Written by: Christina Jacobsen
“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”-Socrates
Socrates has been claimed as the greatest philosopher of all times. Socrates believed that the search for wisdom should take place in isolation from other people. Most of what we know of Socrates life is mainly through the writings of his students Plato, Xenophon and through the plays of his student Aristophanes. Outside of this little else is known of his life. He was born in Athens, Greece and is believed to have lived in the time frame of 469-399 B.C.E. Despite claiming undying love and loyalty to Athens, Socrates was highly critical of the cities claims to fame and glory.
According to Plato, Socrates’ father went by the name of Sophroniscus and his mother was Phaenarete. He married Xanthippe and she is alleged to have bore him three sons. These sons were called Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus, though Socrates died when the boys were very young.
“Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.”-Socrates
It is believed he made his living as a stonemason, which was the profession of his father. Socrates may have also recieved payment for teaching and running a Sophist school.
“Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one”-Socrates
Philosophers were sometimes viewed as rebels and not always trusted by the people of Athens. In the end this would cause the demise of the great Socrates, as he was put to death for his beliefs.
“If I tell you that I would be disobeying the god and on that account it is impossible for me to keep quiet, you won't be persuaded by me, taking it that I am ionizing. And if I tell you that it is the greatest good for a human being to have discussions every day about virtue and the other things you hear me talking about, examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not livable for a human being, you will be even less persuaded.”- Socrates
His execution was the climax of his career and the central event of Platos writings. Socrates was on a path of “martyrdom” as he could have avoided the death penalty by agreeing to pay a small fine and go to prison. He could have then escaped from prison. Instead, he chose to accept the death penalty. Poisoned with hemlock, Socrates died in the company of friends.
“The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.”-Socrates
I really like the way you quoted Socrates most of the sayings that you used are very well known. This blog post is very well written and also very informative. I like how you mention how most of this writings came from his student Plato and without Plato's work we wouldn't know too much about Socrates life or his works. I also like how you mention what Socrates life was like before becoming a philosopher. There's is a few things in this blog post that I do disagree with for starters the fact that you say that most people in Athens believed that Socrates was a rebel this is not true most of the lower middle class believed him to be a great philosopher and a great leader where it was the government class that labeled him as a rebel as a corrupter of the youth for his teachings. Another thing too it that its also said that he wouldn't have to face prison time all he had to do was apologize to the people and the government for spreading his philosophy. Besides them two things I do like how you ended the blog post with Socrates being a martyr and a hero to his cause of sticking up for his believes and for his faith to a bitter end and a very tragic end. Having said all of this by far this was a very well written and well researched blog post and you did an very good job on this post.
ReplyDeleteNathan Cooper Team#2 Hum2210 T/TH 11am-12:15pm
Hi Christina! I will begin with saying that I know absolutely nothing about the philosophies of Socrates. I had a bit of trouble deciphering which question from your blog group was the one that matched mine so that I could respond because your group didn’t necessarily make their subject matter clear. The overall appearance of your blog was pretty cool but the colored texts with the colored backgrounds made it a bit difficult to read. Your posting was the closest I could find to my subject and I’m hoping I responded to the correct blog because the actual question I wrote about was “The greatest painting/sculpture/literary work/philosophy of ancient civilization is…”and you wrote about Socrates as a whole, not any one specific philosophy of his. I was confused because I was looking for a specific philosophy, not a mini biographical accounting of his life. What specific philosophy of his did you believe to be the greatest philosophy of ancient civilization? My constructive criticism for you would be to tell you to always make an outline when you are writing a paper, even if it’s just a few paragraphs or a diagram to keep your paragraphs flowing properly and to keep you on subject. You did a good job of providing us with information about Socrates as well as many of his quotes. I have absolutely no idea what most of them mean, but some of them were whitty.
ReplyDeleteBy: Katie Hernandez
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