The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living

Should people put the value of life into monetary value or should life be kept solely as an emotional quantity? People and societies throughout the ages have been trying to answer the problem of putting the value of life into terms of dollar bills. The ancient Egyptians buried their dead with all of their worldly belongings. They believed a person’s monetary worth on Earth was over, and they should take all of that earthly worth with them to the afterlife. Modern day Americans are different from the Egyptians. Today people believe that the families of the dead should be compensated for “their” loss.

The Apology by Plato delves deep into the concept of wisdom and self-examination. Socrates declares that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Putting this phrase into context, Socrates has been falsely accused by Meletus of corrupting the youth of Athens and believing in artificial gods that were not the same as the gods of Athens. Meletus represents the hypocrisy of the world, he, who is not guiltless in the face of accusation, has falsely accused Socrates of social wrongdoing. These accusations stem from Meletus’ steadfast insecurity of himself. Socrates exposes Meletus’ insecurity that he may be morally corrupt himself. These accusations fulfill that insecurity, that in falsely accusing Socrates of moral corruption, he is proving

A philosopher understands that a life without bad, clouding feelings allows him or her to be open to all the joys the world has to offer. Ultimately, a philosopher lives a life that is not vulnerable to disruption by the intervention of forces

Throughout all these diverse cultures of art, I was questioning myself and started to wonder how

Socrates lived most of his life constantly examining his own ideas and character. He saw such self-examination, whether conducted by himself or conversation with partners, to be the greatest good of a life worth living. Socrates' focus was to determine how to become a better human being. In this Socratic perspective, the quality and persistence of the attention we pay to living an examined life is at the heart of living well. Examining anything will result in understanding it. As for that Socrates quote "The unexamined life is not worth living". To me, that means to understand what you are living for is more important than actually living. Understanding yourself, your choices, and why you make those choices; Understanding others that influence you or are influenced by you. Truly understanding what you're doing in your lives endeavors are all things that would make your life "examined". Living an unexamined life would consist of never asking questions to help obtain knowledge to be intelligent instead of being completely ignorant to the world around you. However in this current society, knowledge seeking students are fed ideas and frameworks of interpretations, and attitudes about life and subjects

Chapter one in the book Constructing a life Philosophy shows a variety of opinions on life philosophies. From what I understood from reading all four of the views was that they believe it wise for people to be flexible in the way we live our lives. I would like to discuss further what each of them had to say.

The following book is a chain of life experiences and lessons the author Michael J. Fox learned throughout his education and career. One lesson Fox learned from this passage is that in life things are always going to change no matter how you look at it and it is up to you on how it’s handled. Knowing how to handle a difference and change would help me succeed as I grow older and learn new things. The author learned this lesson through certain times in his life when he struggled. For example, in the Economics section of the passage Fox discusses his problems with earning money and paying debts when living by himself such as paying for a very small and expensive apartment, food, and everyday needs.

When you think of it, that clearly isn't philosophy at all. That’s a person expressing their ideas and enlightened experiences that they came across in their giving life time. Granted many philosophers built their philosophy off of other philosophers from the past, but then that latter philosopher will do the same, and so on, and so on. It’s a never ending cycle.

Artists, poets, and musicians all create their work in attempt to make sense of life as

The main goal in philosophy is to shows us the right way on how to live a great life and to understand its meaning and purpose. Every philosopher has their own blueprint, which includes different methods and rules on how to reach that goal; these include backing up your opinions with reason, seeking secure foundations in ‘objective truth’, thinking outside of your own perspective, and seeking intellectual and moral excellence, wisdom and prudence. Philosophy will help you analyze and learn about your own knowledge, freedom, morality, religion, and the meaning of life.

How can one hold true to, and discover, the philosophies by which one will live? How does one avoid straying from a path of an examined life? There are as many methods of coming to philosophical opinions as there are philosophers. Many of the philosophers from this class are known because they took the ideas that were around them, and either rejected them, or through deep thinking, eloquently refined them. Descartes did this by being alone. Only while alone was he able to fully give himself to concentrating on philosophy. Maybe his way of philosophising was a form of mediation. However, this does not seem balanced. Humans are social creatures. While loneliness has a certain appeal, personally, I would prefer Socrates dialectic process. Epicurus was social as well. They both surrounded themselves with friends whom they could truly discus their philosophies. Descartes was known as (one of) the brightest minds in his school. Maybe he simply could not find friends who could engage him in philosophy; or maybe he honestly just prefered to be alone. To quote Andrea Dorfman and Tanya Davis’s video/poem How to be Alone: “You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner. Look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.

In addition, people of unexamined life don’t like change, and they never try to change themselves to become a better person. They don’t know why they need to change, and why they should pursue a better life. Plato used Socrates word, “It is clear then that those who do not know things to be bad do not desire what is bad, but they desire those things that they e believe to be good but that are in fact bad(10)”. The unexamined people keep repeating what they are doing every day, just like a “walking dead”. And they believe being lazy, sleep all day long, keep watching the TV show to get the entertainment is good for them. Consequently, they do not desire to do the good thing, and they are being no change, of not improving themselves. However, they should feel ashamed of doing that because they are human beings. Plato said, “It is a human being’s goal to grow into the exact likeness of a God(52)”. The examined life people always want to change, they know they are human, sometimes they make mistake. They may have a lot of weakness, that why they need to improve themselves to be a better person. Everyone is not perfect, that why we must change. And how much we should change? Plato showed us a goal, to become perfect, liked a God. Although it is impossible to become a God, it is a goal for us to pursue, try our best to change. As examined life

Socrates, a Greek philosopher, once said that “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Apology 38b). Like Socrates, Albert Camus believed that a man needs to live meaningfully.

Philosophy is about questioning everything in life in the world we live in. Without the questioning and wondering in life then philosophy would be worthless. The great philosopher Socrates acknowledge this and therefore he would wonder everything in life making him a wise man not because he knew everything but because what ever wisdom he has comes from his knowledge that he knows nothing. After Socrates being sentenced to death penalty for corrupting the young, by not believing in the gods in which the city believed in. During the trial Socrates claimed “ an unexamined life is not worth living”. Making it one of the biggest  influence for everybody in today's world. Many philosophers have given a lot of that on what he may had tried to say in which ended made the inference that for Socrates living meant to be able to question everything around him. With that being said an examined life would be to be precautious with all your decisions and to question everything in our surroundings to have knowledge and that kind of life would be worth living. In today's life we live in world full of decisions in which it helps it shape our whole world. One bad decision and your whole life could change. Therefore, questioning all our decision sounds like the most equitable thing to do since we would be making conscious ethical decisions. Which is why an unexamined life would not be worth living since you would be living a life in which you never really end up learning from all your mistakes.

We are defined by our decisions and our actions, as well as our smallest choices. They build the person who we are, as well as the deaths that take our flesh away from this earth. There is no purpose of being alive that we know of. If it is it is ineffable and something that is beyond our minds. It is the smallest intricate aspects that make life worth living, and the arts give humanity a sense of purpose. The arts teach people how to think. We can choose what we think, and art can stimulate the imagination. Art can turn pain into laughter. What is my so-called embarrassment of the minimum wage jobs what people attempt to shame for working, trying to feed myself, and also to have a place to sleep at night away from the streets. With