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The Apology

The Apology -Written Reflection-2 When unfolding the truths of ancient philosophy, one may come across three big names: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. We might be familiar with the names but its astonishing to realize the fact that Socrates with his expertise on Philosophy never jot down his thoughts but thankfully his student Plato included Socrates as the main character in most of his writings to share his views and beliefs on various ideas while also displaying the noble character of Socrates. The Apology is a dialogue written by Plato to recreate the essence of the actual trial that took place against Socrates and the events that led to the great philosopher’s death.

Socrates was known to be the gadfly of Athens as he challenged people’s beliefs by engaging them in philosophical conversations and debates; also known as the Socratic method. Moreover, Socrates’s ideas were unconventional, and he was a free thinker which attracted many young people who admired him for his bold opinions and Plato was one of his youngest followers or students who over time became a famous philosopher himself. One of the most famous claims by Socrates was that the only thing he knew was nothing. He practiced Socratic Ignorance, which is a philosophical standpoint of maintaining the acknowledgement that one does not have any knowledge. Furthermore, there is a reason why Socrates had always claimed to know nothing that influenced his approach towards philosophy. Socrates had a friend who once visited the Oracle (powerful Gods like Apollo’s messenger) at Delphi and asked him, “Who is the wisest person of all?” To which the Oracle instantly replied: “Socrates!” Once Socrates had decoded what the Oracle meant, he sets out on a mission to expose people’s ignorance only with the intention to make them wiser and elevate them to his level. However, while trying to walk the path of Apollo or interpreting Oracle’s message to help people, Socrates made a lot of enemies by exposing people’s ignorance publicly as people felt that Socrates was looking down on them, making them look stupid and embarrassed. Even though, Socrates realized people’s bitterness towards him yet he chose to walk down the path of what he believed to be his duty to Apollo.

The Apology begins with Socrates on trial for three main accusations: Corrupting the youth as he had many followers, not believing in the official God of the state and practicing a new religion of the supernatural. However, before an attempt to defend himself, Socrates clears the misconception of “False Socrates”, which was basically the fact that the jury and people already had views and opinions about him (false perception of him), or they already had a point against him, so he must defend himself from that first. He clears up the misconception about himself that he is a “Fee- earning teacher of virtue” by claiming that he could not be a teacher let alone charge fee for it when he himself has always claimed that he knows nothing.

After clearing up all misconceptions about himself, Socrates responds to the charges by attacking the people who accused him by making them realize that they didn’t know what they were talking about. Consequently, Socrates reflects on the life he has lived and the choices he has made that have led him to be on trial today by saying,” The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates emphasis that it is not enough to exist in life, life on its own is not worth living…one must find meaning to their life, there needs to be more curiosity, adventure and questions. Socrates realized he may be put to death, yet he chose to reflect on the topic of an unexamined life because there is nothing that Socrates would do differently as he had truly questioned and pondered upon the meaning of life. He had done everything in his power to enlighten the people and bring them close to the truth of life. He had a strong sense of integrity and love for the people of Athens, and he wanted to let them know that one must live a true life and fulfill their duties regardless of the consequences. Additionally, he explains that people must not fear death, it is not wise as we don’t know what death is. It could be either of two things: we go into a deep sleep – with no more conscious experience, no pain and no pleasure, or wake up in another world and begin a new adventure in a new world! Alas! Socrates was found guilty and sentenced to death. However, the prosecution proposed a choice to Socrates, to pick his own path to death (in essence, it was just an attempt to make Socrates apologize for his actions and to pledge to not commit them again to escape death). Socrates had integrity and lived his philosophy of life with pride, he refused to lie or apologize for his actions instead he proposed the idea that his punishment should be to become the ward of the state because of his service to the people of Athens through his philosophical pursuits. To this, the prosecution responds by keeping their word and are waiting for the festivals and celebrations to end, to finally put an end to Socrates’s life.

