Socrates was a renowned philosopher in the ancient Grecian times. His peak was around the Peloponnesian War, when the Spartans defeated the Athenians and ended the Golden Age. The reason Socrates is one of histories most famous philosophers is largely due to Plato's writings. Two of Plato's famous works include The Apology and The Republic, both written about Socrates' views about the so called "wise philosophers" of his time. The two works hold unique views about government, as well as opening the eyes of the Grecian people to the world as they knew it.
In the Apology, Socrates was told by the Delphic Oracle that there was nobody wiser than him. With ancient Greece having been a prominent home of philosophy and art since before Socrates' time, the Athenian court found his proclamation both insulting and hard to believe. Socrates goes through great lengths to find the wisest of men and seeing if their reputations are in fact true. He hoped to find a man wiser than him to prove the oracles prediction was false, even Socrates failed to believe he was the wisest man. He first went to a man that seemed wise. After he spoke with him Plato quotes "I came to see that, though many persons, and chiefly himself, thought that he was wise, yet he was not wise."(77) With his certainty that Socrates was wiser, the man was insulted and hated Socrates for derailing his intelligence. Socrates then goes to another wise man, but is again let down. He still believes he is wiser. Convinced that he would not find a more intelligent man amongst wise men, he then questioned the more "educated people", such as poets and artisans. According to Plato, Socrates says "I imagine, they find a great abundance of men who think that they know a great...
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...litical figure came close to challenging Socrates' unique philosophical plan. In the Republic, Socrates' ideas of how ignorant a democracy is, is portrayed in the Apology when Socrates' proclamation resulted in death. A democracy is supposed to be about individuality and freedom, however it was contradicted when Socrates was put to death because he had ideas for a better system of ruling. He wanted a ruler to be somebody who would see truth, not shunning certain ideas and keeping others solely because it is not understood. These ideas are portrayed in both excerpts.
Plato opened the eyes of many up and coming philosophers and shaped governments around the world with his teachings. The Apology and the Republic succeeded in that they spread his teachings, releasing a more truthful way of coping with societies problems rather than shunning ideas as a whole.
He talks about what the ideal city would entail asking questions such as, who would rule, who would raise the children, would you favor music or fitness, what justice means and finally what type of government would the state have and who would rule? Some of the answers Socrates discusses seem to contradict his beliefs in earlier works, specifically The Apology and The Crito. One of the largest discrepancies that I see between this work and The Apology is his view on examining life. In The Apology, he says that he would never be able to be alive and not continue to question what he sees and other people, because the unexamined life is not worth living. Yet in The Republic, he argues, in some instances, that people will be specialized in certain fields and that only the rulers will be philosophers. This means that only the rulers will be the ones who are examining and questioning things that are going on, which goes against what he states in The Apology. Most of the citizens in this state would not be examining what is told to them or questioning the world around them because it is not their specialty. Does that mean that their lives are not worth living or does it mean that only philosophers lives are worth living? I don’t think this means that people wouldn’t be capable of questioning things further, but they would be discouraged
For the most part, Socrates speaks in a very friendly manner. He explains that he has no experience with the court of law and that he will instead speak in the manner to which he feels most comfortable: honesty. Socrates realized that he must be wiser than other men because he admits that he knows nothing. Socrates explains that he considered it his duty to questions about the “gods” and to expose their false wisdom as ignorance. These activities have earned him much admiration amongst the youth of Athens, but much hatred and anger from the “gods”
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.
The Apology is Socrates' defense at his trial. As the dialogue begins, Socrates notes that his accusers have cautioned the jury against Socrates' eloquence, according to Socrates, the difference between him and his accusers is that Socrates speaks the truth. Socrates distinguished two groups of accusers: the earlier and the later accusers. The earlier group is the hardest to defend against, since they do not appear in court. He is all so accused of being a Sophist: that he is a teacher and takes money for his teaching. He attempts to explain why he has attracted such a reputation. The oracle was asked if anyone was wiser than Socrates was. The answer was no, there was no man wiser. Socrates cannot believe this oracle, so he sets out to disprove it by finding someone who is wiser. He goes to a politician, who is thought wise by him self and others. Socrates does not think this man to be wise and tells him so. As a consequence, the politician hated Socrates, as did others who heard the questioning. "I am better off, because while he knows nothing but thinks that he knows, I neither know nor think that I know" (Socrates). He questioned politicians, poets, and artisans. He finds that the poets do not write from wisdom, but by genius and inspiration. Meletus charges Socrates with being "a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the State, and has other new divinities of his own."
