It is about the educational philosopher Socrates. It contains history about his life, life in Athens, his philosophy, philosophical perspectives, and death.

1. Philosophical
Perspective of Socrates

2. Table of Content
✣ Socratic Problem
✣ Who was Socrates?
⨳ Early Life
⨳ Life in Athens
✣ Philosophy
⨳ Socrates pursuit of Areté
✣ Socrates view on Democracy
✣ Socratic Method
⨳ Essential components of the Socratic Method
✣ Trail of Socrates
✣ Quotes of Socrates
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Aswe all know that Socrates was a
Greek philosopher whose way of life,
character, and thought exerted a profound
influence on Western philosophy.
He was known as the first philosopher of
the western world

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Socratic Problem

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✣ The Socratic problem is a rat’s nest of
complexities arising from the fact that various
people wrote about Socrates whose accounts
differ in crucial respects, leaving us to
wonder which, if any of them are accurate
representations of the historical Socrates.
✣ All that is known about him has been inferred
from accounts by members of his circle
primarily, Plato and Xenophon, as well as by
Plato’s student Aristotle, who acquired his
knowledge of Socrates through his teacher.

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✣ The most vivid portraits of Socrates
exist in Plato’s dialogues, in most of
which the principal speaker is
“Socrates.”
✣ However, the views expressed by the
character are not consistent
across the dialogues, and in some
dialogues the character expresses
views that are clearly Plato’s own.

7. Who was Socrates?
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8. Early Life
✣ Socrates was born in Athens, Greece (c.470
BCE-399 BCE).
✣ Socrates was well versed in poetry, talented at
music, and quite at-home in the gymnasium.
✣ In accordance with Athenian custom, his father
also taught him a trade, though Socrates did
not labour at it on a daily basis.
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✣ Rather, he spent his days in the agora (the
Athenian marketplace), asking questions of
those who would speak with him.

10. Life in Athens
✣ When he turned 18, he began to perform the
typical political duties required of Athenian males
✣ Socrates fought valiantly during his time in the
Athenian military.
✣ Just before the Peloponnesian War with Sparta
began in 431 B.C.E, he helped the Athenians win the
battle of Potidaea (432 B.C.E.), after which he
saved the life of Alcibiades, the famous Athenian
general.
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11. ✣ He also fought as one of 7,000 hoplites aside
20,000 troops at the battle of Delium (424 B.C.E.)
and once more at the battle of Amphipolis (422
B.C.E.).
✣ Both battles were defeats for Athens.
✣ Despite his continued service to his city, many
members of Athenian society perceived Socrates to
be a threat to their democracy, and it is this
suspicion that largely contributed to his
conviction in court.

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13. ✣ After war he returned back to Athens and
find many people claimed to be wise but he
was quite skeptical of this wisdom.
✣ He said that there is a problem because when
people believe a man is wise they tend to
blindly follow him often with terrible
consequences.

14. “The only true wisdom is in knowing
you know nothing”.
Socrates
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15. ✣ According to Socrates, if you don’t
question this wisdom you can never
discover its flaws, the knowledge
stand still like a stone instead of
growing and changing like a tree.
✣ So, he started asking questions. He
found if someone makes a claim that
something is true the best way to test
that truth is to ask a series of
challenging questions.
✣ He was the first to seriously explore
questions of ethics.

16. Philosophy
✣ Philosophical theories and views are supported by
one’s convictions or beliefs at a deeper level.
✣ Socrates tried to awaken the soul of his partner
in dialogue, rather than trying to give them
knowledge, so that they would be led to self-
realization about their own beliefs and their validity.
✣ According to Socrates,
“Philosophy is self-knowing and self-care by studying
our values”.
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17. Socrates Pursuit of Areté
(Excellence)
✣ The Socrates idea of human
flourishing is actually in his defence
speech in 399 in Plato’s portrayal
(Socrates in Plato, Apology 38A).
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18. .…I say that this is actually the greatest good
for human being, to spend every day in
discussion about human goodness or
excellence (Areté) and the other subjects that
you hear me debating when I question both
myself and other closely; and the unexamined
life (anexetastos bios) is not fit for a human
being to live….
In the above passage, the unexamined life is
“the life without questions”.

19. ✣ This passage is also in a defence speech by
Plato 29 to 30 (Socrates in Plato, Apology
29D to 30B) seem particularly important in a
way to understand how Socrates cultivates
the use of the word philosophy or love of the
wisdom to describe his own practice.
✣ In context his imagining that he jury which has
the power to sentences him death is offering
him the chance to free himself from that
sentence. If he promises to stop doing
philosophia.
✣ So he says,

20. ….“People of Athens, I am grateful and I am your friend,
but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I
draw breath and I am able, I shall not cease to practice
philosophia, to exhort (encourage) you and in my usual
way to point out…Good sir…are you not ashamed of your
eagerness to possess are much possessions (chrēmata),
reputation (doxē) and honour (timē) as possible, while you
do not care for… wisdom (phronēsis) or truth (alētheia) or
the best possible state of your psyche?...
Then if one of you disagree and says that they do care…
I’ll question, examine and test them. And if they don’t seem
to me possess Areté (goodness or excellence) of psyche
though they claim they do, I’ll reproach them.
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21. ✣ For Socrates, this reproach and
examination takes us back to the
beginning again to a process of
encouragement to reorient values in
the way he describes.
✣ What are the values he think should be
reoriented?

