The Life Of Socrates Essay, Research Paper

I. SocratesThe most interesting and influential mind in the 5th century was Socrates, whose dedication to careful concluding transformed the full endeavor. Since he sought echt cognition instead than mere triumph over an opposition, He familiarized himself with the rhetoric and dialectics of the Sophists, the guesss of the Lonian philosophers, and the general civilization of Periclean Athens. Socrates employed the same logical fast ones developed by the Sophists to a new intent, the chase of truth. Therefore, his willingness to name everything into inquiry and his finding to accept nil less than an equal history of the nature of things make him the first clear advocate of critical doctrine.

Although he was good known during his ain clip for his colloquial accomplishments and public instruction, Socrates wrote nil, so we are dependent upon his pupils ( particularly Kenophon and Plato ) for any elaborate cognition of his methods and consequences. The problem is that Plato was himself a philosopher who frequently injected his ain theories into the duologues he presented to the universe as treatments between Socrates and other celebrated figures of the twenty-four hours. However, it is normally assumed that at least the early duologues of Plato provide a ( reasonably ) accurate representation of Socrates himself.

Socrates deeply affected Western doctrine through his influence on Plato. Born in Athens, the boy of Sophroniscus, a sculpturer, and Phaenarete, a accoucheuse, he received the regular simple instruction in literature, music, and gymnastic exercises. Initially, Socrates followed the trade of his male parent ; harmonizing to a former tradition, he executed a statue group of the three Graces, which stood at the entryway to the Acropolis until the second century AD. In the Peloponnesian War with Sparta he served as an marcher with conspicuous courage at the conflicts of Potidaea in 432-430BC, Delium in 424BC, and Amphipolis in 422BC.

Socrates believed in the high quality of statement over authorship and hence spent the greater portion of his mature life in the market place and public topographic points of Athens, prosecuting in duologue and statement with anyone who would listen or who would subject to question. Socrates was reportedly unattractive in visual aspect and short of stature but was besides highly stalwart and self-controlled. He enjoyed life vastly and achieved societal popularity because of his ready humor and a acute sense of wit that was wholly barren of sarcasm or cynicism.

II. Attitude Toward PoliticsSocrates attitude toward political relations was obedient, but by and large steered clear of political relations, restrained by what he believed to be godly warning. He believed that he had received a call to prosecute doctrine and could function his state best by giving himself to learning, and by carrying the Athenians to prosecute in introspection and in be givening to their psyches. He didn? t write any books and established no regular school of doctrine. All that is known, with certainty about his personality and his manner of thought is derived from the plants of two of his distinguished bookmans: Plato and the historian Xenophon, a matter-of-fact author who likely failed to understand many of Socrates? philosophies. Plato portrayed Socrates as concealing behind an ironical profession of ignorance, known as Socratic sarcasm, and possessing a mental sharp-sightedness and resourcefulness that enabled him to perforate statements with great installation.

III. TeachingsSocrates? part to doctrine was basically ethical in character. Belief in a strictly nonsubjective apprehension of such constructs as justness, love, and virtuousness, and the self-knowledge that he inculcated, were the footing of his instructions. He believed that all frailty is the consequence of ignorance, and that no individual is volitionally bad ; correspondingly, virtuousness is knowledge, and those who know the right will move justly. His logic placed peculiar accent on rational statement and the quest for general definitions, as evidenced in the Hagiographas of his younger modern-day and student, Plato, and of Plato & # 8217 ; s student, Aristotle..

Another mind befriended and influenced by Socrates was Antisthenes, the laminitis of the Cynic school of doctrine. Socrates was besides the instructor of Aristippus, who founded the Cyrenaic doctrine of experience and pleasance, from which developed the more exalted doctrine of Epicures. To such Stoics as the Greek philosopher Epictetus, the Roman philosopher Seneca the Elder, and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, Socrates appeared as the really embodiment and usher of the higher life.

