SOCRATES PLATO and ARISTOTLE IN EARLY GREECE essays

SOCRATES PLATO and ARISTOTLE IN EARLY GREECE essays As one of the greatest Greek philosophers, Socrates had a passionate concern to discover valid guidelines for leading a just life and to prove that justice is better than injustice under all circumstances which in effect gave a new direction to Greek philosophy and teaching. Compared to most of his contemporaries, Socrates lived in poverty and publicly disdained material possessions, but as a teacher, Socrates spent a good deal of his time in conversation and contemplation with his fellow Athenians, especially the young people of Greece. Socrates wrote nothing and all of our knowledge of his ideas comes from the writings of others, especially those of Plato, his one-time pupil. Plato's dialogues portray Socrates as a great teacher who often conversed about philosophy, the arts and pedagogy. By using what has come to be called the Socratic method, Socrates never directly instructed his students; instead, he led them to draw their own conclusions in response to many probing questions concerning numerous cherished by unexamined assumptions about life and sometimes death. Along with Socrates, Plato's ideas were basically aimed at attempting to describe the ideal political and social organization to be headed by leaders imbued with philosophical wisdom. After his death, many of his views and ideas attracted little attention among philosophers for the next two centuries until they were revived as important points for debate in the Roman era. Nevertheless, the sheer intellectual power of Plato's thoughts and ideas and the controversies they have created since his lifetime have won him fame as one of the world's greatest philosophers and teachers. Much like his great teacher Socrates, Plato's idea that humans possessed immortal souls distinct from their bodies established the concept of dualism, being a separation between the spirit and the physical. This idea of the...