Friday Filosophy v.12.24.2021

Friday Filosophy v.12.24.2021

Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC) was one of the greatest Greek philosophers. He did not propose any specific knowledge or policy. He showed how argument, debate, and discussion could help men to understand difficult issues. Most of the issues he dealt with were only political on the surface. Underneath, they were moral questions about how life should be lived. Such is the influence of Socrates that philosophers before him are called the Presocratic philosophers. Socrates made enemies, three of whom brought charges against him. Socrates was tried for his life in 399 BC, found guilty, and put to death by drinking hemlock (a herbal poison). The story of his trial and death is the subject of a tract by Plato which is called the Apologia.

Most of what we know about Socrates comes from the works of Plato, who was his pupil. Socrates lived in the Greek city of Athens. His method of teaching was to have a dialogue with individual students. They would propose some point of view, and Socrates would question them, asking what they meant. He would pretend “I don’t know anything; I’m just trying to understand what it is you are saying”, or words to that effect. This is now called the Socratic method of teaching. Socrates is sometimes called the “father of Western philosophy“. This is because in the discussions he uncovered some of the most basic questions in philosophy, questions which are still discussed today.

• The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
• By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
• Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
• Wisdom begins in wonder.
• Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
• The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
• He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
• I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
• Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.
• I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
• Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
• Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

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