Reflection 11

I remember the first time I heard of Socrates, I was in my seventh grade Philosophy/World Religions class. What I remembered most from the lesson was the Socratic method-answering a question with a question and that he focused on the five cardinal virtues which were "piety, wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice." However, after reading about him again other things stood out.

The Socratic Method or elenchus as it is also called was the foundation for later Western philosophy. It involves definitions of questions of key moral concepts. An idea of how the elenchus was used was to first get someone to express a belief usually one dealing with the definition of moral concept, then he would get to say another belief usually one that talked about virtuous concepts and the perception of good, next Socrates would go on to show the person how his second beliefs refute his first beliefs, and finally, he would show the person the their beliefs does not match and therefore are wrong.



Socrates also believed in order to live a truly happy life; you had to live a virtuous one. Today we believe that superficial and materialistic things will make us happy. We want the nice cars, big house, lengthy wardrobe, fat bank accounts, and perfect bodies because we feel like they bring us closer to happiness. Socrates on the other hand believed that in order to be happy, you had to get the materialistic and superficial things out of your mind and just focus on your being pure. According to Socrates, as long as you led a pure and virtuous life, you would be happy.

When examining the life and influences of Socrates, you can see that his works have left an impact on Western education. Today, many students and teachers use Socrates way of thinking whether they notice it or not. Let's say a student blurts out a wrong answer in class, the teacher can easily tell the student the answer is wrong and move on to the next student, but instead of doing this, she decides to show the student why the answer is wrong. The teacher continues on by first asking the student the question, then the teacher asks the student another question similar to the subject, then the teacher shows the student how the answers do not match, and finally lets the student see that the answer is flawed and know the reasons why.