The Apology By Plato And Tao Te Ching

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” (Socrates-cite website). Socrates was the wisest person in Athens according to the Oracle of Delphi. In Plato’s Apology we read about Socrates’ journey to find a man wiser than him, his trail, and finally his death.

In Plato’s “Apology”, Plato tells the story of Socrates, a philosopher from Athens, Greece, who is accused by three men, a poet, a scholar and a politician for having opposing beliefs. His charges are all based on the fact that he is a natural philosopher and that he believes what is considered not to be the social norm. One of the charges he faces is that he is accused of being “a doer of evil, and corrupts the youth” (Plato, 198). Socrates is assumed to be someone who only harms others because he is considered to be evil. They admit that since he does not care to accept what they consider to be true, then he must be doing evil. Socrates is charged with corrupting the youth with his knowledge, yet when he addresses it to his accusers and the court, he questions the charge by stating that if Meletus, his accuser, is charging him of corrupting the youth then, “Come hither. Meletus, and let me ask a question of you. You

Philosophy is defined as the ultimate quest to help humans seek answers to questions that orbit knowledge, reality and existence. Philosophers begin their study of knowledge by asking questions they may or may not have an answer to. One famous philosopher, Socrates, utilizes this process to question his understanding on the concepts he had already attained knowledge for. At one point during his life, Socrates is proclaimed to be the wisest man alive by the Oracle of Delphi. Upon being declared the wisest man alive, Socrates begins to question everything he thought he knew.

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

The Apology and Phaedo by Plato are two different books describing what is like to be a philosopher per Socrates believes. These two books take place in two different scenarios in Socrates’ life, The Apology takes place in a court room where Socrates is to defend himself from false charges brought to him by Meletus who is acting as the prosecutor. Phaedo, on the other hand, takes place in a prison cell post judgment on the day of Socrates execution. Hence, The Apology and Phaedo appeared to display different philosophies: The Apology, Plato presented Socrates as wise for he knows that he knows nothing, hence he is seeking wisdom by questioning those who think they know more or something, just to find that they don’t know anything, therefore Socrates makes it his duty to make them look ignorant/stupid. Phaedo, Socrates focuses primarily on death and the immortality of the soul, hence he is seeking knowledge by devoting his final hours picking the minds of his friends to explain the role of a philosopher, which is preparing for death. Consequently, these two views are really the same, yet presented differently by Socrates, for in one he is defending his freedom and life using philosophy, hence he has only done what the Gods expected of him. From the other view, he resigned to his fate, for as a philosopher, he knows his soul will finally become liberated from the evils and limitations of the body to come to its divine state.

Plato’s Apology is the story of the trial of Socrates, the charges brought against him and his maintaining of his own innocence throughout the process. At the onset of the trial, Socrates appears to challenging the charges, which included corrupting the youth, challenging belief in the gods that were accepted and reveled by the State, and introducing a new religious focus, but also belittles his own significance and suggesting that he will not attempt to disprove that he participated in the actions maintained by the court. In essence, Socrates appears almost self-effacing, and his defense surprises even his accuser, Meletus. But by the end of the Apology, Socrates becomes almost a different person,

In this reading Plato tells the story of Socrates and his trial which ultimately lead to his death sentence. Socrates was a 70 year old man at peace with his own mortality yet willing to face his accusers with an almost definite possibility of death to maintain his own integrity and beliefs and morality. He fully understood from the beginning of his trial what the sentence handed down would be yet on a level of honor and courage not seen in abundance in modern society he maintained his stance and delivered a compelling and convincing argument. He openly stated that he knew his actions had offended Meletus and

In Apology, Socrates is confronted with questioning of why he thinks people slander him the way they do. To answer, Socrates brings up the term of “human wisdom.” This is a type of wisdom that is not godly, and Socrates expresses that he is not wise at all. Human wisdom composes the notion that having great wisdom is having the ability to not think he knows what he does not know. In order to support his claim, Socrates brings up the Oracle story. Here, Chaerephon asked the Oracle if anyone was wiser then Socrates and “Pythian replied that no one was wiser.” In Socrates understanding of how he was most wiser, he told a story about going to three different types of people: politicians, poets, and craftsmen. Out of these three, it was understood that the hierarchy is reversed and the craftsmen are truly wise in their craft but felt this made them speak in other fields, when if fact they knew nothing about. These cases bring up the human wisdom and why Socrates is exploited as very wise, because he does not try to think and speak on something he does not know. The oracle brings up the “form” of what human wisdom is and uses Socrates as an example. In the end, the person who is wisest knows that his wisdom is worthless.

