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plato's apology explained
essay on plato apology of socrates
socrates 'apology' speech
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Meno was one of Plato’s earliest of dialogues, written in depth the book is founded around a central question: If virtue can be taught, then how? And if not, then how does virtue come to man, either by nature or some other way? Socrates addresses this inquiry by questioning a person who claims to understand the term’s meaning (Plato's Meno). The purpose of this essay is to relate the Socratic method performed by Socrates in Plato’s dialogue The Apology, to Meno, by illustrating its effect on the character Meno himself.
After questioning Meno about virtue, Socrates comes to the conclusion that neither he nor Meno truly know the meaning of the word; he then notes that finding a thorough definition for the term is first necessary in order for them to continue with his inquiry. Thus, together the two of them examine many possible definitions of the word, each suggested by Meno and negated by Socrates. Socrates never claims to know the answer to his question of virtue, but he does however claim to know the basic form that such an answer would take. His intentions upon questioning the meaning of virtue was to signify to the people that what they so confidently thought they knew to be true, is in fact uncertain and therefore untrue. Moreover, that the world cannot even begin to know how to know.
In Plato’s The Apology Socrates is tried for practicing his philosophy on wisdom and ignorance. He concluded that by recognizing his own ignorance he must be wiser than other men, in that he knows that he really does not know anything. For this sake, Socrates felt obligated to prove to the men who thought themselves wise, that they were in fact ignorant.
Socrates argued that actively seeking out knowledge is what gives man the ability to moder...
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...how the foundation of our knowledge was laid, like the proverbial chicken and egg enigma--what came first, the question or the answer? Socrates would most likely revert to his theory of recollection, in that the answer would already be within. Thus, arriving at the answer would really just be to recover it from within our souls. Whereas, Meno might be likely to have no inquiry at all, for he would not argue about something that he knows nothing of. And if he already knows that a chicken lays an egg, and the egg comes from a chicken, then why would he bother to inquire about it in the first place?
Works Cited
Plato, George Anastaplo, and Laurence Berns. Plato's Meno. Newburyport, MA: Focus Pub./R. Pullins Co, 2004. Print
Wikipedia contributors. "Socratic method." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
Right after Socrates comments how they can both look for virtue, Meno gives him these questions: “How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing you did not know (80d)?” This is Meno’s paradox which explains the discovery of knowledge is impossible and if you do not know what you are learning, and that you cannot discover it either. Meno states in his first premise that you either know what knowledge is or you don’t, and whether you do know it or not, you cannot discover what that piece of knowledge is. This,
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.
Plato's best-known distinction between knowledge and opinion occurs in the Meno. The distinction rests on an analogy that compares the acquisition and retention of knowledge to the acquisition and retention of valuable material goods. But Plato saw the limitations of the analogy and took pains to warn against learning the wrong lessons from it. In the next few pages I will revisit this familiar analogy with a view to seeing how Plato both uses and distances himself from it.
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 but rather aimed at bringing out the worst in his interlocutors.
Plato. Menexenus. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. 2nd ed. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Ed. Patricia Bizzell & Bruce Herzberg. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001. 60A-63B. Print.
In “The Apology of Socrates,” Socrates shares his view of his fellow Athenian citizens; he accuses these citizens of caring more about their wealth and reputation than about wisdom, truth, and the state of their souls. Socrates deems “wisdom, truth, or the best possible state of your souls” to be more important to a meaningful life. One of the reasons Socrates is on trial is because he is accused of corrupting the youth. When roaming the streets, after being called the man with the most wisdom, he begins to ask all the smartest people he can find to ask them questions. He begins to realize that the people in power are not that smart after all. Socrates comes to the conclusion that the people with power and reputation have essentially denied to themselves that they do not know, and pretended that they do. This led to the idea of Socratic Wisdom, which is basically knowing that you do not know. This idea of putting reputation over truth and wisdom is very much still prevalent today, and could even be considered human nature.
If we take these assumptions and put them together we find ourselves with the paradox. We start with F, which we want to inquire about. According to Meno, if we want to inquire about F, we need to know what F is. Socrates says though, that in order to know what F is, we must be able to define it, and if we cannot define it, we wil...
