An Analysis Of Plato's The Apology By Socrates

‘The Apology’ written by Socrates most famous student Plato, is a Socrates dialogue where he is defending himself from the accusations of corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods of Athens. He tells the court that these accusations are false and he does believe in the gods of Athens. He also tells them that he did not corrupt the youth, in fact the youth followed him on their own free will. According to Socrates the problem was that people who called themselves wise were not actually very wise, their knowledge was based on ignorance thinking that they were wise and he wanted to help them see that true knowledge was knowing nothing rather than believing that they know everything. As philosophy is based on questioning everything, he …show more content…
In court, he says that his behavior to question everything is because of the Oracle of Delphi and he finally understood why it said that he was the wise man in the city if Athens. Socrates does not fear death, instead he believes that fearing death is the same as someone believing that they are wise whereas in reality they are not. Socrates says that he does not fear things which he doesn’t know has no knowledge about(pg.8) Socrates also believes that people will not do bad things if they had known better, “if I learn better, I shall cease to do what I am doing unwillingly (pg. 5)”. This quote is told by Socrates when Meletus accused him of corrupting the youth, saying that he did not know that it was bad for the youth to leave their families and follow him. If someone had told him then he would have known better not have done it. Socrates also believes that without him the entire city will turn ignorant and will never know what true wisdom is and tells the court that he is helping the people of this city by keeping their minds active. When the jury decides that Socrates was indeed guilty they let him choose his punishment of being exiled or going to prison. Socrates said that he did not want to be exiled because Athens was his home and he did not want to leave his home, he wanted to stay there and help the society. He chose the punishment of being fed by the government …show more content…
Even if you own everything you want, without virtue one cannot experience true happiness that comes from within the heart. I agree with this value because to live a happy life virtue is necessary. Living a life without virtue can make you feel dead from inside. The joy that comes from helping a friend or even a stranger without expecting anything in return stays there for your entire life. The satisfaction of this joy is much more than acquiring something materialistic. The joy one feels due to materialistic things is temporary but when someone does the morally right things the joy that they feel is everlasting and no one can take that away from them. To live a happy life we should not assume that we have a lot of knowledge because, if someone like Socrates comes up and starts to question our knowledge this will make one insecure and sad. We must question knowledge given to us in order to seek true knowledge and as Socrates says one who has no knowledge of anything is the wisest of all.
In conclusion, some of Socrates values are very true and people follow it even to this day, but some of them I do not agree with. Some may agree with all Socrates has to say and some may not, but in my opinion one thing os for sure, just saying that one is wise doesn’t not make them wise and even having all the knowledge in the world does not a person wise if they cannot explain questions asked to them about this