Humanities Homework Help

Part 1:M3. Assignment: Socrates’ Famous Tria

Socrates drinks hemlock. Source: Flickr

As a famous person, we really want to come to Socrates’ defense when we decide whether or not he was guilty of undermining Athenian youth. But as we saw in the Lecture on Socrates, the issue of his guilt is a difficult one to solve. The Athenians in the Classic Age had created an extraordinary egalitarian culture based on traditions handed down from Homer. Socrates, as well as the Sophists, challenged those traditions but had nothing to substitute for the traditions they criticized other than a relativistic, self-interested approach to life. This lack of answers to the criticisms he posed infuriated his fellow citizens.

This week’s assignment, from the section on The Apology, as quoted in our text, focuses on the dialogue between Socrates and Meletus, the person who brought charges against him. Socrates ridicules Meletus and mocks his argument as to his guilt. Given what you know of Socrates from the week’s readings, do you think Socrates was guilty of the charges against him? Give at least 3 reasons why you hold the view that you do, and give specific examples from the text to give substance to your claim.

Submission:

• Must be a minimum of 1 1/2 pages with standard 1-inch margins in Times New Roman or Garamond font.
• Must be double-spaced.
• Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.
• Must include in-text citations and references in MLA style. No outside sources.
• Name, course, and assignment top left.
• Include a Title.

Part 2 : M3. Discussion: No one Knowingly Does Evil

Topic

One of Socrates’ famous beliefs is that “no one knowingly does evil”. Most of us can think of at least one person we have known who knew full well what evil deed he/she was doing, and yet did it anyway. We could debate the question in this way, but a fuller appreciation of the Greek mindset leads to a more satisfying answer. In the first place, Socrates didn’t really say, “no one knowingly does evil”. Actually, he said no one knowingly does kakos. In ancient Greek, kakos means something bad; it does not have the same connotation of some sort of religious evil or human depravity that the word does today. So what could he have meant?

Socrates. Source: Flickr. Creative Commons.

Socrates’ thinking on this really begins with his view that virtue is knowledge. So the more knowledgeable a person is, the better he/she is. From this, one would logically conclude that less knowledge, means less good. But another linguistic complication arises with this. It has become commonplace to translate the word arete as a virtue. It honestly does not mean virtue in the way we think today. It means excellence of some kind. So in the end what Socrates is recommending is that in order to be an excellent person (wise), one needs to be knowledgeable about what it takes to be wise. And in order to do that, one has to have some conception of excellence as wisdom. So then, one can’t be blamed for doing the wrong thing, if one doesn’t know a better way to live one’s life. The wise person recognizes that knowledge to excel is to be sought after not shunned.

After you have read the chapter, come to some conclusions about what qualities you think a person needs to lead an excellent life today, to be a person of integrity who is well regarded by his/her family, friends, and co-workers. Don’t necessarily connect excellence with financial success (although excellence might lead to that). See if you can get to the heart of what Socrates means.