The Life and Death of Socrates - Essay Example

The Life and Death of Socrates In the Apology, Socrates literally goes to his death defending what he saw was the appropriate way to approach one’s life. He felt as though that the worth of life was found in being analytical and being able to build a sound argument. As he said, the wise man is the one that knows he when he does not know something. While this might initially sound to be contradictory, Socrates’ logic is quite sound, and this is one of the reasons why he was put to death. To a person that was not able or unwilling to put the effort into attempting to follow a bit more complicated line of reasoning such as what Socrates was utilizing in this argument, it might sound insulting or the person might feel as though they were being made a fool of. This is part of the reason that Socrates upset so many people back in Athens to the degree that they would want to put him to death. Of course, this did not matter to Socrates. It only mattered to him that he challenged people to continue to think about their own lives, what they believed in, and how they came about what they believed in. The point of philosophy is to attempt to examine life and all of its various aspects to as high a degree as possible, and Socrates continued to do so in the face of his own death. It was not really even a choice to Socrates; to choose to not examine one’s own life and to challenge people to examine their own life would not really even be living, and if this was the only option available to Socrates, to be put to death or to not be truly living, Socrates chose to what he felt was the right path and did nothing to keep from being put to death. This how his death personified philosophy. (2) I am choosing to both attack and defend the claim that a knowledge of Socrates’ life is of no use to us in our own day. First, I am going to point out the fact that there are millions of people that probably haven’t heard of Socrates, yet they are able to lead their lives perfectly well without any serious repercussions. Many of these countries, not to be considered ignorant or less intelligent, have their own great thinkers who do not come from the Western tradition. If these people don’t have any need for the knowledge of Socrates, it is obvious that this knowledge, to some degree, is not of the utmost value. Second, in defending the claim, I am going to point out that there are millions of people who are living in poverty who struggle on a daily basis just to survive. There are also people who are living in war zones that don’t know whether or not a bomb will fall on their house while they are sleeping. The point being made is that Athens at the time was a prosperous place to live in, and it was because all of the basic needs of the people were met and there was not the worry about the struggle for survival that people were able to devote their time to philosophical and artistic pursuits. People that are spending their time worrying about whether or not they are going to have anything to eat or drink are not concerned about what makes an act pious, or whether or not the gods are able to all agree on whether something is pious. If these people were given the opportunity to not have to worry about their survival, then they would be able to concern themselves with philosophical thought; philosophical thought, however, is of no use today to people who might not be alive tomorrow. Moreover, thinking about whether something is right or wrong might hinder some people’s ability to survive. If the only way a person would be able to survive would be to steal a loaf of bread, and this person was going to worry about the morality of these actions which would save the person’s life, then philosophical thinking would only be a hindrance, thus making it of no use for people. Of course, to attack the claim, all that needs to be mentioned is that people’s ignorance of certain knowledge does not make it not useful. There are millions of people who don’t know how to start a fire without matches, but these people would find that this knowledge would be extremely useful if they were lost in the woods on a cold night. Just because knowledge isn’t necessary doesn’t make it not useful. Also, there are many people that might have knowledge of Socrates without explicitly realizing it. Socrates has been so influential on Western thought that many of the basic assumptions that many of the great thinkers of later years took knowledge of Socrates for granted. These thinkers have influenced the way people perceive the world, and so we can see how it is possible for people to not have had any direct study of Socrates to still have a basic grasp of what Socrates had to say. To argue against the second defense of the statement, while there are in fact many people who live in poverty or in conditions where philosophical pursuits play no place in their lives, there are still millions of people that are in a comfortable living position that can concern themselves with philosophy and artistic endeavors. Considering that so much of Western thought takes Socrates as a starting point, it can only help people out to have directly studied such an important foundational cornerstone. (3) What I find most appealing in the reading of Plato is to find a sense of humility, at least through Socrates. Often times academic types, and Socrates can be considered a precursor to academics, can be extremely full of themselves, condescending, and rude in regards to people that they do not consider to be intellectual equivalents. Of course, this is not a generalizing statement in regards to all academics, but there are definitely people that have been accurately described. Socrates always seemed to be in pursuit of knowledge, and he did not ever seem to have been of the attitude where he felt that he had rightfully acquired a certain amount of knowledge to a certain degree where he thought that there was no more to be said about the topic. As mentioned before, the wise person is the one who realizes that nothing is ever really known to its fullest extent and that there is always more knowledge to be discerned. Life was to be treated as a perpetual pursuit of knowledge, and the end of the pursuit ended with one’s life, not having reached any sort of final knowledge about any subject. The attitude of Socrates is the attitude of the perpetual student, not of the master. There does, however, always seem to be a sense of a lack of accomplishment in regards to Socrates conversations. This, of course, has to do with Socrates belief about what constitutes a wise person, but at the same time, it almost seems like the easy way out. While it is not the easy way out to be constantly questioning things, it is more so to be of the opinion that nothing can actually be known. Being skeptical about everything to such a degree releases people from the chance of ever having to go out on a limb and attempt anything any more definitive. Even though people might end up being wrong to a certain extent about various aspects of a thought that they have developed, it still takes more courage to put oneself out there and possibly be wrong. By stating that no one knows anything, then all he has to do is sit back and point out weaknesses in other people’s argument, as opposed to developing other thoughts. Plato went on the write more and develop more ideas, and he put himself in a position where he was wrong about various things, but it is difficult to know to the extent to where Socrates ended and Plato began. Read More