Socrates & Why?

      The Trials of Socrates really makes you think. The conversations in this book between Socrates and others show us the highly inquisitive mind that Socrates possessed. A highly inquisitive mind that made people talk in circles and reevaluate what they held to be true until it was questioned. This text fits into the community section of the course because Socrates' methods influenced the community at the time and still influence people today. Questioning values, beliefs, and theories,  otherwise known as elenchus, is key throughout the text. Socrates makes people realize what they think they know they actually may not know anything about at all. This allows any reader to reevaluate what they grew up and learned, or self-developed, to be true. Socrates believed that philosophizing was so important to the human race that he rather die for it than ever deny it or give it up. He focused on moral education and reform which led to the questioning of the law, what is just and unjust, pious and unpious, and also led to the questioning of parenting and the knowledge parents give to their children. Socrates also held the belief that all we need in life to be virtuous and happy is knowledge. In his quest for knowledge, Socrates had roundabout discussions with a variety of people including Euthyphro, Crito, and Aristophanes. Socrates and Euthyphro attempt to fully define pious and unpious in relation to living and to pleasing the gods. Euthyphro prosecutes his father for an unjust act (murder) and describes his own definitions of pious and unpious. However, Socrates keeps pushing for proof for why Euthyphro defines things the way he does and evidence to back everything he says up. Socrates keeps a constant “why?” within every conversation to extract the most information. Since Plato wrote this section, we do not know if Socrates meant his use of “friend” and “dear” as sarcasm, or if he often used those terms when he spoke with Euthyphro. I see the use of these “pet names” in the conversation as a persistent reminder that Socrates believes no one really knows anything, that “true” means something different to each person, and that Socrates believes Euthyphro is ridiculous to think he possesses all this knowledge. I agree with Socrates throughout the text because when you actually question everything you know, you feel like you really do not know anything. The thoughts I had when I was reading concerned “truth” and “law.” We are brought up to believe what our parents, teachers and even friends tell us and teach us. But as we experience life and live through different hardships, we begin to define things as they affect us. So althought the law is meant to govern us as a people, the definitions of right and wrong can be polar opposites between individual people. Crito mentions the “majority opinion” as being something that defines right or wrong by whether or not the majority agrees upon it.  Another example would be religion, we grow up learning beliefs our parents pass on to us and through going to Church or other services. However, as we experience life and learn about different religions and cultures around the world, we begin to shape our own beliefs, which can either work towards what our parents have taught us or completely break us away from what we have grown up holding to be true (Aristophanes /son). Socrates can be confusing, and even Crito admits to him, “I can’t answer your question since I don’t understand it” (71), but if we question what we know and question what others know, we can ultimately build up a knowledge that may or may not be true, but has much more theories from which to build the bigger pictures.