Socrates: PH201 Essay
“The unexamined life is not worth living” a widely recognised dictum supposedly voiced by Socrates at his trial for impiety and corrupting youth. Philosophy is said to be the pursuit, study of, enquiry and love of wisdom. Many scholars have called philosophy the art of thinking; while many others have described it as the methodical study of human thought and feeling. Socrates was no exception to this ideology, striving for purely tangible understandings of such concepts as justice, love, and virtue. Socrates was an established Greek philosopher hailed from Athens. Renowned for his interpretation of philosophy as a pursuit just and essential to all intelligent men, he was a man who unrelentlessly lived by his principles in spite of them ultimately costing him his life. Information regarding Socrates and his influential teachings comes indirectly from various dialogues of his celebrated student Plato and from the Memorabilia of Xenophon. Despite of contradictory interpretations of his teachings, educators around the world largely use the reports of these two writers. Socrates is best known for the development of the socratic method (also known as elenchus) and Socratic irony, which will
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This Socratic irony was typical of the Philosopher, who would often act ignorant when it came to defining basic concepts, thus tempting the participant to further discuss certain topics as they may have felt confident in their knowledge prior. Although Hippias cannot clearly distuinguish between the essence of beauty and example, something Socrates uses to develop awareness, it no less essential to the dialogue. This is because the very purpose of the dialogue is simply to expand the subject’s consciousness. It is then that these further developments suggest the conflicting ideals of the original thesis; in this case, it leads