Compare And Contrast Socrates And Plato's View On Human Life

Socrates and Plato had a very distinct view on the human life and what constitutes a living of a “good life”-a life that would allow man access to the forms. Socrates was Plato’s teacher, and throughout much of Plato’s works, Socrates is the main character, who is ultimately the mouthpiece to express Plato’s ideas about life. These ideas were centralized around the idea of an immortal soul and one’s location of critical thinking and reasoning. Socrates and Plato believed that the soul was the home to reasoning and the body was a mere obstacle that hindered the pursuit of true knowledge. However, this theory may not be valid due to the knowledge that we possess today about the brain, senses, and biology of the human body. Plato begins his

This is because the Oracle at Delphi said that no one was wiser than Socrates. He initially does not agree with the Oracles’ statement and enters on a quest to search for someone whom can prove to be much wiser than himself. Through this process he then realizes that the Oracle’s statement was actually correct, because he found in every person that they believed to know about things in which they did not. For example, Meno believed that he knew about virtue when in fact he did not. This ended up being the situation for everyone that Socrates encountered, and due to this Socrates realized that he was the wisest because he did not pretend to know about things in which he did

However, Meno poses a question which Socrates classifies as the “debater’s argument”. The argument goes like this, “How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know” (Plato 70)? Meno questions how will they know what they are looking for if they have no previous idea of what it is, and if they find it how will they know that. Because they have no idea of what it is that they are looking for Meno believes that even if they do come across the true meaning of virtue they will have no way of knowing that they have. Socrates counters this argument by inserting his idea of the immortal soul. Socrates states that we all have an immortal soul, which already has all the knowledge that we as man need. However, we as man simply need to discover the knowledge within us. As a result of this concept of the immortal soul, Socrates believes that once they encounter what they are looking for they will know they have found