has anyone taken philosphy and ot understand a single thing.i need help wit it because i have a test coming up

Question

wat is the the apology mean by plato and wat is the republic about. professors are evil arnt they.

Answer 1

In "The Republic," Plato was trying to design an ideal republic using a number of thought experiments. (He was just going to get everything figured out for us, you see, so all the people who ever lived in later times wouldn't have to figure out anything, just read his book.) He used a story form to get his ideas across. The main character in the story was his old teacher, Socrates. This fictional Socrates was semi-kidnapped (he didn't protest too hard) and carried off to meet with some other argumentative dudes for a big debate on the best form of government. He got sidetracked for a long while trying to prove to an especially loud fellow, Thracymachus, that a society with justice is better than a society without justice. Thracymachus, on the other hand, seemed to think that the biggest guy should just beat up everybody else and then threaten to do it again if they didn't obey his orders.

Answer 2

I'm sorry, I don't know anything about philosophy, but I had to tell you that I laughed out loud when you stated "professors are evil aren't they?"

Answer 3

do the work yourself you lazy s**t

Answer 4

The) Apology (of Socrates) is Plato's version of the speech given by Socrates as he defends himself against the charges of being a man "who corrupted the young, did not believe in the gods, and created new deities". "Apology" here has its earlier meaning (now usually expressed by the word "apologia") of a formal defense of a cause or of one's beliefs or actions (from the Latin apologia, from the Greek "apo" and "logos").

Socrates begins by saying he does not know if the men of Athens (his jury) have been persuaded by his accusers. This first sentence is crucial to the theme of the entire speech. Plato often begins his Socratic dialogues with words which indicate the overall idea of the dialogue; in this case, "I do not know". Indeed, in the Apology Socrates will suggest that philosophy consists entirely of a sincere and humble admission of ignorance, and that wisdom is really nothing more than an acknowledgement of this ignorance.

Socrates begs the jury to judge him, not based on his oratory skills, in which his accusers will surely surpass him, but based on his ability to speak the truth. In fact, he will show that he is quite a skilled orator, and that the beauty of his oration is in the truth he speaks. The entire dialogue is filled with irony.

Socrates' accusers
Three men brought the charges against Socrates. They were:

Anytus, a prominent democrat and almost certainly the leader of the accusers, whom Socrates describes as speaking on behalf of politicians and artisans.
Meletus, the chief spokesperson of the accusers and the target of much of Socrates' attack, a fiery man with a beaked nose, and a representative of the poets.
Lycon, about whom little is known; he was according to Socrates a representative of the orators.
The groups mentioned here can be identified with those whom Socrates questioned, and upset, in the early stages of his quest to find people who possessed knowledge.

The charges against Socrates
Socrates summarises the formal charges against him as follows: "Socrates is guilty of corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in supernatural things of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the State".

However, there was another set of 'charges' against him which Socrates recognised as being more important, and dangerous, because they stemmed from years of gossip and prejudice against him and hence were unanswerable. These so called 'informal charges' Socrates puts into a legalistic form — an 'affidavit' as he calls it: "Socrates is committing an injustice, in that he enquires into things below the earth and in the sky, and makes the weaker argument the stronger, and teaches others to follow his example". He says that these allegations stem from a certain comic poet, namely Aristophanes.

The charges against him were typical of the charges against the sophists. Socrates was wrongly associated with the sophists, who supposedly use rhetorical tricks to win an argument, instead of pursuing the truth, the opposite of what Socrates seeks. A sophist literally means a "wise person." But, Socrates himself makes clear that he does not believe himself to be wise, only one who loves wisdom (philosophy).

Part one
Socrates begins by repeating the charges against him, but simply contradicts them. He says he wishes he had the sort of wisdom the Sophists claim to have and praises them for being so generous in selling such great knowledge at such a humble cost (in fact, he says, his friend Callias had to pay only a year's worth of his income to have his son instructed in this sort of wisdom).

He then tells the story of Chaerephon, who went to the Oracle at Delphi, to ask if anyone in the land was wiser than Socrates. When Chaerephon reported to Socrates that the god told him there is none wiser, Socrates became disturbed. He then went on what he calls a "divine mission" to find someone wiser than he and prove the god wrong.

In the beginning, this pilgrimage involved questioning three main groups: politicians, poets and craftsmen. He found that the politicians knew little, that poets had a source of inspiration beyond themselves because others could explain their poems better than the author, and that while craftsmen possessed knowledge of their particular skill, they felt it gave them the right to claim knowledge in every other area as well.

