Philosophy Essay Samples
[...] Although it was the trial of Socrates life, it was not arranged according to the correct procedures. The prosecutors of Socrates were private individuals and the defendant himself did not possess an attorney. Besides, throughout the text, Apology has no reference to the existence of the judge at the trial, the only authorities present is the jury, which was in good time warned of the defendant's flowery eloquence, thus making the process deliberately prejudged. In addition to all of the above it is obvious that Socrates behaves himself at the trial in a self-accusative way. His intent was not to prove owns innocence but to convince others in the unworthiness of the existing laws. After the defense, the jury votes innocent or guilty, and in our case propose death as punishment. The defendant proposes a counter-penalty, after which the jury votes once again as to accept Socrates' proposal or not. Eventually the proposal is denied and Socrates is condemned to death. The trial concludes with Socrates' last word spoken after he knows that he is sentenced to death. [...]
[...] One of the early followers of the rationalism was an outstanding Greek philosopher Plato. His idea of rationalism can be expressed through understanding universe through reasoning. Being a student of well-known Greek philosopher Socrates, Plato believed that the knowledge and universal truth could be found through reasoning; that is the truth lays beyond the physical senses that one could not rely on for true knowledge. The main philosophical beliefs of Plato rested on his principles of absolutes that he called ideas or Forms. Plato believed that forms could not be expressed or described through physical processes. Though Plato has learned a lot from Socrates, who shared mathematical views of Pythagoreans, his idea of the relation between things did not rest on numerical correlation. The philosopher was more interested in the mathematics as the science of reasoning. His primary application of the mathematics was the study and solution of the philosophical problems that came through reasoning. [.]
[...] The reasons for civil obedience and disobedience can be found through taking a closer look at essentials of human conduct. There are many theories regarding human nature, morality, and of course, the idea of natural order, which has to be followed by all of the thinking beings on earth, and is considered to be one of the most ancient beliefs of humanity. The notions of human nature and natural order served as the base for Indian and Chinese religions, as well as, gave birth to ancient Greek philosophy. Famous Greek philosopher Plato studied the so-called "natural right order" and called it "justice". He then used it for the legal system of humans instead of applying it to all creations of nature, as it was done previously. The Western society based its measure of justice in the man-made laws of the state, its moral standards and judgments on the fact that laws of the state have to be inline with natural law but they are not purely natural laws. In modern times the humanity uses the so-called positive laws. Most of them were created in such a way that if these laws ran counter to the ideas of natural law they were considered to be unjust and would be abolished. [...]