The Great and Well-known Philosophers, Plato and Buddha

Socrates and Siddhartha Guatama Buddha have many similarities; they both believe in the importance of justice and good, and a simpler way of life. However, they have different goals: Socrates concerns with worldly meanings and codes, he deals with truth and morals. Buddha concerns with attaining the outer-worldly through mastering the worldly. Socrates relinquishes sensual desires in hopes of spiritual rebirth after death and achieving enlightenment in life. Buddha relinquishes the same ideas, but in hopes of living an enlightened life on earth. (The Dhammapada: Socrates & Buddha Vs. Desire) My contention is to compare Philosopher Socrates from Plato and Siddhartha Guatama Buddha, and I will demonstrate their similarities and differences

What do you believe to be the major distinctions in their personal assumptions, beliefs, and values?

Breaking the law might or might not be morally permissible in special situations. It is not clear whether it is morally correct to always follow laws. Two points of view were examined: Martin Luther King in the “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” and Socrates in “Crito”. King, (1991) says that breaking the law can be excused for good reasons. However, Socrates says that breaking the law is never permissible (Gallop, 1997). Breaking the law is not moral because it breaks the conditions to be a citizen.

Imagine the feeling of sitting in room isolated from the rest of the world, left alone with your thoughts and kept guarded away from freedom. What would one with their spare time? Would one contemplate escape? Would one sit alone with their thoughts and fixate on what has led to such a lonely end? Would one compose a letter to those who detained them? Perhaps these are the same thoughts that inspired the words of Socrates, in Plato’s Crito or the emotional words that were spewed on paper by Dr. Martin Luther King while detained in Birmingham Jail. The philosophy of Socrates and Dr. Martin Luther King are grounded in peace. Both philosophers are faced with conflict from the laws put in place by the society that they are in. The purpose of this essay is to compare how each philosopher discusses the concept of law. The fictional tales of Socrates was inspiration to the belated Dr. King as he strived to challenge the status quo set for society. Throughout Plato’s poems Socrates constantly stretched the mental capabilities of those who conversed, and at times even challenged him. Dr. King was not fearful of “Causing tension to the mind” of those around him. In particular Dr. King challenged his ideals of those who opposed his approach of nonviolent protesting. In “The letter from a Birmingham Jail” Dr. King response to a clergyman in form of a letter. This letter expresses the many obstacles put in front of Dr. King as he strives to create an equal society for African-American or

Even though “big data” is very valuable and has made many great gains for society in both efficiency and knowledge, with the increase in data collection and analytics there are many ethical concerns of how the data is being used because evidence based decision making within the analytics is often done solely on quantitative information, this creates digital inequity. Comparing and examining the works of Socrates and Martin Luther King Jr., we can develop our own ethical belief regarding some of the analytics used with “big data”.

Socrates; the founder of Western Philosophy, the first user of the Socratic method and Socratic irony, contributor to the field of ethics, and martyr for teaching what he thought was right. Indeed, Socrates is a household name, yet the picture many hold of Socrates may not be true to who Socrates actually was. Socrates considered himself a teacher and a thinker, not a writer, thus he wrote none of his teachings or thoughts down. As a consequence, the only surviving accounts of Socrates come second hand from his pupils, Plato and Xenophon, and from the playwright Aristophanes. However, it is difficult to tell how much of the Socrates depicted in the works of those men is embellishment or outright fabrication, and how much is truth. This problem, the Socratic Problem, has been troubling historians and philosophers for centuries, and will go on doing so. While the real Socrates may never be known, Socrates the character may be studied extensively through the works of his pupils. Plato’s Symposium depicts Socrates in an informal setting, getting drunk with friends, and offers an opportunity to see Socrates’ character and personality more clearly. While Symposium is set at a party, Socrates is still shown to be a larger-than-life, idealized character, who may have been too brilliant and perfect to be true.