This task of questioning, known as the "Socratic Method", made Socrates unpopular, especially as the young men of Athens began to mimic him. This was compounded by the general view that Socrates was playing stupid by pretending not to know the answers when in fact he did. Socrates interpreted his pilgrimage as showing that true wisdom belongs to the gods — that of humans has no or little value. The actions of young men who followed Socrates, Plato being one of them, questioned the established people of Athens and led to one of the charges against Socrates.

Socrates has a three-pronged attack against this charge that he was corrupting the young.

He asks Meletus whether the youth are corrupted or made better by various classes of Athenian society. Meletus states that every faction improves the youth with the solitary exception of Socrates, which is an obvious absurdity. Socrates then suggests that since Meletus does not have enough interest in the young to find out how they might be improved, he should not have brought such a charge against Socrates.

He argues that if he set out to corrupt the young men around him, he would be one of the first to suffer harm at their hands. What sane person would do this? He would be setting up a bad community instead of the good one Meletus admits everyone would prefer.

If he did this intentionally, Socrates argues, he could be rightfully accused of acting in an ignorant way. This leaves one possibility, if someone has been corrupted. This is that Socrates acted unintentionally; in which case he should be taken aside by the judges and shown the error of his ways.

Socrates then proceeds to deal with the second charge, that he is an atheist who believes in strange spiritual things. He continues to question Meletus on this matter.

Socrates begins his defense by backing Meletus into a corner. Meletus argues that Socrates is actually an atheist: he believes in no gods at all. In doing so Meletus, as Socrates points out, contradicts the wording of the charge.

This allows Socrates greater room to attack Meletus. All he has to do is prove he believes in one divine being at least, and the revised charge will be disproved. He does this through analogy. Does anyone, he asks, believe in human activities without believing in humans? In equine matters without believing in horses? In musical activities but not in musicians? Similarly, no one believes in divine activities without believing in divine beings. Obviously, if Socrates is being accused of believing and teaching supernatural things, he must believe in supernatural beings, and not be an atheist. Also, while he does not mention it, Socrates is referring to his daimon, a negative or checking impulse which bars him from certain courses of action. This, treated with suspicion, is linked by Socrates to Apollo.

Socrates repeats his claim that it will not be the formal charges which will destroy him, but rather the gossip and slander. He is not afraid of death, because he is more concerned about whether he is acting rightly or wrongly. Further, Socrates argues, those who fear death are showing their ignorance: death may be a great blessing, but many people fear it as an evil when they cannot possibly know it to be such. Again Socrates points out that his wisdom lies in the fact that he is aware that he does not know.

Socrates states clearly that a lawful superior, whether human or divine, should be obeyed. If there is a clash between the two, however, divine authority should take precedence. "Gentlemen, I am your grateful and devoted servant, but I owe a greater obedience to God than to you; and as long as I draw breath and have my faculties I shall never stop practicing philosophy". Since Socrates has interpreted the Delphic Oracle as singling him out to spur his fellow Athenians to a greater awareness of moral goodness and truth, he will not stop questioning and arguing should the people forbid him to do so, even if they were to withdraw the charges. Nor will he stop questioning his fellow citizens. "Are you now ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honour, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?"

In a highly inflammatory section of the Apology, Socrates claims that no greater good has happened to Athens than his concern for his fellow citizens, that wealth is a consequence of goodness (and not the other way around), that God does not permit a better man to be harmed by a worse, and that, in the strongest statement he gives of his task, he is a stinging fly and the state a lazy horse, "and all day long I will never cease to settle here, there and everywhere, rousing, persuading and reproving every one of you."

As further evidence of his task, Socrates reminds the court of his daimon which he sees as a supernatural experience. He recognises this as partly behind the charge of believing in invented beings. Again Socrates makes no concession to his situation. He would have been well aware that many if not most in the courtroom would have viewed this with utmost suspicion.

Socrates claims to never have been a teacher, in the sense of imparting knowledge to others. He cannot therefore be held responsible if any citizen turns bad. If he has corrupted anyone, why have they not come forward to be witnesses? Or if they do not realise that they have been corrupted, why have their relatives not stepped forward on their behalf? Many relatives of the young men associated with him, Socrates points out, are presently in the courtroom to support him.

Socrates concludes this part of the Apology by reminding the jurors that he will not resort to the usual emotive tricks and arguments. He will not break down in tears, nor will he produce his three sons in the hope of swaying the jurors. He does not fear death; nor will he act in a way contrary to his religious duty. He will rely solely on sound argument and the truth to present his case.