Apology

“Let them keep their prodigious opinion of themselves and the bare name of Aristotle, whose five syllables delight the ignorant” (Petrarca 247). From ancient times, numerous scholars have exalted Aristotle because of his various contributions to topics and debates that seem to have withstood time until the early Renaissance period. Petrarch acknowledged Aristotle’s importance, but viewed him as only human and deferred true knowledge to God. Montaigne had similar feelings, describing humans as…

Socrates, in defending himself against the accusations of corrupting the youth, uses a self devised method consisting of questions aimed at bringing to light the contradictions found in his accuser’s answers. His ferocious questions fired upon the ignorance of his respondents, who avowed a great deal of wisdom. Meletus, the leading accuser of Socrates, is convinced that Socrates is a wicked being who deliberately partakes in vandalizing the society he resides in. Furthermore, Meletus confirms…

During the axial age, “human self-understanding in major cultures around the world underwent transformations so dramatic that they constituted the most important turning-point (axis) in human history” (The search for Self- Understanding). As civilization took over in many parts of the world, people began questioning the way they lived their lives and began looking for an answer. Different pieces of literature and scripts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Rig Veda and the Upanishads were written…

The persuasive tool known as rhetoric has been associated with modern language for many years. The art of rhetoric aims to inform, persuade, and motivate the audience to whom the speech is being addressed. The roots of rhetoric style stretch back to thousands of years ago and has ever since been a constant debate whether it is ethical or unethical. One writer in particular, Plato, felt that rhetoric never leads to anything good, and was only used for bad purposes. Using rhetoric as a persuasive…

The cultural context can be shown through the acropolis and agora. The decision to rebuild the acropolis can show the culture of Athens. This can be seen in Sayre's book called Cultural, Continuity and Change by stating that the acropolis became ""fitting memorial not only to the war but especially to Athena's role in protecting the Athenian people" (141). The political life as well as obligation of the citizen to the state can be seen in the agora which was the cultural hub of the city. The…

In 399 B.C.E the athenian philosopher socrates, stood on trial for: corrupting the youth, believing in false God’s not of the city, for studying things in the heavens and below the earth, and for making the lesser argument into the stronger. Of the four charges Socrates was only technically on trial for corrupting the youth and believing in false God’s not of the city. However in order to defeat these two charges he must first defeat the other two in the eyes of the jury. Socrates would argue…

1. Socrates’s lack of fear of death is neither courageous nor cowardly, because fear of death is thinking one knows what one does not does not know which illustrates blameworthy ignorance. 2. False wisdom is when men chose have more knowledge in one field compared to the average man, and because of this, they believe that they have even more knowledge in other fields that they actually little or nothing about. Socrates asked various artists and craftsmen about their knowledge and they believe…

The Allegory of the Cave In the Allegory of the Cave, the character Socrates states this about the people living in cave society, “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.” (Plato, The Allegory of the Cave”) According to Plato, people accept truth as whatever they see, whatever they grow up with. This idea is very simple, but very revolutionary- and it applies to ancient and modern life. In this cave society, there is nothing known to the people…

"Successful Failure" Lack of knowledge and trials caused us to take centuries to reach the heights of science and technology, despite the evolution, somehow we are mentally caged in our ancestral beliefs. This essay will develop and empirically examine the evaluation of failure over the period of time. It will also cover the challenges, failure has faced over the last few centuries. In this comparative analysis,we will focus on the similarities between "The Trial and Death of Socrates",and…

Socrates has questioned are offended and angered because he accuses them to be ignorant. Others are curious with Socrates and copy his actions, but they get angered because the ignorant men are “pretending to know when they actually know nothing” (Apology 23e). People hate Socrates because he claims that having wisdom is knowing that everyone does not know everything. Socrates is therefore the wisest man because he does not pretend to know things and knows that he does not know everything.…