Piety And Impiety In Socrate's Trial

Socrates is one of the greatest philosophers to ever live, being credited with founding Western philosophy. He used reasoning and questioning to understand how people acted around him which became a model for the Socrates Method. Due to his questioning of the world around him, Socrates was charged with impiety against the Gods and corrupting the youth of Athens. This caused Socrates to use his method of reasoning and questioning to defend himself against those claims by stating he was not guilty. His arrogant attitude while delivering his speech as to why he was not guilty insulted those who were in jury which caused Socrates to be found guilty and be put to death. Socrates was not surprised that he was found guilty, but he was surprised due

It was hard to understand the concepts he was discussing with Euthyphro. This is because of his method of questioning and reasoning. When asking what piety and impiety is with Euthyphro, Socrates continues to ask the same question by phrasing it in different ways. This causes Euthyphro to contradict himself in what he was trying to explain what qualifies as piety and impiety. Euthyphro claims that piety is what is dear to the gods and impiety is the opposite of that. After going back and forth on how Euthyphro did not answer the question, Socrates states, “... Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” (Page 10) I had to reread this quote many times before getting an understanding of what Socrates was trying to say which was simply asking the question as to what came first. For example, did the Gods come first and create what was pious and what was not? Or was pious created first and the Gods came to love it? With Socrates questioning Euthyphro’s answer, it allowed me to think about how effective and incredible his thinking was. It made sense why he revolutionized the way of thinking and why it is important to ask questions. It gave me a new perspective on asking questions to get a better understanding of the world around me. Researching why Socrates did this, I realized that it was his purpose all along, to contradict other people when having a

, by explaining Socrates’ arrogant attitude with the jury and the time until his execution. In the documentary, it talks about the poison, hemlock, used to killed Socrates. “... death by hemlock is excruciatingly painful causing gradual paralysis of the central nervous system ut as the moment of his execution jr. Socrates turned to his friends treating the whole affair as if it were nothing at all...” (47:17) In the textbook, …, Socrates states, "No evil can come to a good man either in life or in death, and the gods do not fail to pay attention to what he does." (Page 127) These two different sources allow me to understand that Socrates was not scared of death and was humble at the end of his