More handpicked essays just for you.
Importance of philosophy in human life
Importance of philosophy in human life
Importance of philosophy in human life
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Historical records objectively illustrate the danger that arises from unsafe ideas, and these ideas must consist of correct ones to ensure the survival of a community. Therefore, a political community must consist of individuals who understand the essential concepts of life. However, if the needs of a political community are not met the critical ideas about life for a populace will not fully come into fruition. It is thereby where texts like Aristophanes’ Clouds, Plato’s Euthyphro, and Apology that I draw my main arguments to support the assertion that philosophy seeks truth.
Moreover, the apparatus that philosophy seeks is the independent knowledge about the essential factors of life from god, love, and justice. Knowledge must also be autonomous or self-directed and must consist of ideas that do not endanger a community (Dungey, 2016). In addition, the process that occurs in order for one to maintain philosophy is the continuous questioning about the essential theories of life. However, from the view of Aristophanes’ Clouds the viewpoints and the ideas about life can be dangerous.
Socrates the main character and figure of the texts sought what is and not what should be. As Professor Dungey, of California State University, Northridge stated to reiterate, he ran around in Athens questioning life and if the political matters that the city was engulfed in were correctly approached by those that ruled the polis. The perpetuation of his questioning led to a certain stigmatized view of Socrates. Aristophanes’ Clouds prove to be a factor that led to the demise of Socrates and altered the general populace’s view of him and philosophy. Moreover, Aristophanes presented three main premises in his play to portray Socrates and what he defen...
... middle of paper ...
...rsonal opinion, Socrates, does not in any shape or form corrupt the youth. In fact, Socrates had enriched people’s lives with the ability to reason about the essential facts of life. To this day, my favorite course has been this one and the courses I have educate myself in by Professors who teach philosophy. For instance, the knowledge of the works by John Lock, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and my most favorite Thomas Hobbes Leviathan all discuss human nature and even as far discuss in comparing the human environment. Moreover, it is through knowledge that any wisdom if at all any can be found, but wisdom can also be dangerous if used incorrectly just as incorrect ideas can lead one astray. Socrates is the equivalent of our parents, Professor Nicholas Dungey, and anyone else that can look us straight in the eyes and tell us “I care about you I really do.”
For these two articles that we read in Crito and Apology by Plato, we could know Socrates is an enduring person with imagination, because he presents us with a mass of contradictions: Most eloquent men, yet he never wrote a word; ugliest yet most profoundly attractive; ignorant yet wise; wrongfully convicted, yet unwilling to avoid his unjust execution. Behind these conundrums is a contradiction less often explored: Socrates is at once the most Athenian, most local, citizenly, and patriotic of philosophers; and yet the most self-regarding of Athenians. Exploring that contradiction, between Socrates the loyal Athenian citizen and Socrates the philosophical critic of Athenian society, will help to position Plato's Socrates in an Athenian legal and historical context; it allows us to reunite Socrates the literary character and Athens the democratic city that tried and executed him. Moreover, those help us to understand Plato¡¦s presentation of the strange legal and ethical drama.
Socrates lived such a private life that it lead to the most important revelation of his entire life. He would go about his life doing nothing but self-examination. In examining his life so strenuously others would come to him to be taught, or to have their children be taught by Socrates. They would offer him money and he would refuse. They would do whatever they could to learn anything Socrates had to teach. What they did not know is that Socrates was not teaching anyone he was simply going about his usual life and people just happened to learn from it. This was also why Socrates was put on trial. He was brought up on two charges, one of impiety and the other of corrupting the youth. These two charges set the course for the last month of his life.
Philosophy can best be described as an abstract, scholarly discourse. According to the Greek, philosophia refers to ‘love of knowledge’. This is an aspect that has involved a great number of clever minds in the world’s history. They have sought to deal with issues surrounding the character of veracity and significantly exploring the endeavors to respond to these issues. This paper seeks to compare and contrast the philosophy of Aristotle with that of Confucius. This is with a clear concentration on the absolute functions of these philosophies and how they take care of the particular responsibility of a person and the broader society and the resultant effects on societies (Barnes, 1995).
Judgment is very hard to use as valid reasoning. Everyone has their own judgments about everything. How does one know if what Socrates was doing was corrupting or improving the youth?... ... middle of paper ... ...
