Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
A THESIS ON PLATO'S APOLOGY OF SOCRATES PDF
platos apology socrates innocense
platos apology socrates innocense
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: A THESIS ON PLATO'S APOLOGY OF SOCRATES PDF
A significant body of work regarding how Xenophon’s Oeconomicus is a response to Aristophanes’ Clouds has been written in the last few decades, beginning with Leo Strauss’s enigmatic book on the dialogue. And while great consideration has gone into the pronounced relationship between these two works, as well as its relation to Xenophon’s treatises on the arts and his Hiero, the fertile Oeconomicus has many more fruits to yield for us regarding a greater understanding of the coherence of the dialogue to Xenophon’s thought.
Xenophon presents much of his thought in a manner that requires readers to constantly keep in mind Plato’s thought but also diligently strive to discern Xenophon’s voice. We can easily recognize the relation of Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates to the Jury to Plato’s Apology of Socrates and Xenophon’s Symposium to Plato’s Symposium, and recently it has been proposed that Xenophon’s Education of Cyrus is a direct response to Plato’s Republic exploring grave difficulties Xenophon has with the best regime.1 We may thus gather that, in some sense, Xenophon’s works are derivative. To declare a work to be a derivative is often synonymous with a mark of inferiority, merely replication. However, an audience must seriously consider that a derivative may not merely re-appropriating but attempting to reply to a master who the imitator considers worth studying. The imitator, if they take the master seriously and not be merely subservient to them, requires a mastery of the confines of the original so they can create their own work. So we must consider with great seriousness reading Xenophon as a commentator on Plato, one willing to bring to light the shadows.
A study of Xenophon’s which has not been brought to light is that...
... middle of paper ...
...takes place while standing since it is an unmentioned detail but also because it is such a short conversation. Ischomachus, however, is already seated in the colonnade when he and the young Socrates initiate their discussion, suggesting the possibility of greater leisure for their lengthy conversation (Oec. 7.1).
Meanwhile, no setting is given for Socrates’ public discussion with Critoboulus, but it doesn’t seem important to Xenophon. The importance of setting is that Xenophon and others are present and they can each engage for an extended period uninterrupted. This again forces us to take the location quite seriously, and also as the stoa was constructed at a specific date in memorial of a crucial event and is a unique location to Plato’s and Xenophon’s corpus we must consider the possibility that there is some significance in the dramatic date of each dialogue.
ABSTRACT: I analyse the dramatic setting of the Gorgias by contrasting it with that of the Protagoras. The two dialogues are closely related. In the Gorgias Socrates states that the rhetorician and the sophist are basically indistinguishable in everyday life. In both the Protagoras and the Gorgias, his confrontation with his interlocutors is metaphorically related to a descent to Hades. However, while the events in the Protagoras are narrated by Socrates himself, the Gorgias has readers face the unfolding events without mediation. The temporal and spatial framing of the Gorgias is indeterminate, while both aspects are described in detail in the Protagoras. I maintain that the magical passage from an indeterminate "outside" to an indeterminate "inside" in the Gorgias is significantly related to the characters' attitude towards the boundaries of each other's souls, which are constantly ignored or attacked. As a matter of fact, the dialogue presents a very impressive amount of anger and exchange of abuse, which never ceases until the end. I suggest that the temporal framing demonstrates that the beginning and the end of the dialogue are closely connected. Socrates unexpectedly arrives and refutes Gorgias by asking him unexpected questions. The last myth of judgment indicates that Gorgias' attitude is comparable to that of the mortals who lived during Kronos' age, while Socrates brings about a liberation from appearance which is analogous to the innovations brought about by Zeus.
Socrates, a man who lived thousands of years ago, is perhaps the most renowned philosopher of all time. His work was written down years later by his close friend, Plato. From these readings, we may find some ideas and thoughts of his that seem to contradict others. This seems to be evident in Plato’s stories The Apology, The Crito, and The Republic.
In conclusion, Xenophon’s Apology successfully vindicates the Socrates’ defense of his piety in so far as it shows that Socrates holds a belief in that is no different than the one
By studying a variety of events and people involved in the Peloponnesian War and the Theban play Antigone, it becomes noticeable that many of these events and people can be explained through Platonic terms. Throughout the Republic, Plato conveys his philosophical thoughts about democracy, justice, and education in a society through his main character Socrates. As Socrates encounters many enlightened people of his time, he questions them on rhetorical issues dealing with society and human nature. As these issues begin to unfold, events and people in the past seem to illustrate many of the main concepts in the Republic. After looking at Socrates' discussions throughout books I, IV, VI, and VII we will notice that they relate to many events that happened prior to the writing of the Republic such as the Sicilian Expedition, the debate at Sparta in 432, and Creon's implementation of justice in the Theban play Antigone by Sophacles.
