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Analyzing Socrates Sophie's World

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Socrates, one of the philosophers mentioned in the times before the Renaissance, was born around 470 BC, in Athens, Greece. He was the son of Sophroniscus, a stone mason, and Phaenarete, a midwife. He received basic Greek education and was taught to be a stone mason like his father. It’s said that he was a mason before he became a philosopher. He married a younger woman, her name being Xanthippe, and had three sons, Lamprocles, Sophroniscus, and Menexenus. Socrates is said to, by his own words, have had little to nothing to do with his sons’ upbringing and was much more interested in the intelligence of Athens’ young men. He was also a soldier, serving in the armored infantry. He was in three military campaigns, saving the life of a popular Athenian general during one of them. He compared his punishment after his trial and the way he refused to back down to the situation of a soldier, who wouldn’t retreat even if it meant death. …show more content…

He believed people were only happy when they acted according to their reason. He didn’t believe that people would deliberately act in a way that would make them unhappy. In Sophie’s World, an important quote that can back this up is “Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, used to say that his art was like the art of the midwife. She does not herself give birth to the child, but she is there to help during its delivery. Similarly, Socrates saw his task as helping people to 'give birth' to correct insight, since real understanding must come from within. . . . Everybody can grasp philosophical truths if they just use their innate reason.” Socrates said that people knew the world through reason, and believed that very

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