Woah.
So I am told…Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom.
One day an acquaintance ran up to him excitedly and said, ‘Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?’
‘Wait a moment,’ Socrates replied. ‘Before you tell me I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.’
‘Triple filter?’ asked the acquaintance.
‘That’s right,’ Socrates continued. 'Before you talk to me about my student let’s take a moment to filter what you’re going to say.
The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?’
‘No,’ the man said, ‘actually I just heard about it.’
‘All right,’ said Socrates. 'So you don’t really know if it’s true or not.
Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?’
‘No, on the contrary …’.
‘So,’ Socrates continued, ‘you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you’re not certain it’s true?’.
The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Socrates continued.’ You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?’
‘No, not really…’
‘Well,’ concluded Socrates, ‘if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?’
The man was defeated and ashamed.
This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.
It also explains why he never found out that Plato was shagging his wife.
No…just, no. That’s not how it worked in Antiquity (there’s also a lot of context for Socrates’ trial and career that is missing here, but then again, I’m presuming this is a high school intro class).
Anyway, at least your teacher has got your class motivated, which is always a good thing, so kudos to him (Greek word that means, ‘Awesome, dude’.)
Well, as a man, he couldn’t help doing what it would take a man to do. If he didn’t do it, he wouldn’t be a man.
So Socrates was screwed in the end … which is … the Greek way, after all.
Athenian court procedure had a system. The law defined one punishment (in this case death). But the defendant had the right to suggest an alternative lesser punishment. And the jury could vote on which of the two punishments to impose.
If Socrates had suggested some lesser punishment like being exiled or being forbidden from teaching, the jury most likely would have gone for it. But Socrates suggestion for his “punishment” was that he be given a public pension for his good work.
As I wrote before, he was essentially pushing the government into executing him.
Arguably, the bit of news would have been useful…
Socrates claimed to have a “divine sign,” a personal god or daimon living in his head, that guided him, at least to the extent of warning him what course of action or train of thought was wrong, never what was right. (A metaphor for a certain kind of intuition, perhaps, or for a moral conscience.) This was not exactly heresy or blasphemy, there was nothing in the state religion or traditional mythology ruling out the existence of such a thing; but it amounted to claiming he was a prophet, which was bound to make a lot of other Athenians look at him funny.
This is news to me.
Who thought that Socrates having/hearing a daimon “amounted to claiming” that he was a “prophet”? Plato? Socrates’ accusers at the trial? Later writers?
My impression was that his students and followers considered him a philosopher, rather than a prophet, and that his accusers and enemies considered him a blasphemer.
Bigger question (obviously a hijack, but hey): Was it common for folks in those days to claim to have/hear a daimon, or was Socrates kinda unique in this regard?
Why are we doing this guy’s homework for him?
I recall a dialogue, forget which one, where ways-of-knowing are being discussed, and Socrates remarks that his own divine sign is so rare that it is hardly worth mentioning.
Very interesting, didn’t know that, thanks!
We want him to get an A in world history? To that end, I would like him to include this tidbit in his essay on Socrates.
Socrates often ate unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients.
You are not. We are done with Socrates in school. I already did the homework.
You are exactly correct. I was having fun essentially condemning Socrates to forever have to listen to snoo snoo, the 75th governor of New Hampshire.
Well, the essay is way too good for even an A in high school. And lacks citations, so it isn’t for college. It’s also too good for an A in college. You have a talent at this. Either that, or I didn’t check for plagiarism using Google.
Now that you’ve upended the conventional thinking about Socrates and sent historians of Ancient Greece scrabbling to re-write their textbooks, Anonymous User, what’s next for you? Will it turn out that Hitler was wrong to try and wipe out the Jews, and was it wrong to capture and transplant people for slavery? Will you shock the academic elite by proclaiming that Stalin shouldn’t have starved and imprisoned millions from Russia and the surrounding states? Perhaps you’ll delve into the moral ambiguity of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, or the killing of Medgar Evers? I await with trepidation your next overturning of the conventional wisdom of the lazy learned.
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Man in Black: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons.
Complex exploration of the bleeding obvious. Plato says we are limited by our perceptions, like shadows in a cave. Fucking deep, Plato. Go bore somebody else.
I’m actually in a freshman honors World History I class.
I average a 95 in this class after the semester for now. I got a 95 for the first quarter, and I have a 95 this quarter right now.
You actually liked the essay? I thought this was one of my weakest pieces of writing and actually did not think I did too well. I haven’t gotten my grade yet (I’ll reveal it once I get it). The citations aren’t there because our history teacher doesn’t want us putting in citations right now; the kind of writing is practice for the CAPT test coming up next year so he’s having us write a lot of these kinds of essays (we had to do one on Sparta vs. Athens (who had the better educational system), and there’s one coming up on why or why not you think Alexander the Great deserved the title “Great” after his name). And in a CAPT essay you are basically given the articles and you have 65 minutes to read them and write an essay. Right now, he’s not having us do it at quite that speed; we are actually getting a long amount of time to write the essays. But one of them he had us prepare for and then said he would have us write the essay in class - 42 minutes. This essay that I included in my OP was one of those kinds where you have like a week(s) to plan and write your essay so that may be why it was good (I still can’t tell whether you meant it in sarcasm, or literally). The essay question, like I said was, do you think Socrates committed treason against the city-state, Athens?
Anyways, if you did like the essay, what was so good about it? What did you like about it?
EDIT: There was no plagiarism. It’s all in my own words. The facts are obviously from other sources, but remember he didn’t have us cite those. I’m sure if we were in college, we would have to cite them.