Lying Arguments

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Lying Arguments

Socrates is a man of great controversy. He has been portrayed as many different personalities such as a sophist to a great philosopher to just a vocal old man. The true nature of Socrates is to be questioned. He spoke his thoughts on life and what his philosophy on life was. A couple arguments that he spoke about really stood out about lying. These arguments had brute force and were made very clear through his dialogue. According to his dialogue, he felt that there were two different types of lies.

The first type called the true lie, in Socrates mind feels, as this type is impossible. The true lie consists of one simply not telling the truth, as they know it. Socrates says:

When a man in speech makes a bad representation of what

gods and heroes are like, just as a painter paints something

that doesn't resemble the things whose likeness he wished

to paint. (377e)

As can clearly be seen in this sentence, Socrates is pointing out a painter that knows that truth about what he is painting but is making it look different than he knows it as. The painter is doing this to portray something other than the truth to other people because the truth may either hurt him or hurt others. It is more of a protection type, to protect himself or to protect others from coming into harm.

One of Socrates examples of a true lie is shown in the following dialogue that talks about god.

Do you suppose the god is a wizard, able treacherously to

reveal himself at different times in different ideas, at one

time actually himself changing and passing from his own

form and to many shapes, at another time deceiving us and

making us think such things about him? (380e)

This idea is showing that God is playing with huma...

... middle of paper ...

...t is necessary to lie I that field. If it is not to the extreme then I think it is just completely ludicrous for someone to lie, with them knowing the truth. I was brought up in a way where you tell the truth no matter what the situation is. Like the saying goes "Honesty is the best policy".

The lie in speech, it is ridiculous because if you do not know the truth, be honest and say you don't know the truth. Socrates was right, why waste your time and effort to make up such a story where people in the future may believe what you tell them about the past. For example, if someone had made up everything in "The Republic of Plato" just to be able to tell someone something, philosophy could be based on a lie. So we may not even know if philosophy exists. It could be a made up lie from one person not knowing the truth and making a story up to look good in front of others.

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