As Socrates is being put on trial, a young philosopher, Plato documents him trying to defend himself to Athens. Socrates is defending both his name and philosophy in the court room. One theme that seems to occur throughout the Apology of Socrates is that death is something to look forward to, not something to fear. Socrates is more than willing to die for what he loves, philosophizing, and has a first-hand account with the Delphic Oracle telling him that philosophy is the right thing to do. Even though the court tries to accuse Socrates of not believing in God or religion, Socrates demonstrates through his words that he does believe in something higher and afterlife. Also, the Socrates demonstrates through his actions and beliefs that religion …show more content…
First, he went to the politicians. Athens connected power to being wise. In Athens’ eyes, politicians are wise because of their power and persuasive speech. After talking to some politicians and figuring out their actual knowledge; he came to a conclusion. Socrates figured out that politician’s think highly of themselves and are actually lacking wisdom. The politicians preach things that they actually have no knowledge on. Wisdom is being able to recognize one’s ignorance towards something. This is the exact opposite of what the politicians do. They portray that they are wise and all knowing but actually they aren’t. Socrates believes that only the Gods are perfect and all knowing. This made Socrates come to the conclusion that wisdom is not power. The second group, he visits is the poets. Poets work shows the ideal on how to live and gives us our ideas on heroes/villains. Poets show the people the insight on how to live life. But ultimately wisdom isn’t fame or popularity. The poets seem to show wisdom in their work but really they don’t understand their own work. Also, poets seem to think that since they have knowledge in their field, then they must also have knowledge in other areas as well. When in actuality they don’t know what they are talking about. The third group was the craftsmen and technicians. Socrates finds out that this group indeed knows things that he doesn’t which makes them somewhat wiser than him. But the craftsmen and technicians think that since they have authority in one area than they have authority in all areas which makes them not wise. By the end of his mission to prove the oracle right, Socrates figures out what makes someone wise. Wisdom is acknowledging what one doesn’t know. The Oracle of Delphi and Socrates’ journey makes one come to the conclusion that Socrates ultimately does believe in a higher power like God even though he does not come right out and say it. Later
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.
Socrates was wise men, who question everything, he was found to be the wise man in Athens by the oracle. Although he was consider of being the wises man alive in those days, Socrates never consider himself wise, therefore he question everything in order to learned more. Socrates lived a poor life, he used to go to the markets and preach in Athens he never harm anyone, or disobey any of the laws in Athens, yet he was found guilty of all charges and sentence to die.
Socrates’ argument was unique in that he tried to convince the jury he was just an average man and not to be feared, but in actuality demonstrated how clever and tenacious he was. He begins with an anecdote of his visit to the Oracle of Delphi, which told him that there was no man smarter than he. He, being as humble as he is, could not take the Oracle’s answer for granted and went about questioning Athenians he felt surpassed his intelligence. However, in questioning politicians, poets, and artisans, he found that they claimed to know of matters they did not know about. Socrates considered this to be a serious flaw, and, as Bill S. Preston, Esq. put it: that “true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing.”
“he shows the god’s beliefs are inconsistent but because testing his own beliefs about what the god’s pronouncement means proves to be the operative sense in which the god himself can be “refuted.” So that when Socrates hopes to exhibit through his examinations of the politicians, poets and artisans is just that, since there is someone wiser than Socrates, he has reasons for believing the god means something other than what he appears to first say” (Carvalho 41-42). If Socrates was pious then he would have taken the words of the God Apollo literally instead of trying to prove them wrong. He constantly tries to find someone who is wiser than himself instead of believing it at first. When arguing that he does believe in the Gods this argument only causes more disbelief and shows the crowd that he is lying to them. Socrates gets tangled up in his own argument which causes others to see him as someone who is untruthful, when appealing to a large group of jurors it is unethical to lie to them because if they figure it out then he has no chance of receiving a moderate
In Plato’s Apology it seems that overall Socrates did an effective job using the 3 acts of the mind. The three acts of the mind are: Understanding, Judgment, and Reasoning. These acts are stragically used to rebut the charges made against him during trial. The two charges that are formed against Socrates are corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods. The first act of the mind that we will be looking at is, understanding. The question that needs to be asked is what does corruption mean? The accuser believe that Socrates in corrupting the minds of the children by introducing new concepts. Socrates is trying to teach and involve the minds of the youth by getting them to ask question. It is very important that people are always asking questions about why things are. The next question that needs to be address is what does not believe in the gods mean? Socrates believes in God but that is one god that rules the world, not multiple gods who together rule. They are mad that he has “created” his own god.
