Given Socrates’ statement, toward the beginning of the Apology, that he has gained his reputation by “a sort of wisdom” that he calls “human wisdom” (par. 8), and, given that he does assert in several other places that he is reputed to be a “wise man” whom people think of as knowing things that others do not, one might imagine that this phrase “human wisdom” could therefore be applied to anyone who has achieved a certain level of knowledge. However, taking into account Socrates’ persistent claims about his own lack of knowledge as well as the fact that the only other places in the dialogue that he ever admits to having any wisdom at all are moments in which he is also claiming to be ignorant, Socrates’ apparent admission that he has the kind of wisdom that his reputation suggests would appear to be ironic, and that what he really means by the phrase “human wisdom” is knowing and admitting one’s own ignorance. Towards the beginning of the text, after discussing how the Sophists came to obtain their reputation for being wise and differentiating himself from them, Socrates introduces his argument against his earlier accusers by saying: Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom. What kind of wisdom?
He also mentioned a list of metaphors such as “people do not have skeletons in their cupboards”. I found these observations particularly humorous because for the life of me I can’t remember when I was ever taught what metaphor are but I can somehow understand them. I found myself thinking that I look at metaphors in the same way as parables in a bible, they make complicated things make sense! In a way Christopher makes us question the need for such a thing when we can just be direct when the metaphor can be confusing if you don’t understand it. Knowing that humor was lost on him and metaphor seem unnecessary I was surprised that he was accepting of the concept of white lies.
Sophists were skilled in elaborate argumentation; were they would try and make the argument they were focusing on the stronger side, even if it was wrong or weaker. This often made them seem devious as they were working only for the benefit of themselves and their students, who were aiming to become high profile speakers or politicians. Socrates was unlike this in that his main focus was not on argumentation or speaking, he rather focused on questioning virtues to understand morals and ethics. He believed that all opinions were valid which also opposed the views of the Sophists who assumed that the wisest of people were genuinely correct and only they had the ability to teach. The main goal of socrates was unlike that of the sophists.
To Elude by Allusion Titles of great literary works are not often slapped on with no forethought; in fact most of the time the author saves the title for last, because they want it to have relevance to the plot or story of their work. Some titles' relevance is easy to see and understand, while others can be horribly vague and hard to grasp. Sometimes one must simply trudge through the whole of the work before the title's meaning shines through. In both John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and in T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," allusions to turmoil within society and the individual are made within the works, and these ideas are only realized when the full length of each work is read and related to ourselves using the metaphors of wrathful grapes and the wasteland nearly all of us unknowingly live in.
In all honesty, I was shocked at the good feedback a received because I felt like I hadn’t made it anything special. The feedback on my draft helped me to understand that papers aren’t all about fancy terms and over analyzing yourself, but instead, just simply understanding the text, breaking it down for yourself, and writing about it in a way that
These authors do you a favor by retelling history that most people find more entertaining than reading about it in a history book. But if we believed that learning or knowing history does not benefit people, it would not be taught, and people will fall for the same
It is the aphoristic statement that forces an individual to feel he or she has learned a lesson from what was just read. It is the moral of the story, poem or song, which leaves a residue in the minds of those that read it, or the take-away point. Many different writers have different techniques in order to create an aphoristic statement. However there are some people who are considered Aphoristic writers, such as Franz Kafka, and Friedrich Nietzsche, because people believed in a lot of the information that they shared with the world. This means that most of their written works were considered absolute truths.
On the other hand, realism means "the inclination towards literal truth and pragmatism" (ibid). It also means to accept life the way it is, and favour the practical method of dealing with it. This too seems to be a good trait on the outside, but it has some flaws. To only aim for average cuts short the potential of humanity. Just because humanity isn't perfect does not mean it cannot reach excellent every now and then.
Santa-Maria also says that while Franklin promotes the idea of being like Socrates, Franklin is in fact more like Epicurus. Santa-Maria ends his essay by stating that he believes that Franklin’s interpretation of virtue is a failure, and that moral perfection is impossible. I believe that Santa-Maria’s critical essay was very clearly written and thought-provoking. He expresses his ideas very clearly, and has a lot of background information to back it up. It was very easy to comprehend what he believed, and easy to see why he felt this way.
I saw that some reviewers didn’t like how there was no “twist” or “wow factor” towards the end, but honestly, does every book need it to be successful? Definitely not. What is the novel questioning exactly? In Never Let Me Go, the question this book raises is what “being human” is and treating “clones” lesser than humans. That’s what we should be asking ourselves, and