Socrates And Greek Mythology

The Myths Before the completely new way of thinking known as philosophy had emerged, myths answered the questions of the world. A myth is a story involving gods that explains certain situations, origins, or events in nature. In Nordic culture there was no lack of myths. Thor, a prominent god and character of many myths, had a hammer which caused thunderstorms. Thor’s hammer was also a vital weapon in the ongoing battle between the gods and the giants. This battle was a, “mythological explanation for how the balance of nature was maintained and why there was a constant struggle between good and evil” (Gaarder 25). Myths such as these led humans to take action and offer sacrifices, “to the gods to give them strength to conquer the forces of …show more content…
Socrates was an enigmatic philosopher who never wrote a single line throughout his career and we know Socrates and his teachings mainly through his student Plato. In 399 B.C. Socrates was accused of, “introducing new gods and corrupting the youth” (Gaarder 67). He was found guilty and forced to drink poison which killed shortly after. Despite his enigmatic personality and career that was cut short, Socrates left behind one of the most popular forms of discussion, the Socratic Method. He would ask many questions, during a discussion, until a contradiction was revealed thus proving the fallacy of the original assumption. Socrates used this method in order to allow his students to develop insight. Along with continuous questions he would play ignorant and act dumb to, “ expose the weakness in people’s thinking” (Gaarder …show more content…
This trial had a lasting impact on his philosophical career. It showed to Plato that a conflict can, “exist between society, as it really is and the true or ideal society” (Gaarder 82). Plato’s philosophical project was differentiating between, “what was eternal and immutable” and, “what flows”. Everything in the sensory world flows and changes, but at the same time the molds of these tangibles are eternal and immutable. Behind everything there was a form, a mold, an “idea” as Plato called it. This “idea” is what allows a man from Scotland and a man from South Africa both to be identical and understood through reason, as human beings. This is the beginning of Plato’s theory of ideas. The reality behind the material world is known as the world of ideas which is made up of “the eternal and immutable patterns behind the various phenomena we come across in nature” (Gaarder