At 38a in the Apology, Socrates says that he cannot stop doing philosophy because "the unexamined life is not worth living for man." What does he mean by this? Make sure to avoid paraphrasing this claim; answer the question. Your response should be one paragraph in length.
Some things you might consider in making your response:
- Socrates has talked about "worth" before. (He said that he does not know anything worthwhile.) Is this "worth" the same or different?
- What is the "examined life." How do we examine our lives?
- What would we need to know in order to answer this question?
11 comments:
I think that Socrates means that if you do not ask questions and find answers you will never be able to really understand your purpose of living. Indeed this is impossible for humans because we will never know the answers to everything. Even Socrates explains that he himself could not know the answers to all questions. The difference though is that he tried to find the answers to the things in which he did not quite understand. This is what examining our life is; taking what we do not know and instead of explaing it as something supernatural or religious we take the intiative to understand what these things really are and mean.
What does Socrates mean when he says the unexamined life is not worth living? I think he means that life itself is nothing if we do not put an immeasurable amount of effort into finding out the mysteries which unravel all around us. If we just go on living without really questioning why something is happening as it is or why someone is doing something, we will not feel the true pleasure of knowing and learning. Without questioning the things in our surroundings, we will never learn new things and without the experiencing the wonderful feeling of educating ourselves in something completely new, life will hold half as many pleasures for us. Curiosity is a natural characteristic of every human being. If we question our surroundings and the people around us, we might learn something that will change our perspectives on a subject completely. We might end up learning the flaws in some of our actions and this new piece of information might actually teach us to be a better person. If living a life if we do not examine what we are doing, the consequences might end up being something we’d never hoped for and by not examining it, we might never learn to why we are living our lives the way we are. By examining things, we might even be able to live a more satisfactory and happy life. Thus, if all we do is perform duties and question things, life will not hold as many surprises and wonders as it would for a person who is eager to learn about the things surrounding him.
In The Apology, Socrates says, "The Unexamined Life is not Worth Living." In today's words he's saying "live lfe to its fullest" because if you don't you will never find your life's meaning. Life would be much more enjoyable if you took the chance to find out more about it. You could examine life just by asking questions and searching for answers just as Socrates did. Even if you don't get all the answers to your questions, it's better than doing nothing because we may never know all the answers to the meaning of life. Socrates even admitsthat he does not know everything, but the difference between him and many other people is that at least he has tried.
Samantha Brown
I believe socrates means that the meaning of life is searching for answers. I f something does not ful;fil its meaning or purpose it is considered worthless. For example if a pen does not write we throe it away. So it is with life, if we do not search for answers and worthwhile knowlegde we do not progress in life. We must ask questions and search for their answers whether we find them or not. If we do not, we leave the world the same way we came having served no purpose to ourselves or others which is a waste of a life and opportunity therfore making ourlife not worth living.
We talked about two different types of people who are at "0" on the "wisdom continuum". The people who know that they know nothing but tries to move to the right on the "wisdom continuum" even though they know that they will never get to anywhere close to knowing everything and will always be at "0". The other type is the people that do not try to do anything, therefore, they stay at "0". The first type of people are the people who examines their life. And the second type would be the people that do not. By saying "...the unexamined life is not worth living for men..." Socrates distinguishes the two types of people, one who tries to find the truth and one that does not take any action towards finding the truth, even though they both belong at "0" on the "wisdom continuum". Therefore, according to Socrates, the people who do not try to find the truth are not worth living.
I think that Socrates states the unexamined life is not worth living because what is the point of living when we don't even know why we're living? This is also the same reason why Socrates uses philosophy: to try to find a reasonable and accurate reason in why we live. He wants to try to learn the meaning of living and the purpose for us to live. For us humans to be living on this planet for thousands of years and still not knowing why we continue to exist is something a philosopher like Socrates would continue to question and question, but never comes up with an answer, so he continues to study philosophy until he has this answer. This is what I think of Socrates when he states that the unexamined life is not worth living.
I think what Socrates meant by this claim is that life is all about questioning and learning and so if you don't even try, there's no point in living. Even though we will never know the answers to every question we ask, we still do so and that's all that matters. The questions we do find answers to will help shape our lives and experiences like it did to Socrates and his teachings. This is what I thought Socrates thought when he said "the unexamined life is not worth living for man."
i think that when Socrates said "the examined life is not worth living for man" he meant that it is pointless to be here on earth, to be alive and not really know why your here. to be doing the daily things that a person does but not think and ask himself why he does it. will there be a better place if he keeps doing what he is doing? that are you really agreeing to live and not kno why you are alive and breathing? i read this before but i dont remember from who, on this planet there is always a place and a reason for a person to be alive. i think that is what socrates meant.
I think what Socrates means is that everyone will eventually die before examining their lives. Its not worth living because we are mere mortals. People can spend their entire lives trying to understand the unknown and will never live long enough to find out what it is. For example religion,no one knows who the "true" god or gods are. No one will ever find out because they eventually like everyone else will die.
In saying that "The unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates makes a comment about human life in the form of a person. He is reffering to whether a person should be rightfully allowed, or considered 'worthy', of living. By his earlier definition of worth, or more accurately his definition of human 'knowledge' as lacking any worth, Socrates establishes that it is impossible to know anything truly worth knowing. This connects to the unexamined life in that the unexamined life, or lifeform (man), is not worthy of existence unless this existence is dedicated to getting as close as possible to worthy knowledge. The only way to actively pursue this worth would be to, as Socrates says is his sole occupation, get as far away from the unworthy false knowledge of humans. This process is the examination he reffers to, and without it the lifeform has no true value.
i think socrats is trying to say that a life and a body is given to people for them to do something with it. if they do not rigorously use what they have to help achieve the better of humanity, then they do not deserve the body and mind they have. socrates believes people should contribute their ideas about life to society even if it goes against all established rationale, and only then can society be a functional, progressive, beneficial machine. socrats says if there is a life and no info is analyzed or extracted from that life, then there is no point in the life being there because it is just taking up air.(it cannot even explain why and how it works).
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