In this regard,... ... middle of paper ... ...wise people who already know everything. Socrates has never pretended to know the truth, he just believes in seeking the ultimate truth. For the sophists, knowledge is power, and those who know a lot must be the rulers. This fact is another main cause of distinction between Socrates and the sophists. It is true that both Socrates and the sophists belong to the similar field and set a more or less a prominent and similar goal which is knowledge and truth, but their ways to reach their destinations are not similar.
Socrates pondered over the Oracle’s proclamation that he was the wisest person (The Apology 21a). Socrates attempted to find someone who was wiser than himself but he could not. Socrates realized that he was the wisest person because he was the only person who was aware of his own ignorance (The Apology 23b). Socrates took this as being a sign that the gods had a mission for him. Socrates thought that the gods wanted him to make other people aware of their ignorance.
He believes philosophy is man's most honorable, plus most beneficial, occupation; actually, it is his duty. He appr... ... middle of paper ... ...his teachings had more accuracy than the opponents themselves had. Suppressing the minds and hearts of the people ultimately fails. So, while the government of Athens may try to control its philosopher and teachers this tactic never succeeds. Socrates is not a corruptor of youth; he teaches, guides, and encourages.
Socrates had come across many people who thought that they may have been the wisest. To one of the public men, whom many thought was wise, Socrates simply showed him that he was not as wise as he thought he was. Socrates then thought to himself “I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know” (Plato’s Apology. 21d). Here Socrates shows that simply a sense of humility and admittance can make one seem wiser than others.
The oracle at Delphi said to Socrates’ friend, Chaerephon, that there is no man wiser than Socrates. In disbelief and not agreeing to be the wisest man, Socrates went on to investigate by examining all men that he thought to be wise. His goal was to find a man that is wiser than him in order to tell the oracle he was incorrect. He went to a public man first, as he thought he would live up to the expectation of public man to be wise. However, he found out that although he appeared to be wise to himself and other, he was in fact not wise (Plato, 24).
To recognize and acknowledge your own ignorance is to be wise. Socrates highlights this point when he tries to explain to the Athenians that he believed the oracle was only using him as a paradigm to teach. Socrates did not believe the oracle intended to say that he was the wisest man; only that Socrates was a man with a vast amount of wisdom because of his awareness of his own ignorance. The only way to ever truly be wise is to have the ability to admit that, although you may be keen in some areas, you don’t know it all. In the previously used examples, the student that chose to recognize their ignorance of the subject definitely had the upper hand when confronted with having to utilize their skills.
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.
In spite of this, Socrates gives a remarkable speech that is truly complete. One of the first misconceptions among all the speakers was the age of the god Lo... ... middle of paper ... ...s right to them, may not seem correct to us, and this is a problem that arises with Agathon's speech. In the times of Socrates and Plato, eros was a much different word then it's translation: love. He have seen how love takes the shape of a god, and how it has influenced the evolution of human kind. In the "Symposium", Socrates gives the most sensible account of eros when he quotes Diotima , even though to this day, it is unclear whether Diotima was a fabrication to fit Socrates' needs when discussing love.
At this point in the novel I saw Thrasymachus’s flaw and also the reason why Socrates has silenced Thrasymachus. Injustice, in my opinion, may be better as a short-term plan for pleasure, but in the long run the unjust man will be condemned by just men of his evil deeds, thus leading to his downf... ... middle of paper ... ...nally, Socrates points out that, in his perfect State, philosophers will always have the advantage over other types of rulers because they have wisdom and knowledge, which gives them the ability to govern justly and wisely. In my opinion, Socrates’s perfect State sounded plenty like the scenario progressing in the debate. Socrates, since he is a great philosopher, had the advantage over everyone because he was wise and intelligent in his arguments; therefore he obviously knew more about justice than anyone else. So, in conclusion, Socrates won the debate on the definition of justice.
It was believed in ancient times that a God came down from the heavens and gave answers to mortals through the oracle. This claim that Socrates is the wisest baffled Socrates and caused him to go on a life long journey to try to figure out if the Gods were actually right. The court tries to argue that this journey was Socrates’ way of trying to prove the Gods wrong and ultimately use that as Socrates doesn’t believe in the God if he is trying to prove him wrong. But in reality, Socrates was doing the exact opposite. He never had a doubt that about the Gods sincerity.