Page 10 - GROUP-2-E-Magazine

THE SOCRATIC

LEGACY

Socrates is unique among the great
philosophers in that he is portrayed
and remembered
as a quasi-saint or religious figure.
Moreover, Socrates’ life became an
exemplar of the difficulty and the
importance of living (and if necessary,
dying) according to one’s well-
examined beliefs. He taught that
human beings need only to reflect
upon their inner feelings to find the
truth of all things, in language the
people were accustomed to as one of
the “learned” scholars of his day. The
Greeks assumed that they were
protected by the blessings of God. In
his 1791 autobiography Benjamin
Franklin reduced this notion to a
single line:
“Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

Socrates and his disciples also
broadened the purpose of philosophy
from attempting to
comprehend the outer world to
attempt to distinguish one's inner
beliefs. His love for definitions and
hair-splitting problems inspired the
development of formal logic and
systematic ethics from the time of
Aristotle to the Renaissance and the
modern age.