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Cultivated values
• Wisdom
• Truth
• Best health of psyche
General values
• Possession
• Reputation
• Honour
On the other hand
• Wisdom
• Truth
• Best health of
psyche

23. ✣ Socrates said we need to reorient these
values.
✣ So normally we care for possessions,
reputation and honours most. Those have
the strongest motivational grip on us. And
we care less about wisdom, truth and health
of our psyche.
✣ He thinks we should try to turn this around
to value our own psychological wellbeing
and search for truth and wisdom more.

24. ✣ This method is supported by Socrates’ theory of
knowledge.
✣ From Socrates’ perspective, true knowledge is
inherently inscribed in the soul of every individual.
✣ This insight was developed by his student Plato as a
theory of recollection.
✣ Socrates believed that philosophy should achieve
practical results for the greater well-being of
society.
✣ He attempted to establish an ethical system based on
human reason rather than theological doctrine.
✣ Socrates pointed out that human choice was
motivated by the desire for happiness.

25. ✣ Plato found this as place or venue to try to realize
some of Socrates inspirations and on his view it was
not a kind of institution for education or
encouragement of that very sort of self-knowledge
and self-care of our values.

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27. Socrates’ View on Democracy
✣ Socrates is portrayed in the dialogues of
Plato as hugely pessimistic about the
whole business of democracy.
✣ In book six of ‘The Republic’, Plato
describes Socrates falling into
conversation with the character called
Adeimantus and trying to get him to see the
flaws of democracy by comparing the
society to a ship.
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28. “If you were heading out on a journey by
sea, ask Socrates, who would you ideally
want deciding who was in charge of the
vessel? Just anyone or people educated in
the rules and demands of seafaring? The
latter of course, says Adeimantus. So why
then, responds Socrates, do we keep
thinking any old person should fit to judge
who should be a ruler of a country?”
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29. ✣ Socrates’s point is that voting in an election is a skill,
not a random intuition and like any skill, it need to be
taught systematically to people.
✣ Letting the citizenry vote without education is as
irresponsible as putting them in charge of a trireme
(type of a ship) sailing to Samos (Island in the Aegean
Sea) in a storm.
✣ Socrates believed that politics with the best form of
government being neither a tyranny (dictatorship) nor
a democracy.
✣ Instead, government worked best when ruled by
individuals who had the greatest ability, knowledge
and virtue, and possessed a complete understanding
of themselves.

30. Socratic Method
✣ One of his contributions to Western thought is his
dialogical method of inquiry, known as the Socratic
Method, which he largely applied to the examination
of key moral concepts such as the Good and justice,
concepts used constantly without any real
definition.
✣ For Socrates, Athens was a classroom and he went
about asking questions of the elite and common man
alike, seeking to arrive at political and ethical
truths.
✣ Socrates didn’t lecture about what he knew.
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31. ✣ In fact, he claimed to be ignorant because he
had no ideas, but wise because he recognized
his own ignorance.

32. ✣ He asked questions of his fellow
Athenians in a dialectic method — the
Socratic Method — which compelled the
audience to think through a problem to a
logical conclusion.
✣ Sometimes the answer seemed so obvious, it
made Socrates' opponents look foolish.
✣ For this, his Socratic Method was admired
by some and vilified by others.

33. ✣ The principle underlying the Socratic Method is
that students learn through the use of critical
thinking, reasoning, and logic.
✣ This technique involves finding holes in their own
theories and then patching them up.
✣ In law school specifically, a professor will ask a
series of Socratic questions after having a
student summarize a case, including relevant
legal principles associated with the case.
✣ Professors often manipulate the facts or the
legal principles associated with the case to
demonstrate how the resolution of the case can
change greatly if even one fact changes.

34. ✣ The goal is for students to solidify their
knowledge of the case by thinking critically
under pressure.
✣ This often rapid-fire exchange takes place in
front of the entire class so students can
practice thinking and making arguments on
their feet.
✣ It also helps them master the art of speaking
in front of large groups.

35. Essential components of the
Socratic Method
1. The Socratic Method uses questions to examine the
values, principles, and beliefs of students.
2. The Socratic Method focuses on moral education,
on how one ought to live.
3. The Socratic Method demands a classroom
environment characterized by "productive
discomfort."
4. The Socratic Method is better used to demonstrate
complexity, difficulty, and uncertainty than at
eliciting facts about the world.
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37. Trail of Socrates
✣ In 399 B.C., Socrates was accused of corrupting the
youth of Athens and of impiety, or heresy.
✣ He chose to defend himself in court.
✣ Rather than present himself as wrongly accused,
Socrates declared he fulfilled an important role as
a gadfly, one who provides an important service to
his community by continually questioning and
challenging the status quo and its defenders.
✣ The jury was not swayed by Socrates' defence and
convicted him by a vote of 280 to 221.
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38. ✣ Possibly the defiant tone of his defence contributed
to the verdict and he made things worse during the
deliberation over his punishment.
✣ Athenian law allowed a convicted citizen to propose
an alternative punishment to the one called for by
the prosecution and the jury would decide.
✣ Instead of proposing he be exiled, Socrates
suggested he be honoured by the city for his
contribution to their enlightenment and be paid for
his services.
✣ The jury was not amused and sentenced him to death
by drinking a mixture of poison hemlock.

39. Quotes of Socrates
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41. Eυχαριστώ
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