Plato believes the conversation to search for what virtue really is should continue despite achieving no success in their first efforts to form a satisfactory definition. Meno becomes very aggravated with Plato and proposes a valid argument to him. Meno exclaims,
In “Apology” by Plato, Socrates stated, “… there are plenty of persons, as soon as enough discover, who think that they know anything, but really know little or nothing” (Plato 32). In other words, humans are imperfect and this explains the limited nature of human knowing. Even when we consider things for a while and in our best operation, we can still make mistakes because we are imperfect. At the same time, the student must know his/her purpose for doing something. “God orders me to fulfill the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men….” (Plato 35), stated Socrates. He knows that his job was to teach the young men to follow his footsteps and live a good and virtuous life. Just like Socrates, our modern education system should be concerned with making sure that students are learning what is truly important. There will be different levels of education as one goes through his or her life cycle. The modern model represents the way of growing through education and continues to change. If one is motivated, he or she will be successful in his or her life and become a better educated person. In the “Apology,” Socrates visited the politicians, poets and artisans to see which group was wiser than him. He realized that all three groups lacked knowledge in some type of way. Socrates stated that the politician “knows nothing, and thinks that he knows” (Plato 31). Both the
Socrates’ philosophical beliefs and life isn’t accurately represented in the modern world. Since there aren’t any writings from Socrates himself, his life, beliefs, and philosophy has to be depicted through the writings of Plato, Aristophanes, Aristotle and Xenophon, with Plato being the most informational and dependable source. These writers that do mention Socrates in their writings aren’t always accurate and are sometimes very contradicting and inconsistent. In Plato’s writing, it is difficult to distinguish the ideas and beliefs of Socrates from Plato’s. Some historians believe that the beliefs of Plato were based upon Socrates. Some believe that the beliefs of Socrates were interpreted by Plato in his writings. Others believe Socrates didn’t have any ideas of his own. This unclear representation of Socrates is known as the Socratic Problem. Due to the S...
Meno is very surprised at Socrates’s answer, therefore he decides to explain the definition to Socrates. On his first attempt, Meno gives a list of all the virtues that men and women have. Socrates points out that it is just a list of various virtue but it does not define what virtue is. He makes reference of Meno’s information is like a swarm of bees. There may be different types of bee but we do not know the essence that makes them a bee. On Meno’s second attempt, he defines virtue as the power to rule over people. Socrates asks Meno to add “justly” in the phrase “to rule over people.” He then asks Meno if justice is virtue or a virtue. The example here is that roundness is a shape but not shape itself. There are many other shapes. Same concept applies to virtue. Justice is a virtue but there are many other virtues. Meno does not give up, he attempts to explain the third time. This time, he says that virtue is to desire beautiful things and power to have them. Those beautiful things are wealth, health and fame. Once again, Meno’s answer is just a composite of many things put together. It does not give the definition. Meno asks Socrates to answer
Plato’s "Apology" gives the substance of the defense made by Socrates to the Athenians at his trial. Meletus, Anytus and Lyncon brought Socrates to court on charges of corrupting the morals of the youth, leading the youth away from the principals of democracy, neglecting the Gods of the State and introducing new divinities.
Plato. “The Apology.” Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Cito, Meno, Phaedo. 2nd ed. Trans. Grube, G.M.A. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2002. 36.
Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived from 469-399 B.C.E. Socrates believed that Philosophy was primarily a social activity, which in fact he made use of quite often. He would find himself roaming the streets of Athens questioning the youth or just anyone who would give him the chance to talk to them. Furthermore, Socrates questions drove people absolutely insane, until the point of absolute consternation if you will. He tried proving a point which is quoted “Look, here we are, two ignorant men, yet two, men who desire to know. I am willing to pursue the question seriously if you are” (Palmer, 31).Ultimately, this meant that the person Socrates was questioning actually didn’t know anything at all, just as well as Socrates himself, so which for the both of them would remain in search of the truth.
The interesting dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro demonstrates this Socratic method of questioning in order to gain a succinct definition of a particular idea, such as piety. Though the two men do not come to a conclusion about the topic in the conversation seen in Euthyphro, they do discover that piety is a form of justice, which is more of a definition than their previous one. Their conversation also helps the reader to decipher what makes a good definition. Whenever Euthyphro attempts to define piety, Socrates seems to have some argument against the idea. Each definition offered, therefore, becomes more succinct and comes closer to the actual concept of piety, rather than just giving an example or characteristic of it. To be able to distinguish between a good definition and a bad one is the first step to defining what Socrates so desperately wished to define: w...