What are we? In this essay, I’ll be comparing and contrasting the four views of human nature that we have studied so far – Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Platonism – critically examining their similarities and differences. Also, I’ll be explaining which one I think provides the most plausible understanding of what we are. First, I will introduce each of the four views of human nature by defining them. Then, I will elaborate and thoroughly explain what each one claims that we are.

Both men’s beliefs can be seen in their quality of life and in their interaction with the

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas from his essay Self-Reliance may sound absurd to some, though this also helps to ensure that his ideas on self-reliance are some of the most well known on the subject. Many people these days seem to be more inclined towards focusing almost entirely on the self, rather than going and pleasing other people. There are also other teachings from the past that are contradicted by the ideas in Emerson’s essay. One notable statement that Emerson made was that “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself (Emerson, 47).” This is slowly becoming the truth for most individuals, who are taking up this approach, rather than going around and pleasing other people

During the second-wave of civilizations, during more than a thousand years, people have evolved in their traditions as well as in their attitudes in regards to their ideals and philosophies including their religious influences that brought upon their outlook on life. Later, these regions began to adopt these concepts into their own government, being an impetus for people to begin to independently search for their own unique perspective of "truth" and what is "good". Though there are many different thoughts and explanations about how to live, there is some common ground between them. Throughout the year 600 B.C.E. to the year 600 C.E. the ideas of religion such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism and philosophy like those of Plato, Laozi, and Socrates. From 600 B.C.E. to 600 B.C. religions began to impact the traditions and attitudes in Europe and Asia resulting in multiple different, but yet similar approaches to the same goal of living morally and truthfully.

Both, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Buddha, at least at the level of conventional truth, look at the life and the world as largely nihilistic and unsatisfying, and search for a solution to the meaninglessness of their respective cultural situations by turning within and advocating a transformation of our inner forces and of our outlook on the world. The major difference between Nietzsche and Buddhism, however, lies in the role of the will in nihilism and its overcoming. For the Buddha, only by cutting the root of the fundamental will altogether, through the self-overcoming of the will to power, one can step beyond nihilism. The radicality of both Nietzsche's negation and his affirmation of life, on the contrary, is limited insofar as the "standpoint

The idea of love is a complicated notion that has been interpreted in different ways throughout history. In a TED video, Skye Cleary explores various perspectives on what love is and why a person falls in love; Plato, the ancient greek philosopher, believed that love made humans whole again; Zeus, the Irascible god of lightning, separated each person from their soulmate in a fit of rage, and love would help their missing half. Buddha, on the other hand, believed that love was a pleasure-driven, useless pursuit, and should be ignored. While the beliefs on the true meaning and purpose of love vary greatly, many people fail to see either the true intricateness and danger that love holds or the effects it can have on a person and their relationships:

Separated by more than 8500 kilometers but only 52 years, two seminal thinkers have shaped the moral philosophy of their respective cultures. While Western ethical theory has been deeply influenced by Plato’s Republic, Eastern ethical theory has been deeply influenced by Confucius’s Analects. David Haberman describes the Republic as ‘one of the most influential books of all time’ (86). And Bryan Van Norden compares (with considerable fervor) the Analects to ‘the combined influence of Jesus and Socrates’ (3).

Compassion is basically considered to be one of the most virtues in almost all religious traditions such as Buddhism and Christianity. Buddhism and Christianity are two different religions but both of them are interrelated. Both religions have hope of life after death, hope of reincarnation of Buddhists, eternal life of Christians, but live consciously. Both Buddhism and Christianity were founded by spiritual leaders and masters who tried to prove a way of salvation. Based on religious writings, this paper explores the way Buddhism and Christianity are different and in what ways they similar from the point of salvation, life after death, and love.

Some of the most famous philosophies came from the ancient times. These popular philosophies include, “the unexamined life is not worth living,” or “I think therefore I am.” What is most common between these ancient phrases is the people who wrote them. In fact, some of the most famous philosophers lived in the same city around the same time, and even interacted with each other. The main three philosophers of these times were Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato. While they are all prominent in their own right, one of the three stuck out from the others, and that one was Plato.