Socrates’ good friend Plato
Plato is to most, the best source of information about Socrates, as he seemed to understand him best, for Plato was a philosopher himself. He was forty years younger than Socrates, and much of his beliefs, and theories where discovered due to Socrates help. He was one of many of Socrates students, but he was probably the most devoted. He seemed to grasp the way that Socrates mind worked; I don’t feel that this is something that the average Joe could accomplish. His believes often coincided with Socrates’ although many of them seemed to evolve later in Plato’s life. Plato became the conduit in which Socrates ideas lived on.
Plato’s dialogues were divided into three categories, the early dialogues, the middle, and late. These were separated by the time in Plato’s life when he wrote them, it seems the early dialogues would render the clearest picture of Socrates, as some of the later dialogues seemed to be infused with his own thoughts and ideas, and Socrates became a mouthpiece for them in his writings.
Among the early dialogues is Euthyphyro, in which Socrates and Euthyphyro are conversing on the porch of King Archon. During this they are speaking of piety, and what it means to be pious, and why someone would want to be pious. These dialogues, as well as many other early ones, such as Loches, Charmides, and Lysis seem to show the way that Socrates used a form of questioning to search for knowledge, or some sort of understanding. It seems like he instinctively understood what was right, but he knew he could not tell anyone what to do, they had to discover it on their own. These dialogues showed how to look at the world from another perspective; we can uncover much truth that we did not already know.
Posted by Chris | 0 comments
