Socrates And Boethius : Two Men That Have Left An Everlasting Footprint Essay

“A person’s a person, no matter how small” (136). The ethics of abortion has been argued emotionally for many years. In The Unaborted Socrates (Inter Varsity Press: Downers Grove, IL, 1983), Peter Kreeft approaches this important debate using fictional characters and a logic based argument. Socrates, the great ethical philosopher who lived in Athens, Greece in about 400 BC, returns in the present day (then 1983) to challenge the pro-Choice position of an abortion doctor, an ethicist and a psychologist. The result is a thoroughly logical and entertaining exposure of flaws in the pro-choice platform. The author organizes the debate of this serious moral issue -- is abortion murder -- by engaging Socrates in three dialogs. In each dialog Socrates questions a pro-choice representative about his beliefs. In each case, Socrates shows his opponent the fallacy of his position using the opponent's own words. Socrates mission is to “follow the common master” (20), using rational thought to follow the argument wherever it leads. The Unaborted Socrates draws the reader into questioning thoughts of all human beings having the right to live, the harm and evil of liberal abortion laws, and being pro-choice or pro-force.

FUTTER, DYLAN. “Socrates Human Wisdom.” Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review 52.1 (2013): 61-79. Humanities International Complete. Print.

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’.

The portrayal of Socrates, through the book “the trial and death of Socrates” is one that has created a fairly controversial character in Western history. In many ways, Socrates changed the idea of common philosophy in ancient Greece; he transformed their view on philosophy from a study of why the way things are, into a consideration man. Specifically, he analyzed the virtue and health of the human soul. Along side commending Socrates for his strong beliefs, and having the courage to stand by those convictions, Socrates can be commended for many other desirable characteristics. Some of those can include being the first martyr to die for his philosophical beliefs and having the courage to challenge indoctrinated cultural norms is part of

Humankind is filled with individuals testing each other and competing with one another to be the greatest, ignoring the reality of life. In the “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato justifies this by displaying a parable that serves as a metaphor for life. This parable teaches the reader how people wish to remain in their comfort zones and disregard the truth. It portrays the struggle of facing different realities that alter the illusion of one's life. In the story, he described a group of prisoners chained inside a dark cave; their only source of light comes from a burning fire that is used to create shadows. These shadows display images that the prisoners each interpret as the reality; however, once one is released and is struck by the light, he

In Plato's The Republic book VII he tells a story about prisoners in cave that were held captive. “Imagine that along this path a low wall has been built, like the screen in front of puppeteers above which they show their puppets.” (Plato PP) In today's society, it is not a cave rather a state of mind and the puppeteers are rather everything that we are exposed to. Every culture is stuck in a bubble, made to believe their values and traditions are above anyone's who are different. Socrates is explaining to the student how we only accept what we know to be true. The way society functions can be explained by us imagining a group of people whose existence has been inside of a cave. He explains that these prisoners are chained in a way that they are unable to turn to see in any other direction. There is a fire behind them that provides light which casts shadows that the captives believe to be entities. The prisoners way of making sense of it all is to give names and meaning to these shadows. One of the prisoners gets unlocked by her chains and

More than two thousand years ago, a French cleric and statesman named Cardinal Richelieu said, “The pen is mightier than the sword”. This statement relates to Socrates, an Athenian philosopher, who believed that the examined life was the greatest prize of all and the use of force for an unjust cause is rejected. With this belief Socrates was wrongfully accused then sentenced to death on the accusations that he corrupted the youth and does not believe in the Athenian Gods. With the help of the Apology, Socrates beliefs are explained about both of the accusations brought upon him and he defends himself in front of the Athenian court.

Plato was born in Athens, Greece around 427 B.C. He was always interested in politics, until he witnessed his mentor and teacher, Socrates, death. After learning of the callousness of politics, Plato changed his mind and eventually opened up The Academy, which is considered if not the first, one of the first Universities. Students at the Academy studied many different fields of science, including biological and astronomical. The students also studied many other fields, such as math. Plato developed many views that were mathematical in nature. He expressed these views through his writings. According to Dr. Calkins of Andrew University, "Timaeus is probably the most renowned of Plato's thirty-five dialogues. [In it] Plato expresses that he

In his allegory of the cave, Plato describes a scenario in which chained-up prisoners in a cave understand the reality of their world by observing the shadows on a cave wall. Unable to turn around, what seems to be reality are but cast shadows of puppets meant to deceive the prisoners. In the allegory, a prisoner is released from his chains and allowed to leave the cave. On his way out, he sees the fire, he sees the puppets, and then he sees the sun. Blinded by the sunlight, he could only stare down to view the shadows cast onto the floor. He gradually looks up to see the reflections of objects and people in the water and then the objects and people themselves. Angered and aware of reality, the freed prisoner begins to understand illusion

Socrates spent his time questioning people about things like virtue, justice, piety and truth. The people Socrates questioned are the people that condemned him to death. Socrates was sentenced to death because people did not like him and they wanted to shut him up for good. There was not any real evidence against Socrates to prove the accusations against him. Socrates was condemned for three major reasons: he told important people exactly what he thought of them, he questioned ideas that had long been the norm, the youth copied his style of questioning for fun, making Athenians think Socrates was teaching the youth to be rebellious. But these reasons were not the charges against him, he was charged with being an atheist and

As Socrates is describing the cave and the situation, he stresses the point that the prisoners are completely oblivious as to what is reality as they would know nothing but the shadows casted by items held by the puppeteers, and believe this to be their own reality. This is important to the story as it shows that what we believe is real from the moment we are born is completely wrong based on our own flawed interpretations of reality. The point so far is that it is not what we can see but what we can’t see is what grasps our minds and Plato describes this thinking as “imagination.”

Book VII of Plato’s republic starts off with Socrates speaking about the education that takes place with the prisoners in the cave. He explains that they are chained up all their life where they can only see a wall and that’s it. Behind these prisoners is the raging fire and in front of the fire are statues that are being moved by other people who the prisoners do not know about. The point of this, that Socrates explains in further detail, is to educate the prisoners about reality, as well as their perception of reality. This scene was very dark in the sense that there were prisoners stuck in a cave only being able to look at one wall with shadows on it for their entire lives.

Socrates’s anecdote of the cave presents a ghastly image: people who “are in it from childhood with their legs and necks in bonds so that they are fixed, seeing only in front of them, unable because of the bond to turn their heads all the way around” (193). Also inside the cave is a “fire burning” which allows certain objects (out of sight and controlled by others) to project shadows (193). Consequently, the prisoners believe that the shadows are the most real things. When a prisoner is released, he experiences pain due to the light of the fire. In time, he recognizes the truth and becomes accustomed to it. He is then “dragged out into the light of the sun” (194). After a few moments, he tolerates its rays. Most importantly though, he grasps “the sun itself” (195). Finally, the escapee is not content with keeping this

Socrates describes people in a cave since birth, bound so they can only see what is in front of them. There are shadows and sounds that can be observed but the source is unknown. Socrates says in 515c, “…such men would hold that the truth is nothing other than the shadows of artificial things.” Their reality is limited by their experience. Then a prisoner is freed from the bonds and is forced to look at the fire and the statues that were used to cast the shadows on the walls. He is overwhelmed by the revelations and learns that the shadows were not the reality.

“Socrates’ positive influence touches us even today” (May 6) and we can learn a great deal about him from one of his students, Plato. It is in Plato’s report of Socrates’ trial a work entitled, Apology, and a friend’s visit to his jail cell while he is awaiting his death in Crito, that we discover a man like no other. Socrates was a man following a path he felt that the gods had wanted him to follow and made no excuses for his life and they way he lived it.