During the time period of The Republic, the problems and challenges that each community was faced with were all dealt with in a different way. In the world today, a lot of people care about themselves. For many people, the word justice can mean many different things, but because some only look out for themselves, many of these people do not think about everyone else’s role in the world of society. The struggle for justice is still demonstrated in contemporary culture today. One particular concept from Plato’s The Republic, which relates to contemporary culture is this concept of justice. In the beginning of The Republic, Socrates listeners, Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus, ask Socrates whether justice is stronger than injustice, and
Imagine the time just after the death of Socrates. The people of Athens were filled with questions about the final judgment of this well-known, long-time citizen of Athens. Socrates was accused at the end of his life of impiety and corruption of youth. Rumors, prejudices, and questions flew about the town. Plato experienced this situation when Socrates, his teacher and friend, accepted the ruling of death from an Athenian court. In The Last Days of Socrates, Plato uses Socrates’ own voice to explain the reasons that Socrates, though innocent in Plato’s view, was convicted and why Socrates did not escape his punishment as offered by the court. The writings, “Euthyphro,” “The Apology,” “Crito,” and “Pheado” not only helped the general population of Athens and the friends and followers of Socrates understand his death, but also showed Socrates in the best possible light. They are connected by their common theme of a memoriam to Socrates and the discussion of virtues. By studying these texts, researchers can see into the culture of Athens, but most important are the discussions about relationships in the book. The relationships between the religion and state and individual and society have impacted the past and are still concerns that are with us today.
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 men.” This seems to be his greatest mistake, claiming to be greater than even the jury.
The subject matter of the “Republic” is the nature of justice and its relation to human existence. Book I of the “republic” contains a critical examination of the nature and virtue of justice. Socrates engages in a dialectic with Thrasymachus, Polemarchus, and Cephalus, a method which leads to the asking and answering of questions which directs to a logical refutation and thus leading to a convincing argument of the true nature of justice. And that is the main function of Book I, to clear the ground of mistaken or inadequate accounts of justice in order to make room for the new theory. Socrates attempts to show that certain beliefs and attitudes of justice and its nature are inadequate or inconsistent, and present a way in which those views about justice are to be overcome.
In my opinion Socrates is giving as a good model of a vocation of a philosopher. When I think of a philosopher I think of some that gets people to ask questions and think. This is exactly what Socrates does for the people of Athens. He is accused of doing wrong when he is just trying to help advance society. Another thing that makes him a great philosopher is the fact that he sticks to his moral throughout. He has the ability to escape prison but he knows that would go against all of his teachings. So he accepts death.
“In the Republic” the reader gets a sense of what Plato felt a society should be and how it should
The second book of the Republic shows the repressive quality of Plato’s society. Plato, talking through Socrates, wants
Socrates was a man that was in search of the truth about wisdom. However, it became more than just a simple search, rather it tuned into a complex assignment where the answer of true wisdom leads Socrates to be brought up on charges of corrupting society. As a philosopher Socrates is known to take every angle of an argument and to never put belief into one idea. Therefore Socrates was known to perplex even simple ideas and to frustrate his opponent. People who have experienced this accuse Socrates of making his own truths about the natural and unnatural world when in actuality he his still in search of a better meaning. This becomes a key factor in the "Apology" where Socrates is brought up on charges for corrupting the mind of the youths and the people that attended to his lectures. His best defence comes about when he tells the Athenian jury about his account of a confrontation of his friend Chairephon and the Oracle of Delphi.
If Americans were to face this problem by following Platonic ideas of government the selection of fraudulent political leaders would greatly decline as well as distrust towards politicians. Platonic education would enhance the sovereignty of reason over desire therefore creating justice in the soul (Okpala). In present day politics, Platonic philosophy is rooted into political affairs and if used correctly could rebuild a society where there is mutual trust between citizen and state. Plato justifies these beliefs with the following dialogues in The
The Republic is the most important dialogue within Plato's teaching of politics. It deals with the soul, which, as we know from the beginning, at the level where one must make choices and decide what one wants to become in this life, and it describes justice as the ultimate form of human, and the ideal one should strive for both in life and in state. Justice as understood by Plato is not merely a social virtue, having only to do with relationship between people, but virtue that makes it possible for one to build their own regime and reach happiness.
Socrates and Plato were some of the world’s most famous philosophers. Yet, they caused much trouble in the midst of their philosophizing. These philosophers, in the view of the political elites, were threatening the Athenian democracy with their philosophy. But why did they go against the status quo? What was their point in causing all of this turmoil? Plato and Socrates threatened the democracy as a wake-up call. They wanted the citizens to be active thinkers and improve society. This manifested itself in three main ways: Socrates’ life, his student Plato’s life, and their legacy in our modern age.