The Between Glaucon And The Socrates

“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.

By viewing the painting The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David, Socrates’ loyalty to the Athenian government was far more important to him than his own death or friendship. He was more interested in teaching his students about his belief in reason and the law of justice before he died. Still, the students and friends were arguing with him and trying to convince him to renounce his teachings. Socrates was strong in telling his students how it was for the good of society that he drinks the poison hemlock. He was not going to change what he was teaching all along when he truly believed in the democratic Athenian government laws. Socrates’ loyalty to the government was much stronger than the ties of friendship or acquaintances.

Plato is remembered as one of the worlds best known philosophers who along with his writings are widely studied. Plato was a student of the great Greek philosopher Socrates and later went on to be the teacher of Aristotle. Plato’s writings such as “The Republic”, “Apology” and “Symposium” reveal a great amount of insight on what was central to his worldview. He was a true philosopher as he was constantly searching for wisdom and believed questioning every aspect of life would lead him to the knowledge he sought. He was disgusted with the common occurrence of Greeks not thinking for themselves but simply accepting the popular opinion also known as doxa. Plato believed that we ought to search for and meditate on the ideal versions of beauty, justice, wisdom, and other concepts which he referred to as the forms. His hostility towards doxa, theory of the forms, and perspective on reality were the central ideas that shaped Plato’s worldview and led him to be the great philosopher who is still revered today.

In philosophy class this semester we spoke a lot about Socrates and his trial. We were required to read the dialogue ‘Apology’ by Plato. The ‘Apology’ Dialogue is what Plato recorded during the speech Socrates gave to the court defending himself against the charges of "corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes” these two were the main charges, but underneath that there were also other significant charges such as being considered an antidemocratic or pro-Spartan, sophistry, and being lampooned by Aristophanes in the comedy “clouds”. "Apology" in this sense has the meaning of speaking in defense of ones beliefs or actions. The trial is usually categorized into two interpretations which are: Socrates as a Martyr and Socrates as an Antidemocratic. The first interpretation which says Socrates trial and death was Socrates acting as a martyr; that interpretation is considered more “traditional” and “standard” compared to the ‘radical’ interpretation that stated that Socrates was Antidemocratic.

In Republic II, Glaucon and Socrates pose the question of whether justice is intrinsically good, or instrumentally good. Further, the two men wish to discover which life is best - the just life or the unjust one. While Glaucon argues that the unjust life is best, Socrates argues that the just life is truly better. In this paper, I will summarize both Glaucon’s and Socrates’ arguments, and provide a critical analysis of the opposing views.

The problem with Socrates concerns the problem with the role of value and reason. Nietzsche believes that the bulk of philosophers claim that life is a corrupt grievance for mankind. Nietzsche reasoned that these life deniers were decadents of Hellenism, as a symptom of some underlying melancholy. For someone to paint life in such a negative light they must have suffered a great deal through the course of their own life. Furthermore, these no-sayers agreed in various physiological ways and thus adopted the same pessimistic attitudes towards life. Socrates was ugly, alike decadent criminals and by ways of these similarities was decadent as well. Nietzsche also claims ugliness as a physiological symptom of life in its decline supported by studies in phenology.

Finally i will have to tell you who is this man you are falsely accusing today. Even though we all, men of Athens, hates Socrates’s way of seeing and doing things and the way he embarrassed our greatest men of Athens in public. But the past had proven to us that he is a good wise man that rarely been mistaken in term of what was good for Athens. Moreover, one event that we cant forget is the trail of the 8 Generals where he oppose the exception of the 8 men. Even though he was threaten to take the same fate as theirs. Athenian thought he was crazy back then and ordered to execute the 6 Generals they have at hand and the same fate awaits for those who fled. However, few years later Athens needed as much strong men as they can get so they dropped

Meno was a student of Gorgias, and he has a long discussion with Socrates about what virtue is. Socrates and Meno wonder if virtue can be taught, Meno proposes that it may be a result of practice or an inherent trait, but before they can answer that question they first need to agree on what virtue is. Meno makes multiple attempts at a description of virtue and Socrates points out potential problems. A definition of virtue is not settled, which leads to the discussion about the problem of learning. If neither or them know what virtue is then how will they know if they find it. Plato describes this ongoing discussion between Socrates and Meno.

