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Socrates Reflection Paper

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An insight Socrates offers about the self is that there is a conflict between the soul and the body. The soul, which aspires for goodness and pure knowledge, truth, and courage, is weighed down by the body, which is concerned with the less divine and pure pleasures of the earth. It desires objects of lust, sex, and greed, which are physical. These desires chain down the soul, and prevent it from moving towards ultimate goodness and truth after the death of the physical body. As the soul leaves the body, it moves on to another body. Depending on the level of goodness and purity the soul participated in during the life of the physical body, the soul enters a new being which can go from an ant (if one has led a life of evil), or a human again, …show more content…

Or would they have to be taught of this, as with other information they can recollect in an experience such as Deja-vu. I ask this because I wonder how Socrates can be so sure about the immortality of the soul. When I experience Deja-vu, I feel like the moment I am remembering comes from the same life that I am currently living, but at an earlier time. It also seems to only be arbitrary events that just seem extremely familiar. How does one know what the difference between what the soul desires and what the body desires? Socrates claims that the immortal soul is searching for an ultimate wisdom and good, while the mortal body has only desires of the physical earth. How does the soul know to search for the ultimate truth? Does an individual reach this objective through process of thought, or is it only taught to them? I would like to know because it seems that few people are philosophers, and if the ultimate goal of the soul (rhyme not intended) is to reach the ultimate truth, then why would so many individuals not have the idea or teachings to give them the chance to attempt to become a philosopher? Did their soul turn to evil thousands of years ago and the individual just doesn’t know

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I imagine we get reincarnated whether we do wrong or rights. Even though I fancy in a God, I somewhat follow Buddha’s teachings in which they believe in finding enlightenment. This can also help serve with the moral I follow. With the teaching of Buddha, They are trying to reach enlightenment by doing the rights more than the wrongs. It sorta helps each other.

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“Realizing that the same applies to the soul when someone sees a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he won’t laugh mindlessly, but he’ll take into consideration whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed through not yet having become accustomed to the dark or whether it has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is dazzled by the increased brilliance. ”(Plato5) This quote shows how the intellect is related to the human soul. How they don’t anticipate exploring and extending their knowledge. As they decide to stay in their comfort zone or just fear a reality.

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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.

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Doing so would result in a weak soul that is full of ignorance. Socrates had developed an understanding that came from within. This gave him

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Could it be that rather than the soul occupying another body, that innate knowledge we posses is the by-product of ancestral knowledge that is passed down throughout the generations before? All things that are as such now have always been and will always be. This is not to say that the present is the final form of the universe, rather the universe as it reaches its final form will resemble a time before the big bang where matter is so dense the pressure will cause an explosion that will start the cycle of the universe over again composed of all the same matter as the universe

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However, the number three cannot ever be even for it holds a natural form of oddity that cannot be changed, the same is found with immortality. A soul cannot admit to death, which is the opposite of its essence immortality just as the number three cannot admit to being even. Leading to Plato’s conclusion of how a soul then must have to retreat, connecting back to Socrates believing death is best characterized by the soul separating from

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He also believes that it is not difficult to refrain from death, but it is difficult to stay away from evil since it surrounds us all. Doing something evil and sinful will torment one’s soul forever, even after death. Socrates believes

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“…if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death: then I should be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of the unknown: since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good” (Apology, 29a-29b). This potent statement not only highlights Socrates’ wisdom, it effectively makes use of his belief that he is wise because he knows nothing. By saying that he knows nothing of the afterlife, it gives him the reason to illustrate to his audience that he cannot fear what he does not know.

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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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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.

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Socrates in the dialogue Alcibiades written by Plato provides an argument as to why the self is the soul rather than the body. In this dialogue Alcibiades and Socrates get into a discussion on how to cultivate the self which they both mutually agree is the soul, and how to make the soul better by properly taking care of it. One way Socrates describes the relationship between the soul and the body is by analogy of user and instrument, the former being the entity which has the power to affect the latter. In this paper I will explain Socrates’ arguments on why the self is the soul and I will comment on what it means to cultivate it.

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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.

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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.

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Aristotle refers to the soul as a part of the human body and what its role is in pursuing true happiness

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