IV. The TrialAlthough a nationalist and a adult male of deep spiritual strong belief, Socrates was however regarded with intuition by many of his coevalss, who disliked his attitude toward the Athenian province and the established faith. He was charged in 399BC with pretermiting the Gods of the province and presenting new deities, a mention to the daemonion, or mystical interior voice, to which Socrates frequently referred. He was besides charged with perverting the ethical motives of the immature, , taking them off from the rules of democracy ; and he was wrongly identified with the Sophists, . This was perchance because he had been ridiculed by the amusing poet Aristophanes in his drama The Clouds as the maestro of a & # 8220 ; thinking-shop & # 8221 ; where immature work forces were taught to do the worse ground appear the better ground.

Plato & # 8217 ; s Apology gives the substance of the defence made by Socrates at his test ; it was a bold exoneration of his whole life. He was condemned to decease even though merely a little bulk carried the ballot. When, harmonizing to Athenian legal pattern, Socrates made an dry counter-proposition to the tribunal & # 8217 ; s decease sentence, suggesting merely to pay a little mulct because of his value to the province as a adult male with a philosophic mission, the jury was so enraged by this offer that it voted by an increased bulk for the decease punishment.

Socrates? friends planned his flight from prison, but he preferred to follow with the jurisprudence and dice for his cause. His last twenty-four hours was spent with his friends and supporters, and in the eventide he calmly fulfilled his sentence by imbibing a cup of hemlock harmonizing to a customary process of executing. Plato described the test and decease of Socrates in the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo.

V. Apology: The Examined LifeBecause of his political associations with an earlier government, the Athenian democracy put Socrates on test, bear downing him with sabotaging province faith and perverting immature people. The address he offered in his ain defence, as reported in Plato & # 8217 ; s ( Apology ) , provides us with many reminders of the cardinal characteristics of Socrates? attack to doctrine and its relation to practical life.

Dry Modesty:

Explaining his mission as a philosopher, Socrates reports an oracular message stating him & # 8220 ; No 1 is wiser than you. & # 8221 ; ( Apology 21a ) He so proceeds through a series of dry descriptions of his attempts to confute the prophet by discoursing with noteworthy Athenians who must certainly be wiser. In each instance, In each instance, nevertheless, Socrates concludes that he has a sort of wisdom that each of them deficiencies, viz. , an unfastened consciousness of his ain ignorance.

Questioning Habit:

The end of Socratic question, so, is to assist persons to accomplish echt self-knowledge, even if it frequently turns out to be negative in character. As his cross-examination of Meletus shows, Socrates means to turn the methods of the Sophists inside out, utilizing logical nit picking to expose ( instead than to make ) semblances about world. If the method seldom succeeds with middlemans, it can however be efficaciously internalized as a dialectical manner of concluding in an attempt to understand everything.

Devotion to Truth:

Even after the jury has convicted him, Socrates diminutions to abandon his chase of the truth in all affairs. Refusing to accept expatriate from Athens or a committedness to hush as his punishment, he maintains that public treatment of the great issues of life and virtuousness is a necessary portion of any valuable human life. & # 8220 ; The unexamined life is non deserving living. & # 8221 ; ( Apology 38a ) Socrates would instead decease than give up doctrine, and the jury seems happy to allow him that want.

Dispassionate Reason:

Even when the jury has sentenced him to decease, Socrates calmly delivers his concluding populace words, a guess about what the hereafter holds. Disclaiming any certainty about the destiny of a human being after decease, he however expresses a continued assurance in the power of ground, which he has exhibited ( while the jury has non ) . Who truly wins will stay ill-defined.

Plato & # 8217 ; s dramatic image of a adult male willing to confront decease instead than abandoning his committedness to philosophical enquiry offers up Socrates as a theoretical account for all future philosophers. Possibly few of us are presented with the same stark pick between doctrine and decease, but all of us are day-to-day faced with chances to make up one’s mind between convenient conventionality and our devotedness to truth and ground. How we choose determines whether we, like Socrates, deserve to name our lives philosophical.