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The unexamined life is not worth living essay
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More handpicked essays just for you.
The unexamined life is not worth living essay
Aristotle contributions
Aristotle paper philosophy
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Anish Yonjan Philosophy 1301-73426 Prof. Marcos Arandia Feb. 19, 2017 Explain and evaluate Socrates' claim in the Apology that "the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being," and briefly analyze and discuss the particular method he uses to discover the truth (i.e., dialectics or the Socratic Method), using at least two examples from Plato's Euthyphro and/or Apology. Do you agree that a human being cannot live a fully satisfying life if he or she remains ignorant, like the slavish prisoners in Plato's cave? Why or why not? In the Plato’s Apology, Socrates claims that the “unexamined life is not worth living for a human being”.
In this paper I will argue that Socrates’s argument at 50a-b of the Crito would be not harming his fellow citizens by breaking the laws. Based on the readings from Plato’s The Five Dialogues, I will go over the reasoning of Socrates’ view on the good life. I will then discuss the three arguments Crito has for Socrates regarding his evasion of the death sentence including the selfish, the practicality, and the moral arguments. I will deliberate an objection to the argument and reply to the objections made in the paper and conclude with final thoughts. Socrates argues in the Crito that he should not escape or disobey the law because it is unethical.
With those two teachings, comes another one of his more deeply meaningful quotes “an unexamined life is not worth living for a human being”. This statement by Socrates is one that gets a human being to think about what he meant by what an examined life or unexamined life is. His quote is telling people to go through life and analyze and question things, because if not they have not lived life the way it should be for a human being. Without examining life, life would become a stagnant environment, never evolving from past cultures and past ideals.
His goal was to make the court understand his beliefs prove which type of knowledge is worth knowing. When talking about the wise man he examined, Socrates said, “Neither of us actually knows what Beauty and Goodness are, but he thinks he knows, even though he doesn’t; whereas I neither know nor think I know.” This shows that Socrates proved he was more wise than the titled wise man because instead of faking the knowledge, that wasn’t too important, he accepted that he did not know which would result in him then seeking for
In order to establish my thesis, I will start by stating and explaining the argument that Socrates presents, I will
“Plato Apology” relates the trial of Socrates (469-399) B.C.E known as the father of Western Philosophy. Socrates, a son of sculpture and the midwife had a queer with most Athenians due to his point of view on values and beliefs. Charged with impiety and corrupting the Youth, Socrates’ defends himself by persuading the jury of his innocence with tangible reasons which made his arguments effective.
Socrates appeals to ethos, or credibility, first. To do this he speaks directly to the audience, and all Athenians, by asking those who have heard him talk and preach to tell others that he is not an “evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse
Philosophers Examining of the Unexamined Life Socrates was a famous Athenian philosopher put to death because the city believed that his "teaching" were corrupted the youth. One of his famous quote “The unexamined life is not worth living” is said to mean that without looking at oneself and understanding the areas that are lacking there is no way to better oneself, thus there is no point in living. A person needs to seek out the areas that need improvement and work on it to increase the meaningfulness of their life. Many people have followed in the footsteps of Socrates and thought about a persons life and its meaningfulness including Franz Kafka, Sigmund Freud, Voltaire, and Plato. Franz Kafka was a Czech philosopher famous for his book Metamorphosis.
Making enemies and becoming the topic of conversation, the Athenians began to view Socrates as a threat to their beliefs and way of life and sought to end it. In order to end this, Socrates was accused of blasphemy (Mod1SlideC7). Socrates’s accusers took him to court and after Socrates did not play their game by asking to be sent into exile, and in the end, he was sentenced to death. After reading the textbook and Plato’s writing influenced by Socrates, I realized that in the period of his life Socrates was indeed truly a threat to the Athens society, because he looked for answers that no one else bothered to find which challenged their culture.
Part A- Socrates In thinking of Socrates we must recognize that what we have is four secondhand sources depicting him. That of Plato, Xenophanes, Aristophanes, and Aristotle. All having radically different accounts on Socrates and his views. Out of all them we consider Plato’s to be the most possible account, even though we face a problem of different versions of Socrates.
Socrates sees himself as wiser than other men including the politicians, craftsmen, and poets because he did not go around thinking he knew what he did not know. As a result of this, his character reflected someone who saw himself as superior to others and instead of feeding that ego, he could have been a joined politics and have an influence on the Athenian democracy. If he had done this, people like Meletus and his later accusers would have taken his criticism in a positive way. Socrates has the right to criticize the democracy of Athens because, in his perspective, verdicts are passed in the court by jurors with respect to whoever seems good to him. The democracy of the people was biased because, even if a person was wrong in court, he would not receive the right punishment her deserved because of his relations with the jurors.
Socrates is quoted as stating, “An unexamined life is a life not worth living” (38 a). Socrates was a founding figure of western philosophy, and a stable for many ideas. He lived in Athens, Greece teaching his students, like Plato, questioning politics, ethical choices, and many other things in Greek society. In the Trial and death of Socrates: Four Dialogues by Plato, it explores the abstract questioning Socrates had towards many of the normal social properties, which led to his trial, resulting in his death. The most important aspects discussed in the dialogues is the questioning of what is pious and impious, what it means to be wise, and good life.
Another thing Socrates is famous for is his twisting of nature in a paradoxical way to serve his own desire to persuade: to Socrates, virtue, wisdom, and eudaemonia are directly linked, a recurring idea in many of his dialogues. His definition of happiness and morality is far different from anyone else’s, especially from Callicles’ and Nietzsche who believes that the law of nature takes over (also perceived this way by Nietzsche). E.R. Dodds mentions the idea that Nietzsche finds a reflexion of himself in Callicles, ascetic Socrates’ most interesting interlocutor in the “Gorgias”. Interesting in the fact that Callicles appears to be a purely hedonistic personage, whose definition of a good life is one where all pleasures of the body are maximised,
The trial and death of Socrates is a book with four dialogues all about the trail that leads to the eventual death of Socrates. The four dialogues are Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. It will explain the reasoning that brought Socrates to trial in the first place and give us a glimpse into the physiological thought of this time, and in this paper will describe some of the differences today. The first of the four dialogues are Euthyphro.
Socrates was a great philosopher of the Greek world. He was quite an atypical and distinctive person. Being different from all the other philosophers of the land, Socrates was teaching his students ideas totally out of the ordinary from what the society believed was right. As a result, he displeased many people so much that they decided to get rid of him. Socrates was put to trial, accused of spoiling the youth of Athens, tried and sentenced to death.