Socrates Said That the Unexamined

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, and the quest for knowledge, and especially for self-knowledge, is key to finding any meaning in life. We might consider the issue to be the meaning of living a good life and what is universally required to live a good life. One of the key issues in philosophy is what constitutes a moral life, which entails questions of the meaning of happiness and its importance, the definition of moral character and its necessity, conflicts between the two elements, and the question of what other elements are necessary for living a good life. Socrates was emphasizing

In the dialogues, Plato shows the relationship between the philosopher and the task of self inquiry. Plato has Socrates consider the role of the philosopher both in general and in the ideal city-state. The philosopher in Plato's conception is one who is inclined to be a philosopher. Socrates says that the common man must be dragged upward toward wisdom and the ideal, but the philosopher is naturally turned in that direction and seeks wisdom and knowledge of the ideal. The role of the philosopher begins with the realization of his own ignorance. For the philosopher, this leads to a rebirth, a new orientation. Plato follows his mentor, Socrates, in seeing the method of philosophy to be the dialogue, the asking of questions and the questioning of answers. For Socrates, it is the process of inquiry that constitutes wisdom, and knowledge is what one believes, which may or may not be true.

Socrates made inquiry not just a personal thing but a way for anyone to reach the truth, and so he went around Athens asking questions of those who would listen. He used this method to get them to think. He was not a teacher in the sense of imparting knowledge but in the sense of getting his students to think for themselves. His method of questioning would become known as the Socratic method and was used to guide the conversation into various areas in need of answers.

2. Socrates makes certain claims about his own degree of knowledge when he is on trial. Socrates says that the most important concern for him, and a concern that should be most important for everyone, is to search into himself and other men. He says that he has been charged with this responsibility by God, for that is the role of the philosopher. This is his manner of living, and it is his manner of living because God has said it shall be this way. Socrates makes it clear that he will obey God before he obeys his fellow man.

The precise charge against Socrates is that he is corrupting the youth, but for Socrates this is not possible since he is only introducing them to the vital and holy world of rational philosophical thought. In addition, he is humble about his own degree of knowledge and denies that he is a wise man or that he knows more than his fellow Athenians. The charge that he is teaching the youth false lessons is not in keeping with his idea that he is not teaching any lessons at all but only asking questions. His view is Asian in that it mirrors the view that meaning is found by searching within, that imposing a specific doctrine is not the way to find enlightenment, and that a teacher is a guide rather than a figure of authority. Such ideas are expressed in Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, and other Asian philosophical and religious systems. Socrates takes a very self-effacing position in keeping with the way he subordinates himself to the need of society and so does not challenge the death sentence pronounced against him, nor does he escape when he can because he believes more in the right of the social order to exert its authority over him than he does in his personal welfare. The sublimation of the personal in service of the greater good is also an Asian element that Socrates expresses in his own way, and the way his followers argue with him shows that this idea was not thought common in his own society.

3. In the Republic, Plato addresses the issue of change by making a distinction between the imperfect material world and the changeless world of forms. This world, the world of the senses, is subject to change, but it is only the shadow of the changeless world of forms. Plato presented this idea graphically in the allegory of the cave, where the shadows on the walls represent the imperfect likeness of the perfection of the real objects, much as the real world in which we live is only a reflection of the world of forms. This refers to the world as appearance because the cavern is a representation of total unenlightenment, a void of reality, with no source of true light, the condition Socrates sees for mankind. There are only imitations of things outside the opening of the cave. This is a representation of Plato's cosmology, and it requires the Forms, the particulars modeled on those forms, and the agent who does the modeling, the Craftsman. Order is imposed on the formless reality of this world by the Craftsman, and this occurs as the four basic elements are mixed in varying proportions to form the matter of this world.