Socrates Research Paper

1089 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Socrates on wisdom

“I know that I know nothing.” says the man who has influenced modern Western philosophy and literature, has changed the way people have though with just simple questions regarding everyday words like “good” or “justice”, and has been put to trial and sentenced to death just on grounds of “defying the gods and corrupting the minds of the young.” Socrates was an influential Greek philosopher born around 469 B.C. in Athens, Greek. Despite his immense influence of philosophy and how it was understood, Socrates himself did not write anything. He simply asked questions. We know about his lessons today through the works of those who admired him: Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato.
Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a stonemason and sculptor, and Phaenarete, a midwife. His family had a poor social status and also received basic Greek education. Socrates learned his father’s trade before becoming a philosopher. He married a younger woman named Xanthippe in 435 B.C. and had three sons: Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus. According to Xenophon, Socrates was not an active family person. His wife thought that becoming a philosopher was not a sufficient trade to support their family and that Socrates had barely anything to do with his sons. Ironically Socrates was interested into changing the way young Athens boys thought during that time period.
Socrates had also served in the Athenian army in the armored infantry. This was also due to an Athenian law that makes all men available for military service from age 18 to 60. In 441 B.C. he served in the military campaign against the island city of Samos because the island was rebellious toward Athenian authority. After the Athenians took control of Samos, Socrates went back to ...

... middle of paper ...

...rates also became associated with some very influential figures in Athens. Some include well known politicians and business men. Socrates began a new mission, as he called it. It began when his friend Chaerephon meet an oracle, or a prophet, in Delphi. Chaerphon asked the oracle if there was anyone wiser than Socrates and to which the oracle said "No one." Socrates didn’t take it like the oracle said, that he was the wisest wan on Earth. Socrates thought there was a deeper meaning towards it. Socrates decided that he was the wisest man because he realized his ignorance. He realized that because he was self-aware of the fact that he could not answer some of life’s questions and nature mysterious he was “wise" in that sense. When Socrates asked the leaders of Athens questions he believed all their answers were false because there is no way they knew the right answer.

Show More
Related

  • Who Is Pericles Wise

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Athens, there were two wise men named Socrates and Pericles. In the short story "Plato's Apology", Socrates is on trial, and is speaking before his peers so that he may be judged. In "Pericles's Funeral Oration", Pericles himself is giving a speech at a funeral on behalf of the fallen soldiers of Athens. In both speeches, Socrates and Pericles believe it will be hard to talk about the subject because the people listening might not believe what they say to be the truth or the whole truth. Both men were considered wise, but Socrates believed men were not virtuos, and Pericles believed that man does strive to become virtous. I believe that Socrates's arguments are a rebuttal to Pericles's Funeral Oration, and although they are both wise, only Socrates has true wisdom.

    Read More

  • The Apology and Crito

    345 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Plato’s Five Dialogues and Applications of Today’s Society

    1181 Words  | 3 Pages

    Socrates put one’s quest for wisdom and the instruction of others above everything else in life. A simple man both in the way he talked and the wealth he owned, he believed that simplicity in whatever one did was the best way of acquiring knowledge and passing it unto others. He is famous for saying that “the unexplained life is not worth living.” He endeavored therefore to break down the arguments of those who talked with a flowery language and boasted of being experts in given subjects (Rhees 30). His aim was to show that the person making a claim on wisdom and knowledge was in fact a confused one whose clarity about a given subject was far from what they claimed. Socrates, in all his simplicity never advanced any theories of his own but rather aimed at bringing out the worst in his interlocutors.

    Read More

  • Defense of Socrates

    1586 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are times in every mans life where our actions and beliefs collide—these collisions are known as contradictions. There are endless instances in which we are so determined to make a point that we resort to using absurd overstatements, demeaning language, and false accusations in our arguments. This tendency to contradict ourselves often questions our character and morals. Similarly, in The Trial of Socrates (Plato’s Apology), Meletus’ fallacies in reason and his eventual mistake of contradicting himself will clear the accusations placed on Socrates. In this paper, I will argue that Socrates is not guilty of corrupting the youth with the idea of not believing in the Gods but of teaching the youth to think for themselves by looking to new divinities.

    Read More

  • Who Is Socrates A Gift To Athens

    1128 Words  | 3 Pages

    Socrates: A Gift To The Athenians As Socrates said in Apology by Plato, “...the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more…”(Philosophical Texts, 34) Throughout history, many leaders have been put to death for their knowledge. In Apology, Socrates- soon to be put to death- says he was placed in Athens by a god to render a service to the city and its citizens. Yet he will not venture out to come forward and advise the state and says this abstention is a condition on his usefulness to the city.

    Read More

  • Unaborted Socrates Essay

    1405 Words  | 3 Pages

    What would happen if the Socrates of old came back to life to debate the issue of abortion in the modern world? Peter Kreeft tries to give us an idea in his book The Unaborted Socrates. In this book Socrates debates three different aspects of the abortion issue with three different people, an abortion doctor, a philosopher and a psychologist. With the Doctor, Socrates debates when human life begins. With the Philosopher it is debated whether we should legislate morality. With the psychologist he debates whether abortion is a woman's right. Unfortunately, they do not come up with reasonable answers to any of these questions. Without the answer to the question, "is the fetus a human being?" it is impossible to find the answer to the other two questions. In the end, all questions lead back to the first. In answer to whether or not the fetus is a human being, it is concluded as the doctor said, "We simply do not know when the fetus becomes a human person. Anyone who claims to know is a fool because he claims to know what he does not." Nevertheless, even if the debate provides no final answers, it does serve to show the logical reasons for why abortion is horrible. It does present thought provoking questions in the minds of both those who are for and those who are against abortion.