Aristotle's ethics is determined by his notion of communities which are determined by hundreds of topics in his Topics—sameness and difference, part and whole, better than, etc.. The topics are tools for all dialectical investigations into being and action (viz. I.11 104b2) for they secure definitions and get at essences of things or their aspects. Reflecting structures of being and good, the topics can get at objective reality and good. Being tools for all investigations, we are not free to reject them or we cannot have any discourse or claim to reality or good. I show how permutating the combination of these topics allow for subsequent 'sub-communities' which are common to some. I offer an Aristotelian explanation for the origin of these topics and conclude that ethics is determined by communities, which in turn are determined by education.
“The goal for philosophy in the ancient Greek world was not merely life, but to live a good life….[the good life] has important implications in what we do”(Swift 5).
One of the reasons why Socrates was arrested was because he was being accused of corrupting the minds of the students he taught. I personally feel that it is almost impossible for one person to corrupt the thoughts and feelings of a whole group of people. Improvement comes form a minority and corruption comes from the majority. Socrates is one man (minority) therefore it is less likely the youth have been corrupted by Socrates than by some larger group of people (educators, council members, jurymen etc...).
Philosophy, the study of knowledge, reality, and existence, influences an understanding of what we owe to each other by prompting questions of how one should live. In particular, moral ethics, the principles on which one 's judgments of right and wrong are based, most directly influence understanding of the framework question. For example, in The Republic, Plato elucidates the nature of justice though associations in the human soul and social structures in the city. Through pontification, Plato evaluates the ways in which one should live in order to have a just and moral life, offering readers a guide to live better. By engaging in the academic study of philosophy such as reading Plato, people gain exposure to different moral philosophies, like the study of ethics, and learn how one should live by the concepts of what is right and wrong. From my personal experience in studying nursing ethics, I learned about the moral philosophy of nursing, why nursing exists and the ethical responsibilities of a nurse. Assuming that ethics can be interpreted in a similar way, the study of philosophy must allow some insight into the moral capabilities and responsibilitie...
The pursuit of knowledge has led many a philosopher to wonder what the purpose of life truly is, and how the material and immaterial are connected. The simple fact is, we can never know for certain. Arguments can be made, words can be thrown around, and rationale can be supported, but we as mere humans are not capable of arriving at the perfect understanding of life. Nonetheless, in the war against our own ignorance, we seek possible explanations to explain that which science and math cannot. Philosopher 's such as Plato and Aristotle have made notable contributions to our idea of the soul and its role in the grand scheme of life, while some, such as Descartes, have taken a more metaphysical view by pondering the impact one 's mind has on
In the field of philosophy there can be numerous answers to a general question, depending on a particular philosopher's views on the subject. Often times an answer is left undetermined. In the broad sense of the word and also stated in the dictionary philosophy can be described as the pursuit of human knowledge and human values. There are many different people with many different theories of knowledge. Two of these people, also philosophers, in which this paper will go into depth about are Descartes and Plato. Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy and Plato's The Republic are the topics that are going to be discussed in this paper.
My paper takes as the starting point for its argument the traditional interpretation (and classic criticism) of Platonic metaphysics as a two worlds view of reality: one world, that which includes this room of people, i.e., the here and now which is characterized by change, disorder, conflict, coming to be and passing out of being, corruption, etc.; and another world, located who knows where, but certainly not identical to what we see around us at present, the realm of changelessness and order, ontological perdurance, harmony, unity: Plato's "plain of Truth", the residence of the forms. In light of these two worlds, the Platonic philosopher's wisdom, whatever it may be, must be a wisdom not of this world. Indeed, did not Plato's Socrates himself say that his life— the philosophical life— was the art of practising death? Should that Socrates— or anyone who professes to be a Platonic philosopher— show up at, let us say, the World Congress of
In order to understand how Socrates and his teachings can be significant to modern American society one must first take a closer look and find ...
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...
The rational/market community and the political community differ in that the market community is made up of individuals who are only looking out for their own self-interest when it benefits their family, friends or themselves. Individuals try to acquire goods and services for the least possible price while trying to sell their own goods for as much as the market will allow. Competition and productivity are the driving forces for individuals in the market and are key components in the overall economic success of society. In the market, there are defined goals that are based on what best serves the self-interest of the individual in the marketplace.
When it comes to the love of wisdom, there is arguably no other philosopher that loved it as much as he did. His methods, as unorthodox as they were for his time, helped create the basis for which a lot of science and philosophy is done today, and that is the Socratic Method. Through this question and answer dialogue, Socrates was able to not only eliminate false answers to questions most people believed to know the truth for, he also came up with even more questions. He insisted that nothing in life is more important than the care of the soul, which can be achieved through philosophical reflection. Self-examination is essential to living a good life, and through critically inspecting your beliefs and questioning your pursuits for fame, money, and power, we can learn to live