First, it is important to define ethics and how its components play an extensive role in our society. The term ethics is defined as “Moral principles that govern a person 's behaviour or the conducting of an activity.” (Oxford); ethical decisions are the ones that per se determine whether or not murder is wrong. Likewise, ethics consists of different ramifications and perspectives from many philosophers. Moreover,

In Plato 's “The Apology of Socrates”, Socrates states, “the unexamined life is not worth living” and he would rather be put to death them stop his practice of philosophy (The Apology). In this writing, Socrates is charged with not accepting the gods recognized by the state, devising new gods, and corrupting the youth of Athens. However, the word "apology" in the title is not our modern English interpretation of the word. The name of the speech stems from the Greek word "apologia," which translates as a speech made in defense (SparkNotes Editors). The “The Apology of Socrates” is an account of the speech Socrates makes at the trial in which he defends himself, not apologizes. What Socrates meant by declaring, “the unexamined life is not worth living”, is that a life is worth living only if it is lived in as a pursuit for a life worthy of a man to live (The Apology). Socrates believed what makes a man worthy of life is that he lives up to what is best in him as a man. Therefore this quote can be better translated as, “the unexamined life is not a worthy life for a man to live”. Socrates believes a good or worthy man has virtue. Virtue is behavior showing high moral standards such as honor and nobility. An unexamined life is one that does not examine oneself for these characteristics but claims to have wisdom. This unexamined life can be also compared to living your life on autopilot with the same dull routine and beliefs. According to Socrates, to live an examined life, one

In the year 399 B.C., Socrates was put to trial for impiety and corrupting the youth. During the trial, Socrates had to deliver his defense speech, called an apology, which derives from the Greek word apologia which means to ‘speak in one’s defense’. There are two accounts of Socrates’ apology; Plato’s and Xenophon’s. The main difference between the two accounts is that Plato was present during the trail and paraphrased what was said. Xenophon, on the other hand, was not present but instead based his on Hermogenes’ reports before, during, and after the trail. Although both show Socrates to be incredibly pious, just, and accepting of death, they have many differences.

Every day we are faced with certain situations that challenge us with how to act in an ethical manner. It can be human nature to feel unsure or conflicted with the correct moral choice. Some can say that one should know how to handle such dilemmas and others may say that there should be a reference of some sort to help guide through such conflicts. Sometimes we know the answers and sometimes we are unsure of how to handle certain situations. Most times we go through life wondering what we should do. As I become further educated on the different theories of ethics, I believe there are answers that are available in guiding one through an ethical dilemma and or judgment. I will discuss Vincent Ruggiero’s three basic criteria, Robert Kegan’s order of consciousness, the three schools of ethics and the correlation between all three.

The most influential philosopher of the 5th century BCE is a man by the name of Socrates. His life and teachings are the foundation of Western Philosophy. Socrates was dedicated to reasoning and the development and investigation of the truth. Unpopular then, Socrates employed a strategy to pursue the truth by using dialectic. Socrates was one to question everything and anything less than the truth was received with more questions. Socrates never wrote anything down, and therefore any dialogues and teachings are dependent on his students Xenophon and Plato account. This gives rise to the Socratic Problem. What we do know, according to Plato’s Apology, is that Socrates’ divine mission is a complex one. Using two of Plato’s written accounts of

Throughout the piece Socrates, deals largely with the examination of others. In “The Apology”, Socrates said, "above all I should like to spend my time there, as here, in examining and searching people's minds, to find out who is really wise among them, and who only thinks that he is." In this, we see how the philosopher views the people around him. He thought that it was his responsibility to examine the “wise” men around him and expose their false claims of wisdom as ignorance (“The Apology”, n.d.). He is implying that it is important to evaluate the people around you, and their claims of being wise as well as that should not take everything at face value and should gain our own sense wisdom by examining ourselves and the people around us.

The Apology is Plato's recollection and interpretation of the Trial of Socrates (399 BC). In this dialogue Socrates explains who he is and what kind of life he led. The Greek word "apologia" means "explanation" -- it is not to be confused with "apologizing" or "being sorry" for one's actions. The following is an outline of the 'argument' or logos that Socrates used in his defense. A hypertext treatment of this dialogue is also available.