Socrates View On Death Essay

Death, from a scientific perspective, is a phenomenon that everyone on this planet must go through, regardless of their gender, social class, nationality etc. No matter who you are or what you are, death is something that we will all be faced with at some point in our lives. If death is to be expected in life, then why are we humans, as a race, so deathly afraid of it occurring? Seeing as how many people and cultures view death as being a sad event, it must be said that people like Socrates should be viewed as being unique. Through Socrates, Plato attempts to explain to people why death is something not to be afraid of, and through Socrates’ teachings, he provides a very good argument for the notion that death is nothing scary. If one were to pay close attention to what Socrates and Plato are trying to convey, it’s easy …show more content…
We are constantly reminded by others to never “judge a book by its cover”, and so we often do our best to find out as much as we can before judging somebody we just met. This is done by asking others for their opinion on a specific person, by using technology such as Facebook to “stalk” a person’s profile, or just by directly questioning the person on who they are and what they stand for. Well, how does one form an opinion if the person at hand has no social media footprint, isn’t well known by others around you, or just happens to be very reserved and doesn’t readily give up information about themselves? We often jump to making our own conclusions when no information is available (and even if we do have knowledge, we still end up making our own decisions), and the same thing happens when it comes to the idea of death. To quote Socrates in Apology, “To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man...”