First, Plato argues that humans are vulnerable to false ideas because of the limitations of our senses. This is shown in the conversation between Socrates, a speaker in his allegory, and Glaucon, the second speaker. Socrates explains to Glaucon that the prisoners in Plato’s metaphorical cave are bound to assume that the shadows thrown on the wall, by the fire, are real and that the objects held by the passers-by, along the road, belong to the shadows. “And so in every way they would believe that the shadows of the objects we mentioned were the whole truth.” (Plato, 26). Because these prisoners have relied so much on their senses to make judgements, they have developed a tendency to make false judgments about the things happening around them. Plato believes that the world as seen using our senses has more fake to it than real. As humans, each individual is limited by their own physical abilities, mental abilities, and even social abilities. This is the reason why not all human beings can successfully break records as easily as others. It is also a reason why humans can not answer the question “What happened before the beginning?” or “How did the beginning start?” We are limited by what we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste every day. We are limited by what we are accustomed to because we rely so much on them to provide us the truth and place a kind of belief on it that can not be easily altered.

PHIL 233 Final Paper In Book II of the Republic, there is a discussion between Glaucon and Socrates on what the definition of justice is. In Book I, the definition of justice was discussed, but a conclusion was never achieved. Book II goes deeper into the meaning of justice, focusing on what category justice belongs to. Glaucon describes a tripartite division of goods: things we desire only for their consequences, things we desire only for their own sake, and things we desire for both their consequences and their own sake. Things we desire for their consequences could include medical treatment, since it is something one would use to avoid further negative consequences of health.

Nevertheless, Socrates tries continue their discussion with him attempting to direct Meno to the search for what virtue is since neither of them have recollected a definition. Meno, however, wishes for Socrates to return to his initial question of whether or not virtue is teachable. Socrates is reluctant to do this because he does not want to inquire into the qualities of something that he does not have a definition for, but agrees to do it Meno’s way as long as Meno allows him to approach it the way geometers approach their problems, by means of hypothesis. Socrates explains this method by using a geometer who wants to find a solution to a problem where he does not know a particular property that is necessary to know in order to find a solution. Knowing that he is missing an important piece of information, the geometer can hypothesize the answer by assuming the missing property is the same as a different property that he knows. To demonstrate this, he suggests a situation where a geometer is asked if a triangle with a specific area can be inscribed in a particular circle. The geometer does not know the area of either the circle or the triangle, however, he can hypothesize that a triangle can be inscribed in the circle if the area of the triangle is less than the area of the circle. This process allows the geometer to assert the possibility, or impossibility, of a solution to a problem where he does not have all of the information. The geometer was unable to answer the

     Socrates was wise in respect to the fact that he never accepted a “truth” that was told to him, without getting incontestable evidence to back it up. He made the realization that people believed in things without even knowing where their ideas came from. In ancient Athens, citizens believed in many gods and myths associated with them.

In the Greek society, there was enough wine and spirits for Socrates and his buddies to philosophize on the world around them, beginning the conversation of what is just and not. Ideas transform throughout the conversations of Socrates, Adeimantus, and Glaucon in the Republic forming what justice is in the opinion of Socrates. This opinion, the city in speech, is challenged by Adeimantus and Glaucon but Socrates eloquently responds to their challenges. Socrates’ answers with his city of speech are effective against the challenges of Adeimantus and Glaucon because every human has a soul with decency that is almost impossible to deny.

During this discussion between Socrates and Glaucon, they talk about the guardians of the just city. By discussing how the guardian’s stories should be told, as well as how the properly educate them. The first topic is sexual relations between a man and a boy, but not that of sexual intercourse but proper love. Socrates believes that all actions are motivated by some form of desire or emotion. By having proper love you have the knowledge of truth and goodness, but truth and goodness believed by Socrates does not come from homosexual’s because it is only for physical pleasure as for heterosexuals it is tolerated because it is necessary for reproduction of human beings. The next topic is physical training which consists of alcohol, diet, and