Discuss the meaning of the life and death of Socrates based on the texts you have read this semester
According to Plato’s apology, he regarded Socrates as gadfly because he was stinging the Athenians culture and politics. This is because Socrates was a critic of the politics and the social life in Athens. This made him have so many enemies in Athens because they believed that he was corrupting the youth. The term gadfly as was used to represent the life of Socrates was first mentioned when one of his friends named as Chaerephone. This was when he went to the oracle of Delphi and asked them if they knew anyone who was wiser than Socrates was. The reaction that the oracle had was that no one was wiser. Socrates found this oracle to be very wrong because he believed that he did not have any wisdom. This made him do tests to confirm that he was not the wisest of them all. He questioned the people in Athens who were considered to be the wisest and found out that he knew more than they did. According to the Crito by Plato, it details how Socrates refused to flee before the intended persecution. It starts by showing how Socrates was sleeping soundly while in real sense he was supposed to be scared because of the intended execution. The dialogue between Crito and Socrates shows how Crito was concerned about the impending death than Socrates was and stated that he was already old therefore, death was inevitable. This made Crito admire Socrates even more than he already was. The death of Socrates was to occur the day after the expedition had arrived and at that time, it was to arrive on that day as told by Crito. Socrates replied by saying that he had a dreams that will make his execution in three days time.
Choose some chapter, image, topic in the Republic and discuss it-- be interesting please.
In the republic, book one looks at the challenges of justice. This looks at the questions in which Socrates asks about the meaning of justice. The suggestions offered he would always find reasons that will contradict them. However, he never offers any definitions by himself. In the beginning of this book, it states that Socrates was going home after a religious festival when he started talking to Cephalus about justice. Cephalus was well respected elderly man in the city and is proclaimed to be the first to ever try to define the term justice. While stating the definition he considered the Greek traditions. He therefore, defined justice as the legal obligations in which people have and being honest. Socrates used the example of returning a weapon to a madman to contradict this definition. In the same book, Polemarchus also made a definition which states that justice is what one owes harm to those who are their enemies while provide help to those who are friends. Socrates counter argued with this definition by stating that one can never know who is a true friend or an enemy therefore, it is easy to cause more harm than good. According to the definitions provided by both and Cephalus Socrates concludes that they are not satisfactory. This is true because when it comes to defining justice there is always a reason that would contradict it.
Discuss any speaker or topic in The Symposium book and make use of the text
The symposium book by Plato is made up of speeches made by different philosophers but in this essay, we are looking at Socrates speech. In the speech, Socrates was questioning the speech made by Agathon regarding love. While answering these questions he is able to refute some of the answers he had previously given. The conclusion that was made was that love is conscious about the need of being good since it is not possessed. In this dialogue between Agathon and Socrates that is when the foundations of Plato’s love theory is formulated. Socrates enters into another dialogue with a woman who comes from Mantinea by the name of Diotima. They have the same conversation just the same way as with Agathon where he asks question about love. Diotoma gives the definition of love as the child that comes from the resource, which is the father, and the poverty, which is the mother. Initially Socrates thought that love was a god and that was beautiful. Diotoma made him question this thought because she believed that there is an underline between ugliness and beauty. She provided the example of having good beliefs that is not understood because of ignorance. She also states that humans have the urge to procreate either physically and mentally. She said that this was a way in which people will be able to maintain their immortality. Her explanation about love also states how one becomes a philosopher because they love wisdom and will end up giving birth to the intellectual children who are immortal compared to those who are procreated.
What is Methodological Doubt, and how it is developed by Descartes in Meditation One and Two
Methodological doubt is aimed at arriving at a specific truth. Rene applied the methodological doubt in order to reach a particular truth of ideas of self-existence. This is because he believed that the traditional knowledge and beliefs were doubtable. He believed that whatever is doubtable could be false. The first doubt was that of senses, which mislead a person at times. A good example is walking down the streets, seeing a person who resembles one of your friends, and but when one reaches that person, they find that it is a stranger. The second doubt made by Descartes was the one about dreams how it misleads people into believing it was a reality. He states that dreams are drawn from the waking experiences just in the same way as a painter. The third doubt is about the evil demon that does everything to deceive him. This could mean that the conceptual truths and the mathematical beliefs could also be wrong or mistaken. In the second meditation the doubts that come out is about his existence. In the first meditation, he claimed that he does not have a soul nor a body then the questions remains if he exists. Through having the doubts of one’s existence means that that person has a mind thus exists.
How Does Descartes arrive, in Meditation Two, at the ''thinking thing’’ (Cogito, ergo, sum)? What does this mean?
In the first meditation, Descartes doubts the existence of the body and soul or is deceived into believing they exist then the questioned remained about the existence of the ‘I’. This is what led to the second meditation of the cogito, ergo, sum. In this meditation, he concludes that there is an I which has to be mislead by an evil demon and have doubts. In this meditation, he asks questions about what that I is. This is where the doubt of thinking does not exist because by one having doubts mean that they are thinking. This means that he cannot be able to exist without thinking. This makes thinking a very essential tool for one to have in order to be able to exist in the world. Descartes comes to the conclusion that he is a thing that thinks.