However, the people of Athens loved Socrates and admired him, nobody wanted him to die. So, one of Socrates’s friends visits him with a plan to help Socrates escape Athens, while he is held in a prison; his friend tips the jailer to allow him to free Socrates. Socrates could very well escape in the moment, but he refuses to escape and explains that escaping the punishment passed by the justice system of Athens will be a message to everyone in Athens that he had no faith in the justice system, and if people lost faith in the legal system, the society would crumble. Moreover, he believes he must protect Athens for the country raised him to be who he is today. Hence, Socrates refused to escape and died by drinking poison.

On reflecting upon the sad yet noble dialogue: The Apology, I have great respect for Socrates, and I admire him for his philosophy of life. I believe that to live an examined life means to seek a dream or passion for something and be of service to the people around us. For me, an examined life is to pursue my aspirations while inspiring as many people as I can along the way. I completely agree with Socrates when he remarks that it is better to not live at all than to live an unexamined life because going through the motions of life with no sense of direction or understanding is meaningless and results in no knowledge, adventure, joy, experience, thrill or wisdom. To be born and living almost over half a century on earth, to just go where the current of life takes you with no purpose of our own, with no dreams that scare yet thrill us and no character of our own but something that people made us is just a dull and hollow life with an unfulfilled void of creation or adventure of our own. But to live a life where one strives to be something, stands tall in the face of fear, creates something of their own, be of service to people with something as small as to make them smile, having the guts to be bold and standing up in face of adversity as well as for what he or she believes in, becoming a character of your own choice and to leave a legacy that people can learn and look up to even long after you are gone is what I call the experience of Life! I believe in today’s world; people do not live an examined life that Socrates taught us to live. Socrates wanted us to question and ponder upon the meaning of our existence, he wanted us to look at life through the lens of curiosity and adventure. However, most people are seen following two paths. Firstly, people follow the herd or do what has been forced upon them. For instance, we are primed since childhood that life is supposed to be like school-college-job-marriage-retire-death. So, we often never question the cycle, one could become an artist instead of getting an 8-8pm job but since that’s what our parents and friends are and have been doing, we give in to the same fate not being curious about the talent that we have, or to be adventurous and taking the risk to explore something unique for ourselves. Secondly, people go through the motions of life without seeking meaning behind all of it. For example, scrolling through Instagram or watching Netflix mindlessly without the intention of gaining something from it. In the modern world, access to immense knowledge is now easier than ever and just a click away. If one really wanted to live an examined life, he or she could simply look up the meaning and ways to live a fulfilled life. However, technology and the busy lives entangled with work and responsibilities have made it difficult to take a moment, pause and reflect upon the “why” behind our actions or even simply be able to sit with ourselves and get to know who we are- the person we live with our entire lives!

To put it in a nutshell, The Apology is not only a dialogue to describe the story of Socrates but is a sneaky treasure of extremely significant philosophical lessons that can influence a person’s approach to life. Ironically, Socrates who claimed to know nothing was indeed the wisest of all as he whole heartedly accepted what others thought to be demeaning: To not know anything is the first step to wisdom and to accept our own ignorance is not humiliating but enlightenment!

Srishti Saini

PHIL-1A -The Apology-Written Reflection-2 https://globalbuzznetwork.com/the-ship-of-thesus-writing-reflection-1/

The Ship of Thesus

The Ship of Thesus– -Writing Reflection-1 Heraclitus of Ephesus wanted to identify a single principle that could unify the investigation of all subject matter. He said, “It is not possible to not step into the same river twice.” And claimed that change is the only constant. With that in mind, one might suspect anything and everything that might not change over time. Most of us will agree that physical aspects of plants, animals, food, babies, human beings and our identities change over time. But what about objects? Does a car change over time? How about jewelry, clothes, shoes, trains or a ship? Even though we might think they do not but The Ship of Thesus is a philosophical puzzle that touches upon two major identity theories; namely, the Mereological theory of Identity and the Spatio-temporal theory of Identity that demonstrate how an object might change over time.

