom. Socrates lived the destiny that was revealed to him in the Oracle. He created and perfected his own cross-examination technique; we today know it as the Socratic Method. He was thorough and unrelenting. His subjects were often humiliated. Socrates would methodically disprove anyone he thought was wrong. In his eyes, most of the people he interviewed were blind. It did not matter if one was wealthy and influential or if they were young and impressionable. Socrates could question anyone and turn him or her inside out. Unfortunately, he did so without regard to the

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

Wisdom is a very abstract term for a great deal of people and for the purpose of this paper it is important to turn to Socrates himself to understand. There a few passages which can be referred to obtain a define idea of what wisdom is to Socrates. In passage 21d Socrates describes a resulting thought about wisdom on his journey to prove that he is not wise, “Well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of, but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems

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

According to the majority of the jury members of Athens, Socrates is a corruption to the youth, doer of evil and does not agree with the gods of his people. In the Apology, written by Plato these are the assumptions and accusations Socrates is held in court for. In court, he is faced with what most men fear, being wrongly accused leading to the death sentence. Socrates argues and strives to prove that he has no fear of being hated, being accused of serious crimes, being threatened with punishment, or being put to death.

The speech named Apology, was given by Socrates many centuries ago. This speech was made by Plato to highlight Socrates’s defense against Athens, who was another philosopher. To this day, this speech is still considered to be one the best pieces to bridge the gap between literature and philosophy. The reason this speech was given is because Socrates was convicted of corrupting the youth, and challenging the ideas of the sky and what's below the ground. Consequently, Socrates was convicted by the state of Athens as guilty and he killed himself by eating the poisonous flower Hemlock. This speech uses all three strategies, but logos is more profound than the other two.

There are times in every mans life where our actions and beliefs collide—these collisions are known as contradictions. There are endless instances in which we are so determined to make a point that we resort to using absurd overstatements, demeaning language, and false accusations in our arguments. This tendency to contradict ourselves often questions our character and morals. Similarly, in The Trial of Socrates (Plato’s Apology), Meletus’ fallacies in reason and his eventual mistake of contradicting himself will clear the accusations placed on Socrates. In this paper, I will argue that Socrates is not guilty of corrupting the youth with the idea of not believing in the Gods but of teaching the youth to think for

I think of arrogance as excessive pride or dramatization with one’s own achievements. The only blatant case of arrogance to me is when he proposes “maintenance in the Prytaneum to be a just return” (Pojman and Vaughn). Looking more into the Prytaneum, I found this is where victorious Olympic athletes ate for free; for Socrates to say he deserves free meals for the rest of his life does sound conceited. This feeling must have been shared by the jury, by comparing the first vote, determining if he was guilty, to the second vote, which determined his punishment, nearly 80 of those who voted for him to be “not guilty” supported the death penalty shortly after he made that remark. It’s hard to say if he was serious though, all we get is a synopsis, his gesticulations could have indicated that he was trying to lighten up the atmosphere with a joke. Some may consider the anecdote about him finding out he was the wisest man alive from the God of Delphi to be arrogant; however, he wasn’t the one who seeked the answer, it was his friend Chaerephon. Moreover, he was skeptical to find out that was the case, so he immediately set out to provide counter evidence to the Oracle. Lastly, emphatically advocating to reproach those who pretend to know something when they know nothing makes it hard to say he was arrogant; I see his behavior as a healthy skeptic who was hungry for the truth. The death penalty was absolutely unnecessary; unfortunately, he had more enemies in the jury than friends. As history shows unconventional views are generally suppressed by those with a vested interest, those who brought charges against him along with his other enemies enjoyed the superior social status that came with inflating one’s wisdom, and

Throughout The Apology, Socrates shows his true philosophical standpoint of not knowing anything, he provides his form of questioning to prove that no one actually has wisdom. Those who think they are wise, have subjective and human wisdom. Basically, they do not have any wisdom, like those Socrates refers to, the Sophists. While he refutes his charge of not acknowledging the gods, he proves this further by explaining that the Oracle simply used him as an example to show he views wisdom. He claims to not know anything and this is considered subjective, superhuman wisdom.

Socrates is a great philosopher. Since the beginning of the trial he starts asking philosophical questions to defend himself from the Athenians. When the accuser called him “clever” he hit them with the question of what does it mean to be actually clever? Also, he aroused the concern that the ones that accused him now are aware that the audience might believed their accusations because they are more in risk of their own beliefs, but if they were younger they will simply lack proves. This is just a simple comparison to Beardsleys point of view that people grow up to have beliefs that are passed down by family members or society. Socrates went on his own ways to practice philosophical investigation by going house to house and talking to young

The first and most important thing that Socrates encouraged was to recognize your own ignorance. “The principal lesson of the oracle story, according to Socrates, is that he is the wisest of men because only he recognizes the extent of his own ignorance” (Brickhouse 100). Socrates constantly expressed the importance of recognizing your own ignorance, in order to abolish ignorance within yourself. In addition to this, Socrates tried to open peoples’ eyes to their own ignorance, and to think with a more open mind. In the seminar reading package it says: “He (Socrates) describes himself as the “gadfly” of the state seeking to sting men into mental activity by opening their eyes to their own ignorance and thereby promoting wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul” (Jowett 247). All Socrates wanted to do here is to have the people recognize their ignorance, so they could learn from it and become smarter and better human beings. The “promoting wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul” part of that quotation just proves the good intentions that Socrates had. Next, in Socrates’ Apology he comments on how people are ignorant of their own knowledge on philosophers. He states people will claim philosophers teach things up in the clouds or under the Earth, and that philosophers do not follow the gods. With this, Socrates concludes that evil people will persuade others about such claims, leading to more ignorance.