The Man Who Asked Questions Flashcards
(37 cards)
Patron Saint
the protecting or guiding saint of a person or place.
Gadfly
an annoying person, especially one who provokes others into action by criticism.
Peloponnesian wars
A book written by Thucydides.
Deceitful
guilty of or involving deceit deceiving or misleading others.
Disconcerting
causing one to feel unsettled.
Sophists
a paid teacher of philosophy and rhetoric in ancient Greece, associated in popular thought with moral skepticism and specious reasoning.
Carpentry
the activity or occupation of making or repairing things in wood.
Platonic
of or associated with the Greek philosopher Plato or his ideas.
Deceptive
giving an appearance or impression different from the true one misleading.
Profoundly
to a profound extent extremely.
Totalitarian
relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.
Deliberately
consciously and intentionally on purpose.
Hemlock
a highly poisonous European plant of the parsley family, with a purple-spotted stem, fernlike leaves, small white flowers, and an unpleasant smell.
- To what did Socrates compare himself and why?
Answer not listed: “He saw himself as one of those horseflies that have a nasty bite—a gadfly. They’re irritating, but don’t do serious harm. Not everyone in Athens agreed, though.”
2.What was Socrates’ physical appearance like?
Answer not listed: “Snub-nosed, podgy, shabby, and a bit strange, Socrates did not fit in. Although physically ugly and often unwashed, he had great charisma and a brilliant mind.”
3.What was the purpose of Socrates’ conversation with Euthydemus?
To demonstrate that moral and immoral actions can be complex: “Socrates by using a clever counter-example has shown that Euthydemus’ general comment that being deceitful is immoral doesn’t apply in every situation.”
4.How did Socrates challenge Euthydemus’ views on morality?
By proposing a hypothetical scenario in which deceitful acts could be moral: “But what, Socrates asked, if your friend is feeling very low and might harm himself, and you steal his belongings that could bring him harm? Isn’t that a deceitful act?”
- What was Socrates’ approach to conversation in the marketplace?
To reveal the limits of people’s understanding and question their assumptions: “Socrates loved to reveal the limits of what people genuinely understood, and to question the assumptions on which they built their lives.”
- What did Socrates spend years doing after learning that the Oracle at Delphi declared him the wisest man in Athens?
Answer not listed: “He devoted years to questioning people to see if anyone was wiser than he was.”
7.How is the work of modern philosophers different from the work of Socrates?
Modern philosophers have more information to work with than Socrates did: “Unlike Socrates, though, modern philosophers have the benefit of nearly two and a half thousand years of philosophical thinking to build on.”
8.What kind of wisdom does the Western tradition in philosophy value?
Wisdom based on argument and reasoning: “The kind of wisdom that it values is based on argument, reasoning, and asking questions, not on believing things simply because someone important has told you they are true.”
9.What does Socrates believe about the value of examining one’s existence?
It is essential for human beings: Socrates believed that “Life… is only worth living if you think about what you are doing. An unexamined existence is all right for cattle, but not for human beings.”
10.Why did Socrates refuse to write anything down?
He believed face-to-face conversation was superior to writing: “Written words can’t answer back; they can’t explain anything to you when you don’t understand them. Face-to-face conversation was much better, he maintained.”
11.What are the Platonic Dialogues?
Answer not listed: “Plato wrote down a series of conversations between Socrates and the people he questioned. These are known as the Platonic Dialogues and are great works of literature as well as philosophy.”
