Socrates & Plato

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Critical analysis reflection

1. On Socrates, Plato & their Ancient Greece

As the video explained, Socrates' did not read or write but his views of reality, virtue and opinions on values and knowledge was influenced from the teachings of a number of earlier philosophers, including Sophists Crito, Zeno, Heraclitus, Euripides & Parmenides. But since ensuring that the claims of Plutarch about the historical Socrates can never be corroborated since Socrates only ever appeared in the writings of his students Xenophon & Plato (who later taught Aristotle) and as a tragic character in the comedies of Aristophanes who poked fun at him, we can only ever surmise about the real Socrates and what he did in his lifetime. The video talked about a Greece that was divided according to class. Socrates came from an unimportant family and was a stone mason. When the oracle of Delphi declared him to be the wisest man, much of the learned of Greece laughed for he was a poor man. Yet he had a way of questioning and analysis reality. His goal was to learn and know, to find out about life's purpose, about morality, about beauty and knowledge. He was a critic who taught in the markets and open public areas, he asked for no tuition but his criticism rang true always hence he was called a 'gadfly', an annoying insect on the bull that was Athens.

He continued what he did best, teaching and sharing, questioning, criticising to find out the claim of the oracle in Delphi - seeking out men much wiser than ...