Socrates Socrates was accused of many things in the Athens market. Socrates was accused of being a man who makes the worse argument into the stronger argument. A man who knows about the heavens and earth and therefore any one who believe this must not believe in the gods. Socrates was accused of being an atheist. Most of the people that followed him around his quest were inquisitive. Where as most adults would walk by Socrates with his “annoying question” the youth stopped to see what he had to say.
The youth became his followers when he went out to ask questions that undermined society. Therefore, Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth. I do not believe that Socrates was guilty. For the fact that he was not responsible for the way, other people used what he said. Socrates is the seeker of self-knowledge. He poses the question, “how can I know about the world if I do not know who I’m.” Then the society says, “know thyself.” These two sayings sound alike but society has something else in mind, know thyself means that you must know your place in society.
Socrates wanted people to find out who they were by themselves and not let society tell them who they were. You have to know how you think and act in certain situation to know yourself. Knowing yourself in a sense helps you in fact know the world. Socrates might have believed it takes time to know yourself rather than just saying you know who you are.
The Essay on How does society shape people’s lives?
The aim of this essay is to explore how society shapes people’s lives. The meaning of the word “shaping” in this context means to “influence or affect” (The Open University, 2013, YO32 p 29). This essay will focus on Childhood: Body image and stress related eating disorders, from Block 4, Unit 3 and Psychology: Social influence, happiness and natural and synthetic happiness from Unit 5. Society ...
Therefore, Socrates went out to find an answer to the question “What is X?” Socrates asks the question what is piety to man named Euthyphro. Socrates is looking for the universal meaning of what piety is. Euthyphro thought he knew the answer but no such answer was found for that question. Thus in many efforts like these to find answers to similar question Socrates, began to be disliked by many. In this process, he was undermining society’s laws of what was to be true.
Socrates wanted people to unlearn what they were previously taught. In the process, he obtains many followers mostly the youth. One man be himself can not corrupt the youth. Socrates did not corrupt the youth. He was just a man searching for the answer to the question of who he was. People decided, of there own free will that they would come and listen to his conversation.
He says this in Plato’s Apology, “If anyone, young or old, desires to listen to me when I am talking and dealing with my own concerns, I have never begrudged this to anyone.’ He did not ask them to join him; each person had a choice in the matter. Socrates is not responsible for other people’s action nor is he responsible for what people learn from his questions. He himself claimed not to know any thing. You can not teach some one something you yourself do not know.
Socrates was accused of many things but he was not guilty of corrupting the youth. He was a dangerous man as are all men of change are. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of change. He wanted people to change their belief of how blacks should be treated. Martin Luther King Jr was put to death.
Socrates punishment for trying to find out what the actual truth is, was death. This was an unjust punishment. People have choices and the youth chose to listen to Socrates and try to change the way they thought. Socrates does not charge people to listen to him nor did he stop them from listening to him. In Plato’s Apology Socrates says, “If anyone says that he has learned anything from me, or that he heard anything privately that the others did not hear, be assured that he is not telling the truth.”.
