TOPIC: PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION (FORM V&VI)

THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

The study of philosophy involves not only forming one’s answer to such questions but also seeking to understand the way in which people have answered such questions the past. Thus, in studying the history of philosophy one has to explain the ideas of such historical figures as:

i.                    Socrates

ii.                 Plato

iii.               Aristotle

iv.                Karl Marx

v.                  V. I Lenin

vi.                Kwame Nkrumah

vii.             J.K Nyerere

PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS OF SOCRATES

Socrates the most noble and wisest Athenian who lived between 469 – 399 BC, he is the philosopher and Moralist. An interesting story/thing about him was that his religious thoughts were very different form basically about everybody during that time, while Greeks were busy worrying about pleasing some petty gods running around on top of mount Olympus, Socrates was focused on idea of a much greater and perfect God that created everything. Socrates would wonder how people actually believe them to be gods as imperfect as they were, to him they were just immortal humans with magical powers.

He used to spend most of his time in public manner; he talked with anyone, young or old, rich or poor who sought to address him. He challenged his students that to think themselves, to use their minds to answer questions. He did reveal neither the answer nor the truth.

He asked questions such as: What is courage? What is duty? What is virtue? But what Socrates discovered and he taught his students to discover was that people could not answer these fundamental questions to his satisfaction, yet all of them claimed to be courageous, virtuous and dutiful. He knew that fact laid his wisdom.

In 399 BC Socrates was charged with impiety by jury of five hundreds of his fellow citizens, his most famous student Plato tell us that he was charged:

 “As an evil doer and curious person searching into things under earth and above the heavens and making the worse appear the better cause and teaching all this to others.”

 He was convicted to death by margin of six votes. Oddly enough the jury offered Socrates the chance to pay a small fine for his impiety – he rejected, he also rejected the pleas of Plato and other students who had a boat waiting for him that would take him to freedom. But Socrates refused to break the law. He spent his last days with his friends before he drank a fatal dose of hemlock.

Plato agree that Socrates had an opportunity to escape on his followers were able to bribe the prison guards. There are several suggestions offered as reasons why he chose to stay:

i.                      He believed such a flight would indicate a fear of death which he believed no true philosopher has.

ii.                   If he fled Athens, his teachings would face no better in another country as he would continue questioning all he met and un-doughty incur their displeasure.

iii.                 Having knowing agreed to live under the city’s laws, he implicitly subjected himself to the possibility of being accused of crime by its citizen and judged guilty by its jury. To do otherwise would have caused him to break his social contract with the state and so harm the state.

iv.                 If he escaped at the instigation of his friends then his friends would become liable in law.