Essays on Socrates

In response to Crito’s arguments Socrates thinks about/believes first, why the opinion of the majority is not the most important opinion, second, what the results of escaping would be for the city of Athens, and third whether escaping is an unfair action such that it...

After running into Euthyphro outside of king-archon’s court and hearing about why Euthyphro is there, Socrates is not convinced that Euthyphro prosecuting his father for murder is the just or pious thing to do. He asks Euthyphro to teach him about what piety and impiety...

Socrates, the father of modern Western philosophy, once said, shortly before his own death that “[Those] who happen to have gotten in touch with philosophy in the right way devote themselves to nothing else but dying and being dead” (Phaedo 64A). In other words, Socrates...

Socrates has many interesting views on various concepts and ideas. He goes into depth about how these concept and ideas can be detrimental or beneficial to human existence. Socrates is well known for being one of the greatest philosophers in history. He is recognized for...

Man himself is the standard to determine the values appropriate according to circumstances. The Sophists recognised the power of speech and called it as ‘logos’ . Here speech (logos) is having powerful effects to control the human emotions like distress, delight ,fear etc. ,that was...

Henley (2017) believes that to fully understand the issues in modern day psychology you must first know the roots of its questions, the theories that proposed those questions, and the progressions used to answer those questions. It is important to learn the history of psychology...

Was Socrates’ Punishment Just? In The Apology, Socrates is put on trial for supposedly corrupting the youth of Athens and for not believing in the gods. The charges were brought against Socrates because by Meletus. While on trial, Socrates defends himself very well against the...

In the Apology, Socrates tries to convince the jurors that, if they kill him, they will only be harming themselves. This argument is part of Socrates’ larger defense of his actions as he seeks to avoid drinking the hemlock. Socrates makes two claims: (1) that...

Novelist Rossiter Worthington Raymond once said, “Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.” A horizon, by definition, is no more than the range of one’s knowledge or experience....

Aristotle’s definition of the virtue of high-mindedness in Nichomachean Ethics, and of what constitutes the excess and deficiency of this virtue, poses a problem when applied to Socrates’ in Plato’s Apology. On one hand, Socrates is high-minded when he accepts his death sentence, despite believing...

Socrates would have responded to Kierkegaard’s assertions that; the most important truth is radically individualistic and subjective, that conversing rationally leads nowhere, that faith is the only solution to the problem of happiness, and that faith transcends and even rescinds morality, by questioning what the...

Athenian democracy has provided a fundamental, archetypal foundation for the contemporary political landscape witnessed present-day. Socrates’ vigilant efforts to democratize truth are demonstrative of an exorbitant level of consciousness which irrefutably exceed that of the polis by comparative measure; Socrates renounced this sociopolitical structure to...

In book X of the Republic, Socrates vehemently denounces grief and mourning. He sets up an analogy between private and public grief that is meant to reveal ideas about reason and appetite, while also exposing grief as detrimental to the curing of suffering. The grief...

The Ion In Plato’s dialogue Ion he seems to address a rather trifling question: Do poets know what they’re talking about? What is Poetry? A conscious creation of the poet or divine inspiration? Starting with this question, Socrates in the Platonic dialogue of Ion develops...

What happens after we die is a widely debated and relatively unknow topic that has been brought up many times in philosophy. Different theories have been proposed as to what might happen with the body and soul after the person passes away. This also brings...

The philosophy of Western civilization is said to originate in ancient Greece. Here it revolved around three of the world’s most well-known thinkers; Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Unfortunately, this is not where we will begin our study. While Socrates might have been one of the...

Being treated like a criminal when you’ve done nothing wrong, is something no innocent person should go through. An injustice like this is not only harmful to the victim (because they know they’re being wrongfully punished), it is also a betrayal to the rule of...

There is a reason we question the things around us, as we are naturally curious people. Life is so much more than just being on earth, life is about finding and creating yourself, it is creating bonds between people and things. We are constantly searching...

Apology, written by Plato, outlines what occurred during Socrates’ trial. Socrates was on trial because he was accused of being a doer of evil, corrupter of the youth, and not believing in the gods. His charges where those often used against philosophers. Apology tells about...

Protest has to do with showing unwillingness to accept or disapprove something. Among the three philosophers, Socrates, Dr. King and Malcolm X, Malcolm X’s stand point of protesting appears to be the most effective. Malcolm X use the any means necessary approach where he claims...

At the beginning of the Laches, Socrates, Laches, Nicias, Melesias, Lysiamachus are gathered to discuss whether Melesias’ and Lysiamachus’ sons should learn to fight in armor. Socrates argues that Melesias and Lysiamachus are really concerned about “the matter in which virtue might be added to...

In the Apology and in Clouds, we are shown two very different depictions of Socrates’ beliefs on the gods of Athens. In the Apology, we see a version of Socrates that is fairly unconcerned with the discussion of the gods, and more interested in the...

Plato, a prominent Greek philosopher of the 4th century BC, in his works Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, tells the story of his teacher’s, Socrates, trial and subsequent death as a result of it. Socrates, often thought of as one of, if not the wisest of...

In this section of Plato’s Five Dialogues, Phaedo includes a narration of the dialogue between Socrates and his friends during his last hours in his cell. Socrates believed that as long as a philosopher’s soul is confined to their body, they will never be able...

“ Similarities between Martin Luther King and Socrates Throughout history the greatest thinkers were not those who followed the crowd, they challenged why one must follow the crowd? Who decides whether they should follow the crowd? What happens when one doesn’t follow the crowd? These...

Socrates’ Argument That Virtue Cannot Be Taught In the latter half of Plato’s Meno, Socrates doubts whether virtue is a type of teachable knowledge and instead argues that it is a result of “true opinion” (97b). In reading Socrates’ argument, I find that, while his...

The most interesting historical figures that have ever existed are Socrates and St. Augustine that were in the center of the spiritual life in ancient time. Their works still are the most influential all over the world. Augustine and Socrates focused on the life with...

Cut From The Same Ore, Or On The Equality Of Opportunity Of the many ideas enunciated from Book I to Book IV, few are as elusive and prone to assumptions as the noble lie (3. 414d-414e5). Malcolm Schofield, whose interpretation serves as a point of...

The truth of an event is often difficult to discover due to the endless perspectives in which that event can be viewed. As I explored the question of what it means to find the truth this semester, I have come to the realization that truth...

The Platonic Dialogue is written by Plato at the scene of Socrates prison cell and death bed. The government of the time and place of ancient Athens did not want to hear Socrates ideas and did not want to give him freedom of speech. (South...