“Anabasis” is the Xenophon’s account of the expedition for Cyrus against Persian and the marching home of Greeks. The Greek title of Xenophon’s work, “Anabasis”, referred to a march up country, away from the coast. The title applies only to the first of its seven books. It all ends with the death of Cyrus at the Battle of Cuxana. The Greek mercenary soldiers were left stranded in the “barbarian” world. The rest of the books involves with tales of the Greeks’ discipline, leadership and courage during their journey home. Xenophon’s narrative offers an insight of the character and their political life of a Greek army. Although Xenophon seems to write about the account between the Greek and the barbarian, he presents himself as an important role in the Greek army throughout the rest of the books. He uses a third-person form when describing his own actions as a character. It might suggest that Xenophon is writing an apologia to defend himself and to show his vital role in the expedition.
Thrasymachus believes that he is only elucidating his viewpoint but Socrates is able to turn his views over, and pick out the fallacies. Socrates is not trying to make a fool out of him; on the contrary, he is “trying to help Thrasymachus enter a state of productive confusion in which he will discover that he does not know what he things he does, and then want to learn about what he does not know”. While the dialogue with Thrasymachus in the first book of “The Republic” ends with his silence, we are left with the notion that Thrasymachus’ silence adds as much, if not more, to the dialogue, than his partaking in the dialogue. Although Thrasymachus is silent for the rest of The Republic, his view is still very much present throughout the rest of the Republic. Thrasymachus’ challenge of the definition of justice stays with the reader for the rest of The
Aristophanes’ Clouds begins by introducing the audience to Strepsiades, a simple-minded and old man who finds himself in debt due to his son’s ,Pheidippides, expensive hobby. Strepsiades asks Pheidippides to attend Socrates’ thinkery; a place where Pheidippides could learn a speech that he could then use to talk the city and Strepsiades’ creditors out of collecting the debt. From the very initial moment of this play, therefore, we witness an individual who finds himself in direct collision with the laws of the polity. Specifically, Strepsiades’ is in collision with those features of civil law that seek to ensure that interactions between citizens are characterized by a somewhat
The name “Oedipus” means “swollen feet” in Latinized Greek. His parents, Laius and Jocasta, gave him this name while piercing a metal rod through the ankles of his feet, in order to prevent the fulfilment of the oracle’s prophecy. Despite this heinous act, their efforts were in vain as Oedipus’ free will conquered the theme of fate. In the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the tragic hero, Oedipus, demonstrates hamartia, a fatal error in judgement, which brings about his own downfall. It was Oedipus’ hubris that was responsible for the tragic ending of this play. Evidence of this statement occurs when Oedipus’ determination towards solving the mystery behind Laius’ death ironically lead to the truth behind the oracle’s prophecies. Additionally, Oedipus’ overweening pride and ego resulted in the murder of Laius, which was a major stepping-stone in the prophecy. He illustrates his error in judgment through his pride, blindness, and foolishness and therefore is at fault.
As with many plays from the same time period as Oedipus the King, there seems to be more to the story than the tragic story of a simple man. One way that Oedipus the King can be interpreted is as a political commentary about the str...
The story that is found in Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro proposes a dilemma that has since been a very controversial subject. When Socrates encounters Euthyphyo, he is on his way to trail to face charges against his own father. His father had been accused o...
* Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 3. (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London, 1980.)
The Socratic dialogue begins of Socrates recounting a conversation he had with a number of people at the house of Cephalus. Returning to Athens from Piraeus, where they had been attending a religious festival, Socrates and Glaucon are intercepted by Cephalus, who playfully forces them to come to his father’s house. Socrates begins by asking t...
The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that the events in Oedipus the King, written by Sophocles, are the result of the hero’s self determination and restless attempt to escape a terrifying destiny predicted for him by the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. My intention is to prove that although the Fates play a crucial part in the story, it is Oedipus'choices and wrong doing that ultimately lead to his downfall.
Aristotle is the most influential philosopher in the history of Western thought. A Greek drama by Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, was praised in the Poetics of Aristotle as the model for classical tragedy and is still considered a principal example of the genre. In this essay I will analyze Oedipus Rex using Aristotle's concepts praxis, poiesis, theoria.
This new approach that is taken in their search for a definition of the statesman leads the stranger to use myth in order to show young Socrates what it is that the shepherd of the human flock does. It is in the development of this myth that it is shown why the statesman can be separated from many of those who would lay claim to his title. The myth that is used by Plato in this dialog revolves around the idea of the world as being a living creature.