The Allegory Of Birmingham Jail, By Plato

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 this essay, we will discuss two pieces of literature, Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. Both pieces are “about defying what is expected of you in order to do what is right.” Plato’s allegory is about a man who was born a prisoner, stuck in one position, who is later freed and experiences life outside of the cave. King Jr. explains his reason for being in a jail. We will discuss how they were both faced with opposition, and I will detail a time where I was faced with opposition while going again societal “norms”.

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

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

Aristotle is a very citable man when it comes to the way we think today. His rhetoric techniques are still being used in today's society. The Neo-Aristotelian Criticism is three different appeals of persuasion. This is ethos, pathos and logos, which makes one heck of a convincing argument. Ethos gives credibility, pathos shows emotion and logos uses words. In the text, Letter from Birmingham Jail, we find many examples of the criticism. Martin Luther King Jr. is writing a letter from inside the jail of Birmingham in April of 1963. This letter King wrote was in response to a letter he received from the religious leaders after King is making a stand against the racial issues in Alabama. These leaders

Malcolm Gladwell describes how the world may seem immovable and implacable, but with even the slightest push in just the right place, it can be tipped. This quote is extremely visual and accurate, it keeps the writing thinking, even questioning their own thoughts. Saying, Is this true? Can really one person make a big difference?. Even if you think you can’t change the world, you’re

As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change toward him… We need not to see what others do.” (Mahtma Ghandi) A quote that I found online from the New York Times, which states that it is up to the individual to make a difference in our own world view. So it is up to us to help save what our ancestors and elders have protected since the time of

Socrates was a Greek philosopher, who is one of the founders of western philosophy. Socrates never wrote down his ideas or thoughts, his students or compressors, Plato, wrote down his ideas and thoughts. Socrates was accused of expressing there were different Gods and he was brought to trial in 399.B.C.E. Socrates character, in the different passages I read, Euthyphro, Apology and Citro are a little contradictory. And if the act of persuading the state is the only alternative to blind obedience, why did Socrates' in both of specifically in his defense and generally in his career make so little effort to persuade the people when they were acting unjustly? In this essay I hope to demonstrate how Socrates character contradicts in these different passages and why didn't he persuade the people when the people were acting so unjustly.

In her analysis of Socrates’s frame of work, Roslyn Weiss defends Socrates to seeker of knowledge. Weiss argues that Socrates should be viewed as a skeptical inquirer because of his pursuit to what is x? As Weiss puts it, Socrates is aware of his own ignorance and knows that one cannot know what things are by simply using definitions.

Plato was an Ancient Greek philosopher who lived between 428-432 B.C. He wrote mainly in dialogues, to stay true to how Socrates communicated philosophy. Plato displayed what is considered Socrates’ philosophy throughout the dialogue The Apology. In The Republic, Socrates is mainly used as a mouthpiece to communicate Plato’s philosophy. Socrates follows a philosophy best explained as “I do not know”, whereas Plato tries to find the ultimate solution to philosophical problems. In this essay, I will argue how Socrates has the best philosophical approach compared to that of Plato.

Socrates, always depicted as searching for the answer of the good, uses dialectic to probe for knowledge and virtue. Through the use of questioning, Socrates disturbs the citizens into thought and the pursuit of the good. Like a gadfly, although annoying,

Martin Luther King Jr. believed that God challenges us in order for us to progress and grow as an individual, in his book Strength to Love, he says “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy” (King Jr. 26). All Changemakers must believe in MLK Jr.’s concept because in order for change to occur, you must step out of the comfort zone and be vulnerable. Change occurs everyday, I believe that all change is intended to be positive, however this belief is unrealistic and negative change occurs too frequently. When bringing positive social change into the world, we must first learn from the negative change that previously impacted the world. I don’t believe that there must always be negativity in order to positivity to be

The use of Socrates’ inquiry in the Meno is a perfect example to show how Socrates pushed his listeners to question their own knowledge. Socrates never told Meno his definitions were wrong and his own were right, rather continued to question Meno’s conclusions to show him that he did not know the true meaning of virtue. The people of Athens were unable to accept the fact that many of them were ignorant on topics such as the definition of virtue, whereas Socrates himself was able to admit it. The Athenians disguised Socrates’ true desire to teach people for corruption and impiety because they believed he was trying to humiliate them. Although the people of Athens were blind of Socrates’ true intentions, his method of inquiry did in fact benefit the city of Athens. Socrates’ methods eliminated ignorance and increased proper knowledge on important things such as virtue and knowledge within the city of Athens, which is what he meant when he said he was “a gift of the gods to the city of Athens.”

At the worker level, there are many hardships. They are forced to work and pay taxes. Like the prisoners in Plato's Cave, they don't know what is capitalism and consumerism. They might have heard of the word but the level above them have kept a strict circulation of information about it. Happiness is success to them. They think of success as being promoted to the upper level. It could be done by producing an heir that helps them escape or through their own hard work. Plato's Cave refer to this level as the people who have yet to start questioning society. They will live in this cycle until they find a way to escape. Education is merely feeding information into them by those of the upper levels. Love and compassion are things they indulge in but it's only superficial. They love in order to temporarily escape from their reality. The prisoners of this level blindly believe in their religion as right.

The most famous gift of Socrates to Western civilization is that of the Socratic Method. Socrates believed in deductive reasoning, or the need to reason about specific facts from principles. The Socratic Method involves the student in the learning process through questioning, and even when the teacher wishes the student to arrive at a specific answer, it is the student who is encouraged to draw the conclusion. The teacher does not lecture or impose the lesson upon the student. "Socratic questioning is a systematic process for examining the ideas, questions, and answers that form the basis of human belief. It involves recognizing that all new understanding is linked to prior understanding, that thought itself is a continuous thread woven throughout lives rather than isolated sets of questions and answers" ("The Socratic Method," Learn NC, 2012). In one famous dialogue of Socrates called Meno, Socrates was able to teach an ignorant slave-boy basic principles of geometry, simply through questioning the boy and showing him how to arrive at a deductive conclusion.