Philosophy is a vast field. It examines and probes many different fields. Virtue, morality, immortality, death, and the difference between the psyche (soul) and the soma (body) are just a few of the many different topics which can be covered under the umbrella of philosophy. Philosophers are supposed to be experts on all these subjects. The have well thought out opinions, and they are very learned people.
Among the most revered philosophers of all time was Socrates. Living around the 5th century B.C.,
Socrates was among the first philosophers who wasn't a sophist, meaning that he never felt that he was wise for he was always in the pursuit of knowledge. Unfortunately, Socrates was put to death late in his life. One of his best students, Plato, however, recorded what had occurred on that last day of Socrates' life. On that last day of his life, Socrates made a quite powerful claim. He claimed that philosophy was merely practice for getting used to death and dying.
At first, the connection between philosophy and death is not clear. However, as we unravel
Socrates' argument backing up his claim, the statement makes a lot of sense. In order for Philosophers to examine their world accurately and learn the truth accurately, they must remove them selves of all distractions. These not only include physical distractions, but they include mental distractions and bodily distractions as well. Philosophers must get used to viewing and examining the world with out any senses.
Senses merely hinder and obscure the truth. Sight for example can be fooled easily with optical illusions which occur normally in nature. Sound can be very distracting as well when a philosopher is trying to concentrate. All of these cloud the judgement, and must therefore be detached from the soul. Socrates argues that philosophers must view the world around them with their souls in order to accurately learn about it. However, by detaching their souls from all bodily functions, philosophers may as well be in an induced state of death. In mortem, the soul wanders free and there are no bodily hindrances.
Socrates also believed that philosophers look upon death with good cheer and hope. This I find hard to believe because if this were true, the philosopher would not be able to love life, and without the love of life, there is no life to examine and learn about.
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 (Philosopher) – He was a Greek philosopher recognized as one of the creators of Western Philosophy. He was famous for his Socratic Method, an art of reasoning. Socrates was born on 469 B.C. in Alopeke. His father, Sophroniscus was a Stonemason or a sculptor and his mother, Phaenarete was a midwife. Socrates was married to Xanthippe who had a not-so-good temperament. Xanthippe gave birth to three sons who were Menexenus, Lamprocles and Sophroniscus.
Sense Perception is a way of knowing in which a person can acquire knowledge using their five senses - taste, touch, sight, sound and smell. Sense perception is an important in our understanding of the world, and is a source of much of the pleasure in our lives. But, can we trust our senses to give us the truth? This may come out as an odd question to many because according to experience and history it is known that humans greatly rely on sense perception as a means of survival. However, like all ways of knowing, sense perception has its weakness; our senses can easily be deceived. In his TED Talk, “Are we in control of our decisions?” behavioral economist Dan Ariely uses examples and optical illusions to demonstrate the roles, strengths and limitations of sense perception as a way of knowing.
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...
being able to respond to them. Those whom have practiced mindfulness are aware of its
Life and death represent a dyad; their definitions inherently depend on one another. Simply defined, death is the cessation of life. Similarly, life can be defined as not death; however, not everything not alive is dead. Boniolo and Di Fiore explain this dyadic relationship well, and other authors have cited this interdependency to better define life and death.1-6 The academic literature contains multiple definitions for both terms depending on which discipline or interest group attempts the definition. Nair-Collins provides a thorough discourse on this diversity in terms of death, differentiating between “biological death, death of the person, death of the moral agent, death of the moral patient, legal death, and the commonsense notion of death.”2(p.667,668,675) Through the dyadic relationship, similar groupings could be arrived at for defining life. Whether or not one accepts Nair-Collins’ categories, at least some differentiation of this type is necessary given the complexity of these concepts. I propose a simplified categorization of the definitions of life and death: (1)scientific/biological, (2)medic...
Our five senses –sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch help the ways in which we perceive the world around us. And while they seem to work independently at time they can effect each other and the way we comprehend something. Seeing something pretty, touching something soft, eating something cold and smelling something rotten are the sense we use to connect with the world around us and will all effect how we move forward in that situation. When you look at the top picture say the color of the word not the word itself. It is harder than it seems and takes a little practice to do it efficiently. It is because we see the spelling we were taught not the color it was written in. It is hard to process it the other way, but not impossible. Take the bottom picture for another example is this a
Thirdly, because Socrates practiced making weak arguments strong (Sophist). Socrates was a traveling teacher and talked and challenged everyone he met. Socrates taught the art of persuasive speaking. He did not charge people money like most of the other Sophists did, but he did have similar beliefs as the Sophists. Sophists think that our minds are cut off from reality and that we are stuck in our own opinions of what the world is like.
pain or hunger if his mind and body aren’t inextricably united he would simply be aware
Death, and people's perception of it are a major part of many philosophies. It could be argued that the questions surrounding death and the afterlife form the basis of many philosophic concepts. To some philosophers, not only is the concept of death itself important, but also how people perceive it, and why they perceive it the way they do. Epicurus's claim that the soul is mortal, is an excellent explanation for why we should not fear death.
There are two major religious beliefs on the soul, and though they may seem diametrically opposed, we must remember that our ideas on the soul exist only because of the conditioned acceptance of these religiou...
Nichols states that in life, the soul is one with the mind and as such the brain and body, which limi...
Despite centuries of Man`s continued existence on this planet, he has failed to conclusively solve the riddle posed by two indelible facts of human existence—Life and Death. What is Life? Religions have preached about it, philosophers have pondered over it and ordinary mortals have lived through it. But the mystery of Life still eludes us. In
Philosophy is “The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline. Socrates is known as one of the greatest philosophers to ever have lived because he studied knowledge, reality, and existence to the point where he constructed a famous method used to find the answer to any problem, no matter the subject. This famous method is one of his greatest works and is known as the Socratic Method. This method involves breaking a problem into a series of questions, consequently the solution is usually found by answering all of the sub questions. He then used this method to examine moral ideas like justice, and began to question Athenian politics. This method later led to create hypothesis and the Scientific Method, which are widely used in modern scienc...
Socrates was considered by many to be the wisest man in ancient Greece. While he was eventually condemned for his wisdom, his spoken words are still listened to and followed today. When, during his trial, Socrates stated that, “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato 45), people began to question his theory. They began to wonder what Socrates meant with his statement, why he would feel that a life would not be worth living. To them, life was above all else, and choosing to give up life would be out of the picture. They did not understand how one would choose not to live life just because he would be unable to examine it.