The puzzle revolves around Thesus, a hero of Athens who killed the Labyrinth and returned from Crete, ending the sacrifice of Athenian people. As a celebration, every year the same ship took the same route to Crete and back to Athens. However, since the ship got old over the years, it needed repairing; its parts were replaced with new ones, one at a time. So, the question arises, is it really the same ship that Thesus made history on? To analyze on a deeper level, let’s take Thesus to be on the old Ship ‘A’ in Crete and as he travels to Athens he repairs and discards the old parts along the way. However, he has repaired and replaced every single part of the ship while discarding the old parts in the sea and ends up in Ship ‘B’ by the time he reaches Athens. According to the Mereological theory of identity, for an object to be the same it must have all the exact same material at the core of its atom; the identical appearance is not enough for an object to be the same. Hence, even though ship B looks identical to ship A, even though Thesus never got off the ship and maybe did not replace all the parts of the ship, yet they are not the same ship as each repair made to the ship means that it’s a different or a new ship.

Furthermore, according to the spatio-temporal theory of identity, an object must exist from moment to moment and trace a continuous path, that is, there must not be a broken path (one cannot dismantle an object at point A and reassemble the parts at point B), or you cannot teleport an object from one place to another. Hence, even though Thesus replaced and discarded the parts of the ship in the ocean, he travelled through the distance and continued to exist from moment to moment (he did not teleport or stop existing), one can track the ship’s path and so Thesus’s ship A is the same as Ship B.

A more complex version of analyzing the puzzle is: As Thesus traveled from Crete to Athens while discarding the old parts of the ship in the sea, he is trailed by a small boat carrying Al Gore- a politician and an advocate of climate change, who gets frustrated by Thesus’s actions of littering the ocean. He collects the discarded parts and starts rebuilding the ship in the exact same manner as it originally was.

Hence, by the time Thesus reaches Athens, Al Gore is travelling in a ship that is not only made up of the original parts of the ship A, looks similar to that of Thesus’s new repaired ship but it is also the original Ship A that Thesus started his journey on, according to the Mereological theory. However, if we analyze the scene according to the spatio-temporal theory, Al Gore never got the same ship as he never travelled a continuous path from moment to moment but rather reassembled one part at a time and came with a ship by the time he reached Athens. According to me, Al Gore got the ship. Identity for objects cannot be the same as that of human beings as objects are non-living things they can exist for eternity without interference, but human beings must die after a certain time with or without interference. Yet their identities can be similar to some extent. For instance, S is a girl. Human beings are said to be completely new people after 7 years as we replace each part of our body, according to mereological theory but that still makes S the same girl. S cannot be dismantled and reassembled completely (can be partially: if we use a prosthetic in place of a leg that still makes S the same human being) but objects can. Yet S will always be the same girl who is born on the same day and year, she is still the same age. Similarly, even though the parts of the ship were dismantled and reassembled to a ship, the ship will always remain x years old. According to this approach, Al Gore gets ship A!

According to me, for an object to continue to exist as the same object over time its age must be taken into consideration. I look at it in comparison to human beings. I have undergone many changes since childhood; however, I continue to exist as the same person that was born 21 years ago irrespective of the body or identity changes. Similarly, in the case of objects- if I buy a table in its dismantled form, it has continued to exist from the moment its parts were made. Spatio-temporal theory seems to be more closely related to my view on identity as the parts of an object matter less than the existence of an object.

In conclusion, the puzzle of the ship of Theseus is still a puzzle especially in its complex form as it is not possible to comprehend each aspect of the puzzle without compromising something of the other. My own answers are questionable; however, to arrive at a conclusion, one must incline to one side of the puzzle. Lastly, as convinced as I was with Heraclitus’s claim that the only constant is change, it brings about some serious metaphysical questions and identity of objects.

The Ship of Thesus – Scenario 2

Srishti Saini

PHIL-1A -The Ship of Thesus-Writing Reflection-1

June 26, 2024 https://globalbuzznetwork.com/the-apology-written-reflection-2/

The Ship of Thesus – https://www.philosophy-foundation.org/enquiries/view/the-ship-of-theseus