    Read More

  • The Trial of Socrates

    668 Words  | 2 Pages

    Socrates was accused of being a sophist because he was "engaging in inquiries into things beneath the earth and in the heavens, of making the weaker argument appear the stronger," and "teaching others these same things." (Apology, Plato, Philosophic Classics page 21) Socrates is also accused of denying the existence of the gods, and corrupting the youth. Socrates goes about trying to prove his innocence. The jury that Socrates was tried by was made up of 501 Athenian citizens of all classes of society. While he fails to convince the Athenian jury of his innocence, he does a wonderful job in this effort. I personally believe that Socrates is innocent, and that the Athenian jury made the wrong decision.

    Read More

  • The Apology and the Republic

    925 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the Apology, Socrates was told by the Delphic Oracle that there was nobody wiser than him. With ancient Greece having been a prominent home of philosophy and art since before Socrates' time, the Athenian court found his proclamation both insulting and hard to believe. Socrates goes through great lengths to find the wisest of men and seeing if their reputations are in fact true. He hoped to find a man wiser than him to prove the oracles prediction was false, even Socrates failed to believe he was the wisest man. He first went to a man that seemed wise. After he spoke with him Plato quotes "I came to see that, though many persons, and chiefly himself, thought that he was wise, yet he was not wise."(77) With his certainty that Socrates was wiser, the man was insulted and hated Socrates for derailing his intelligence. Socrates then goes to another wise man, but is again let down. He still believes he is wiser. Convinced that he would not find a more intelligent man amongst wise men, he then questioned the more "educated people", such as poets and artisans. According to Plato, Socrates says "I imagine, they find a great abundance of men who think that they know a great...

    Read More

  • Plato's The Apology

    1518 Words  | 4 Pages

    Socrates was an Athenian man who, according to Kishlansky, was a solider in the Peloponnesian War (56).The Peloponnesian war lasted for 27 years (431 B.C.E. to 404 B.C.E)and the two opposing sides were the Athenians and the Spartans (“Peloponnesian War”). For a better picture of where the Athenians and Spartans were at this time, Peloponnesus is a peninsula in southern Greece that is linked to the rest of mainland Greece by the Isthmus of Corinth (93). This is where Sparta thrived and also where Olympia was located (93). To the northeast of Peloponnesus peninsula is the Attic peninsula were the Athenians lived (93). Historians are unsure as to how long Socrates served in the war but as we can tell by the dates provided this Socrates execution was about 5 years after the war ended.

    Read More

  • Kant And Aristotle: The Virtue Of Life

    1366 Words  | 3 Pages

    Socrates describe his role in Athens being gadfly since according to him he is given to the Athens state by God. His work is to persuade, arouse, and reproach the Athenians. Since there is no other like him, he should be spared. In the light of Socrates, who claims “the unexamined life is not worth living” usually is because the greatest good of the man is their daily converse about virtue. That is why the Socrates keeps examining himself and others.

    Read More

  • Defense of Socrates

    589 Words  | 2 Pages

    Plato’s “Defense of Socrates” follows the trial of Socrates for charges of corruption of the youth. His accuser, Meletus, claims he is doing so by teaching the youth of Athens of a separate spirituality from that which was widely accepted.

    Read More

  • Socrates and His Escape

    1786 Words  | 4 Pages

    About the year of 470 B.C, a man was born in Athens and his name was Socrates. He was a son of a working sculptor and a midwife. Socrates lived in the greatest and most exciting period of his country's history, when Athens developed from a mere city-state to be the head of an empire. He studied problems of Physics, Biology, and other sciences, and learned the art of making the worse argument appear the better. He could easily be involved in public decisions but he did not enjoy politics so he stuck to his interests and life that consisted the qualities of a thinker. He would constantly be thinking about the "ordinary man" and the interests of an "ordinary man". He had many companions, men of all ages and from all parts of the Greek world. This already tells us that he is very pre-occupied with how other people's minds worked and if he could figure out how to teach them rational thinking. Easily most of his ideas would come from talking to other people

    Read More

  • Plato And Socrates Essay

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    Socrates was born in 469 BCE and died in 399 BCE. In fact, because Socrates kept no writings of his own, his students are the lenses in which we

    Read More

  • Socrates and the Sophists

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    Socrates was a philosopher who set out to prove, to the gods, that he wasn't the wisest man. Since he could not afford a "good" Sophist teacher, surely a student of one had to be smarter than he. He decides to converse with the youth of Athens, but concludes that he actually is wiser than everyone he speaks with. He then realizes that their lack of intelligence is the fault of their teachers. Socrates understands that the practice of "sophism" leads to a lack of self-knowledge and moral values. Socrates was later accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and put on trial. In The Apology of Socrates he sta...

    Read More

  • The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living

    1037 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Socrates Research Paper

Open Document