Plato’s view on death According to Plato, Socrates didn’t fear death. He stopped fearing death when God ordered him to live the life of a philosopher. “No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of all evils.” He says that this is just as bad as thinking that you’re wise, when you’re actually not. Arguing to the jury that death may not be as bad as people believe, he suggests that death can be a couple of things: Firstly, death can be nothing, and therefore it cannot be harmful. Secondly, death can be a change and a movement of the soul. He imagines himself together with other injustice acquiesced men, with who he can talk and who he can examine. Thirdly, death can be an eternal sleep, what he doesn’t think is bad at all. Hence, Plato doesn’t see death as something harmful or bad. He is not sure …show more content…
However, because we don’t know what death is, it isn’t strange that we fear it. People like to have control over things. And when we can’t control something, we fear it. Throughout the years, we took more and more control over nature, for example, building a dam to protect ourselves from the water, but we still cannot control earthquakes, and therefore we fear them. In addition, the virtue of Plato’s view on the worldly existence is that it is very optimistic. He stresses the importance of education (of the soul), which is a good thing. Also, he wants people to live in harmony with each other. Nevertheless, I’m afraid that people aren’t capable of having so much solidarity by sharing their knowledge with others, after they have escaped the cave. I think that it would result in a group of elite, who have more knowledge than others, and instead of sharing their knowledge, they would keep it to themselves, and inequality will
There is an ample amount of evidence that suggests Socrates delivered his death speech in order to not outrun death, but to outrun wickedness, which was far more dangerous. The author also gives many reasons why death would be okay. In example, Socrates explains that he would have died without
In the United States 68% of the population fears death. The other 32% are just too tough to admit that they are scared(fear/phobia statistics).well that’s my opinion anyways. Lots of people are scared of death more than half of the percent of America. I myself can say that I fear death it is a scary thought to not know the unknown. I do not know how that 32% is not scared of death but in this essay I will be telling you about the fears of death.
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” ~ Norman Cousins (Singh). Many fear death and will fight tooth and nail to elude it. There are some who embrace death and live life to the fullest.
No matter what religion, or belief an individual hails from, it can be assumed that most still fear death. However people die around us all day, and if you watch the news, death is a popular subject. As a Metallica song is titled, “to live is to die.” To some scientific theorists, there is a belief that you are never truly dead (not an afterlife). Merely the simple concept of, “energy can never be created or destroyed,” and the belief is that you simply are energy, as the hallowed equation goes, E=mc2.
Socrates proposed two possibilities for what will happen after he dies: either his physical being will die while his soul continues life elsewhere, or his death will be like an eternal sleep without dreams or awareness. Because neither of his proposed ideas for afterlife cause any reasons for concern, and because of Socrates’ confidence in his good character, he did not fear the death penalty put against him. Rather than beg and embarrass himself in front of the court in an attempt to avoid the death penalty, Socrates continued to stand firm with his beliefs. This can be seen in artist JacquesLouis David’s portrayal of Socrates’ death. In his painting Socrates is deeply engaged in philosophical conversation with others while blindly reaching
Death cannot be bad for the living since they are still alive, and it cannot be bad for the dead because they are no longer alive and no longer experience suffering. Furthermore, there is no need to be afraid of death if it cannot harm either the living or the dead. Ultimately, both philosophers agree that there is no harm in dying because there is no pain experienced when one is
Socrates’ original argument was not valid or sound. The premises were corrected but the argument needed another premise to make the conclusion true. Adding premise two takes away any confusion there was to what immortality meant. Since Socrates’ spent almost the entire book creating a just person and a just city the information about what is good and bad for a soul makes sense. It also makes sense that those things cannot destroy the soul because injustice and other vices could only lead the body to make poor choices and possibly get sick or die from those poor choices.
By death what he means is not an event, but a death in life. Because there’s no rebirth, there’s no changes, there’s not transformation without death” (West, 1). What does Plato mean by death in life? How can you die but continue living? To die in life relates to killing the past, close-minded, non-accepting version of yourself: Without this death, you will not achieve your true potential.
It comes across to me as impossible that he could possibly find comfort in not knowing. I would not be able to simply tell myself that it’s okay that I don’t know. But since this whole mess was caused because he was trying to disprove the Oracle of Delphi who had said that he was the wisest Athenian, he probably figured that in his 70 years of life he had learned everything he most necessarily needed to know. That being said, death was a whole new unconquered experienced, filled with new philosophies, questions & answers, and new discoveries to be made. Death never scared Socrates, he never feared it in the least bit.
This quotation is significant because it represents Socrates’ ideas about death. He believes that fearing the unknown is unreasonable because we don’t know what happens after death. Socrates also believes that “being dead is one of two things” (Socrates 58); either you feel nothing at all or it is a “journey from here to another place” (Socrates 59). Fearing something we don’t now is not going to get us anywhere except limit our potential. Although, death is a frightful concept, it might also be a good thing.
1. I think one of the most important ideas that Plato expresses comes from Book VII of the Republic, in the Allegory of the Cave. It is an idea that states that the extent of our knowledge will usually only cover topics that we’ve had exposure in. Today, society’s access to information is abundant, but not everyone makes the decision to find that information. Thus, as a person grows up with the scope of their perception isolated in a certain environment (village, city, state, country, etc.), they may not be able to pull a good variety of influence and knowledge from areas outside their scope.
“What we claim is that a good man won’t think that death is a terrible thing for another good one to suffer…” (388d). Socrates disagrees with grieving because it is an excessive show of emotion he also thinks that that laughter should not be shown in excess either.
I agree with Socrates, I don’t know what comes after death so therefore, I shouldn’t fear it. However, it is very easy to disagree with Socrates as well. What if after death, the men goes through the most painful and terrifying experience someone could ever experience? Since we are not certain on what comes next after death? So, the fear of death comes down to the person personal assessment on death its self.
I believe that Socrates knew his fate and believed in a high power. This gave him a sense of calmness and security. In the reading, he saying “A good man cannot be harmed in life or death” to me meant he was a man of great faith. When it comes to Plato’s view, I feel as though the sense of a good man depends his morals and beliefs. Socrates is at peace because he knows that his faith is strong and knows what the afterlife will be like.
Plato would want us to be kind to all people because we do not know what is going on in their lives at the moment. Showing compassion to a person who is in need could be the difference of this person ending his or her life. We all have problems and we all handle problems differently, so Plato would advocate being compassionate to all who you meet even if you have never meet them before. Plato would describe sincerity being very important when living life, if you lived a life lying and being untrustworthy you will not be respected and disliked. He would also say do everything with one hundred percent sincerity because it will get you far in life even if it goes