Plato's Republic centers on a simple question: is it always better to be just than unjust? The puzzles in Book One prepare for this question, and Glaucon and Adeimantus make it explicit at the beginning of Book Two. To answer the question, Socrates takes a long way around, sketching an account of a good city on the grounds that a good city would be just and that defining justice as a virtue of a city would help to define justice as a virtue of a human being. Socrates is finally close to answering the question after he characterizes justice as a personal virtue at the end of Book Four, but he is interrupted and challenged to defend some of the more controversial features of the good city he has sketched. In Books Five through Seven, he addresses this challenge, arguing (in effect) that the just city and the just human being as he has sketched them are in fact good and are in principle possible.
Alma Askins Rowe Professor Nathan Poage Philosophy 1301 January 25, 2013 The Charges against Socrates Socrates is described as having neglected his own affairs, instead he was spending his time discussing virtue, justice, and piety wherever his fellow citizens congregated, seeking wisdom about right conduct so that he might guide the moral and intellectual improvement of Athens (Perel). Using a method now known as the Socratic dialogue, or dialectic, he drew forth knowledge from his students by pursuing a series of questions and examining the implications of their answers. Socrates had charges brought against him by a man named Meletus, who was a young man that Socrates did not know very well. These charges that were brought against him caused the indictment of Socrates. One of the charges in the affidavit written by Meletus against Socrates is that he is an evil doer "corrupting the youth" (Grube).
Euthyphro – Plato In Euthyphro, there was dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro about the meaning of piety. Socrates has a particular interest in the subject of piety due to his recent charge of impiety. Socrates is about to be tried before Athenian court to determine whether he is guilty or innocent of the charges against him. The charges are for corrupting the youth, inventing new charges, and not believing in the old ones. He does not feel that the people understand the real meaning of piety and impiety.
Parth Kamani Socrates’ Philosophies At some point before the events of Plato’s The Apology, the Oracle of Delphi recognized Socrates as the wisest of all men. This culminated in Socrates earning the hatred of those he questioned. Ultimately, he finds himself in a trial on the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Socrates previously stated that the youth associate with him voluntarily. With this in mind, his first question to Meletus is: “Come now, tell these men, who makes them better?” (Ap.
Despite Socrates' obfuscation of the charges put against him (particularly the alleged distinction between "old charges" and "new charges"), the only charges relevant to his guilt in the trial were the so-called "new charges" put forward by Meletus: 1. "corrupting the young" and 2. "not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other new spiritual beings" (Apology 24b-24c). In Euthyphro, while discussing the matter immediately prior to the trial, Socrates connects the two charges, and says the indictment against him claims he corrupts the youth by
And to find out some answers, we need to go through Plato’s dialogues, “Crito” and “Phaedo”. This conversation between Socrates and his dearest closer friends and fellows, may bring us some of the answers…if we have the good sense of reading it more than once. After been convicted in Athens for corrupting the youth and not believing in Gods, Socrates was given the chance to scape to another city to save his life.
In this essay I will discuss four different classifications of justice that are proposed by Socrates’ interlocutors, Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus, as well as his rebuttal to each of their proclamations. A final section of this paper will be dedicated to how Polermachus’s outlook on justice, which is doing good to one’s friends and harm to one’s enemies, can most effectively be defended against Socrates’s response that it is unjust to harm anyone. This is because of Socrates’s inadequate dismissal of Polemarchus’s claim. Socrates offers an unclear definition of what causing harm is. Therefore, it can be presumed that specific types of harm such as constructive criticism and disciplinary punishment are deemed unjust when they actually can be efficient instruments in the formation of a just human being.
The sophists taught for money. Socrates did not. For another, the sophists used language to win arguments and to sway people's opinion regardless of the truth. Socrates used language to attain the truth. Compare Socrates with the Sophists.
Short Paper II – Passage 1, Apology of Socrates, 20: C-D The Apology is a fictional interpretation of Socrates’ trial and defense against the charges of impiety, written by Plato. Therefore, although the main character in this dialogue is in fact Socrates, his voice is inevitably resounding from Plato’s perspective. Plato revered Socrates to the nth degree, and provided the audience with a distinguished, admirable, although slightly pompous version of Socrates. The purpose of this passage is used to establish the fact that Socrates was not and did not consider himself to be a sophist, and such a role was deemed to be almost insulting. Essentially, Socrates stated that he did not possess wisdom, like sophists believe they possess, but only human wisdom, which implies the fact that he knew that he knew nothing at all.
Reflection #1 Entry #1: Euthyphro In the Euthyphro, Socrates and Euthyphro are having a discussion about Euthyphro prosecuting his own father. Throughout their conversation, Socrates asks Euthyphro a lot of different questions trying to understand why Euthyphro is prosecuting his own father. Euthyphro defended himself by saying it is what is right, and that it doesn’t matter if the one is he prosecuting is a stranger or a relative, he is still a murderer. Euthyphro then gets into a discussion about what is holy and unholy, which Socrates has many questions about, but never gets a straight answer from Euthyphro. By the end of the story, Euthyphro says he has to be somewhere and just leaves Socrates, never fully answering his questions about what is holy.