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Comparing Socrates Clouds And Aristophanes

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Plato creates a whitewashed image of Socrates, completely undermining the image presented in Aristophanes Clouds. As compared to Aristophanes' clouds, Plato portrays Socrates as wise, humble and sophisticated. Plato was a student of Socrates, whereas Aristophanes was a comic writer and a friend. The original Socrates is unknown, therefore we can only evaluate what others have written about him. Aristophanes writings seems to be a reflection of the public opinion. Plato's account shows more of what Socrates intended and a deeper understanding of his reasoning. Both authors show that Socrates is accused of injustice. He is corrupting the youth by teaching them intelligent ways to win arguments, whether right or wrong. In the Clouds, Aristophanes shows Socrates as guilty. The court usually gives the defendant to speak in his defense and convince he judges that he is innocent. Aristophanes shows that Socrates teaches those who are not innocent to have unjust arguments using false claims. Strepsiades enrolls his son into Socrates' school so that he can learn these skills and win the case with his creditors. When the “unjust argument” and “just argument” argue, …show more content…

The presence of bugs in Socrates' school shows that it was unclean and unsuitable for proper research. Aristophanes also uses bugs because of their size. Their size makes them less significant just like the “unjust argument”. Sophists use the “unjust argument” because it has false accusations and is more focused on inappropriate and distracting details. Secondly, Socrates would say this is not a bad thing. He refers to the bed full of fleas as appropriate and good for creative thought. The bed is unclean and shows how negative it is to believe that it is good for creative thought. It is harmful to the person who practices “unjust argument” as well as those around him, just like the bed of fleas is harmful to the person sleeping on it and people around

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Whereas Aristophanes is writing for an audience that should be taken as a commentary and critics of Socrates, but as more humorous than anything. 3. Who are the intended

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They both are looking at defining concepts of what is of value to society. However, the environment they lived in also shaped the message they delivered. Socrates was born in fairly turbulent times. Athens had been form in the wake of the Persian invasion and was in the process of becoming an empire of itself.

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In Plato’s, The Republic, Book I, Socrates tries to prove to Thrasymachus “whether just people also live better and are happier than unjust ones” (352d). He argues that everything has a predisposed proficiency at a function, and that this functions are performed well by the peculiar virtue and badly by means of its vice (353a-353d) . The point of this paper is to present Socrates argument and evaluate it to the best of my ability. This argument can be categorized as an inductive generalization. Socrates states that the function of anything is what it alone can do or what it does best.

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806 Words | 4 Pages

In The Clouds, by Aristophanes, and The Apology by Plato, Socrates is illustrated in distinctive ways. In The Clouds, Aristophanes tries to expose Socrates and his followers, the Sophists. In his play, Aristophanes shows that Socrates is contaminating the young men of Athens, and he uses mockery to magnify a lot of the lessons delivered by Socrates. Plato, who was a devoted advocate of Socrates, portrayed his advisor in a positive way. Even though majority of The Apology is literally a speech narrated by Socrates, we can guess that Plato was intrigued by the story enough to twist it in a way that would highlight Socrates, and the picture was thoroughly diverse from that of Aristophanes.

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Finally, Socrates claims that the unjust man is ignorant, weak and bad. Socrates argument is effective in the way that he does not shatter Thrasymachus’ argument without reason, he is given many examples that change his way of thinking. Thrasymachus is told to put his ‘set in stone’ ideas under different situations, and once he does, he can clearly see that he should not have been so stubborn, as soon as he does so, he can see that his arguments aren’t suited to all situations. By the end of the argument, Thrasymachus isn’t so much debating the definition of justice, as he is defining the required traits to be a ruler of

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1284 Words | 6 Pages

Socrates and Pericles had extremely differing views about Athenian life. Pericles was a Politician, whereas Socrates was a philosopher. In “The Funeral Oration of Pericles”, Pericles contradicts himself a lot. While in “The Apology of Socrates”, Socrates does not go back on what he said in the past. He stands by everything he has said.

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At the same time, he recognizes that no one would intentionally make the people worse because he is obliged to live among them. From this it follows either that Socrates is not making the people worse or he is doing so unintentionally. Obviously, Meletus is not able to understand the logical consequences implied in the statements made by him. Further Meletus refers to Socrates as an atheist because he teaches that the sun is stone and the moon is earth. Socrates then reminds Meletus that it was Anaxagoras the Clazomenian who stated that the sun and moon were only material substances.

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In this essay, I will present an argument that shows that Plato will convince Socrates to reconsider his decision to receive the death sentence. Plato would show Socrates that his three reasons for staying to receive his sentence is unjust because his action is fuelled by injustice. I will also show that Socrates will agree with Plato about the unjust consequences that his actions may bring after Plato reasons why Socrates is doing an injustice. Finally, Plato would then proceed to show Socrates that his decision to stay cannot result in happiness and justice which in turn will cause Socrates to re-evaluate accepting his death sentence according to his own ideals of a happy and just life.

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Socrates claims that he did not consciously corrupt the youth of Athens, and he gives many reasons why he is not at fault for these actions. In his defense to the jury, he tells them that by looking at the facts, they will see Meletus is accusing him of something that is not true. The way Socrates defends himself is well-thought out and logical. He ask Meletus a serious of questions and Meletus answers, Socrates then moves on to the next question to support his claim.

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So how would an ancient Greek tragedy and comedy hold up to his standard? Sophocles’s Oedipus Tyrannus and Aristophanes’s Clouds are both great plays but which is the superior work? Whereas both Oedipus Tyrannus and Clouds are fantastic works in their adherence to Poetics in terms of the similarity of their characters

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“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.

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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.

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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.

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1535 Words | 7 Pages

Socrates’s official new charge “asserts that Socrates does injustice by corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel” (24b, p. 73). By looking deeper into the dialogue of The Apology and Euthyphro, one can see how passionately Socrates strives to express to the Athenian people his innocence in teaching the youth and worshiping of the gods. Socrates maintains his innocence in teaching the youth for three reasons. Primarily, there is no proof or evidence from past examples in which Socrates has taught the youth because no one has come out and said so. Socrates brings up a valid point that his so-called ‘teachings’ haven’t changed over time and therefore if he is accused

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Philosophical thinking uses three acts of the mind: understanding, judgement, and reason. In order to have a sound argument all of the concepts must be applied. Socrates didn’t want to please the people by saying or doing what they wanted him to say or do. Socrates thought it was not important to seek wealth or fame; he was concerned with truth and virtue. He wanted to create an impact on humanity by relying on the truth and shining a light in people’s lives, even if they put him on trial.

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