It was because of the Oracle that Socrates began to question his wisdom and the wisdom of others. He was not trying to corrupt the youth nor did he believe in false gods. Socrates was a man who believed that the Oracle’s message, “There was no one wiser than Socrates.”, was misguided and tried to prove it wrong. He went about doing that by questioning people. Socrates realized that he truly know nothing, of importance. So he tried to seek the truth. To be able to do this he ahd an open mind, and told his followers they should also have open minds. This is why Socrates was falsely accused by a culture that was both strict and hypocritical.
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.
Socrates, in his conviction from the Athenian jury, was both innocent and guilty as charged. In Plato’s Five Dialogues, accounts of events ranging from just prior to Socrates’ entry into the courthouse up until his mouthful of hemlock, both points are represented. Socrates’ in dealing with moral law was not guilty of the crimes he was accused of by Meletus. Socrates was only guilty as charged because his peers had concluded him as such. The laws didn’t find Socrates guilty; Socrates was guilty because his jurors enforced the laws. The law couldn’t enforce itself. Socrates was accused of corrupting Athens’ youth, not believing in the gods of the city and creating his own gods. In the Euthyphro, Socrates defends himself against the blasphemous charges outside the courthouse to a priest Euthyphro. Socrates looks to the priest to tell him what exactly is pious so that he may educate himself as to why he would be perceived as impious. Found in the Apology, another of Plato’s Five Dialogues, Socrates aims to defend his principles to the five hundred and one person jury. Finally, the Crito, an account of Socrates’ final discussion with his good friend Crito, Socrates is offered an opportunity to escape the prison and his death sentence. As is known, Socrates rejected the suggestion. It is in the Euthyphro and the Apology that it can be deduced that Socrates is not guilty as charged, he had done nothing wrong and he properly defended himself. However, in the Crito, it is shown that Socrates is guilty only in the interpretation and enforcement of Athens’ laws through the court system and its jurors. Socrates’ accusations of being blasphemous are also seen as being treasonous.
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."
Socrates discusses that people should not fear death because we do not know the qualities of death. Even though we do not know what death is, he makes some suggestions for the possibilities after death. He suggests that maybe death is just an endless sleep without dreaming, it is where we can finally come to peace with ourselves. He also suggest that maybe in the afterlife he will be able to meet heroic people in the past, where he can share his experience and question people to see whether they are wise. Even in death Socrates is still going to practice philosophy even if the place is bad. Even if he did not live a just life that he thought he did, he can examine what he did wrong and fix the problems in the after life. I agree with Socrates
The citizens of Socrates’ Republic are divided into three classes. Those who are deemed fit to rule, the philosopher/rulers, are those who have been chosen to pass through several stages of training and preparation. They are the most fit to rule, because the...
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...
In the Apology Socrates is presenting his case before the jury due to an accusation on three accounts: not recognizing the gods recognized by the state, inventing new deities, and corrupting the youth of Athens. He presents his “defense” however in contrast to the scholarly definition of the term. He instead informs the jury of his philosophies and converses with them, stating that he must be wiser than ... ... middle of paper ... ... wisest, and justest, and best of all the men whom I have ever known” (118a).
In Plato’s Apology Socrates’ was on trial for corrupting the youth and for spreading atheism. Socrates defended himself in the trial saying that he was just performing a service to the god that complimented him saying that he was wiser than anyone else. Ultimately this defense did not work, therefore he lost the trial. He was sentenced to death. Most people would be sad, scared, or distraught over this sentencing, but not Socrates. He didn’t view death as a bad thing, he almost welcomed death. Socrates welcomes death in a different way than Christians. Indeed people should welcome death, but not the way Socrates did. People should welcome death the way that Christians do, the right way. I believe that the Christians have the correct view of death, and that Socrates view of death is flawed. Socrates says that we should believe that death is the biggest blessing to man. He also says that we should not fear what we do not know. I find that hard to believe because I believe that the opposite to be true as well.
Socrates was a philosopher who set out to prove, to the gods, that he wasn't the wisest man. Since he could not afford a "good" Sophist teacher, surely a student of one had to be smarter than he. He decides to converse with the youth of Athens, but concludes that he actually is wiser than everyone he speaks with. He then realizes that their lack of intelligence is the fault of their teachers. Socrates understands that the practice of "sophism" leads to a lack of self-knowledge and moral values. Socrates was later accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and put on trial. In The Apology of Socrates he sta...