Socrates Case Study

Socrates was the kind of man who always spoke what was on his mind and had no trouble doing so. He was brought to trial for allegedly demeaning the people of Athens and challenging their perspectives on certain views. To ensure that there society run smoothly, people in Athens were taught to always strive and be excellent in everything they do. In Socrates eyes, in order to be wise, one must know how to deal with people and how to engage conversation with them, which is exactly what he tried to do with numerous people in, “Plato, The Apology of Socrates”. Socrates wanted to show how acting as if you know everything, is not the way to go about life, it just makes one less intellectual. He himself did not have much information about the things

In order to get through to these civilians, he wanted them to learn that the truth and knowledge are more important than reputation and money; therefore degrading the people of Athens causing him to have enemies. When reading what Socrates had to say on trial, he had specific points that made sense as to what he was trying to teach to the civilians of Athens. First off, he made it clear to the people that he was not as wise as people thought he was, and admitted that he knew nothing. With people thinking highly of him, it made Socrates seem superior to them. His main goal was to help improve society and his methods helped established that. He wanted people to believe that they are not as wise as they think they are and by proving them wrong, it makes one look

Socrates made people feel humiliated, ashamed, and especially unwise. The ironic part about that is after the civilians spoke with Socrates they felt as if they knew nothing when they thought they knew everything, which made one feel angry. All these emotions eventually spread out to all of these civilians, which got people talking. They wanted Socrates be put to death for the way he made them feel and these civilians were the ones who helped put him to trial because of it. These people were not satisfied with having someone prove them wrong and they needed to be right about everything. Socrates belief system proved to be working since he was drawing so many enemies along the way. He states, “ I found that the men in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better” (Plato 64). For Socrates to have made that conclusion he spoke with all kinds of people; the poor, rich, smart, uneducated and so on. The smart people in his eyes were not very smart, just very foolish; whereas the humble people who worked every day of their lives and understood the value of a dollar were the wisest to him. Life is not all about the money and power, it is about understanding what one has to go through everyday in order to make a living and that is how one becomes