Socrates & Knowledge
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- Date Submitted: 10/24/2013 06:23 PM
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Socrates & Knowledge
His/105
October 23, 2013
Christopher Allen
Socrates & Knowledge
Socrates was one of the first intellectuals in human history. When most people think about the word “knowledge” they take it to mean something individual obtain through education or things they have encounter in life, but is there a deeper meaning to this word. “Knowledge” is something that people believe they already have embedded deep down inside of them.
Socrates understood that a person cannot come to know something when they do not have the “knowledge” first hand of what they are supposed to be looking for. His belief was that learning did not entirely come from discoveries, but instead that it comes from a person soul, which began long before inception. Socrates firmly believed that our memory of “knowledge” is hidden deep down inside each of us, but we keep it suppressed until something occurs in our life that allows that “knowledge” to resurface.
To prove Socrates point he had to come up with a good idea. His idea was to use one of Meno’s young boy/slave that had no previous teaching or given any lesson in geometry and he decided to do this he started off drawing a square in the sand. Each side of the square that he drew was approximately two feet. Socrates asked the young boy/slave to calculate how long the square would be if he doubled the area of the previous one. The young boy/slave made some attempts his first response was four, then he changed it to three but each time he was still wrong. Socrates decided the young boy/slave needed help to have a better understanding that the square consisted of double the area and would have sides where there length would be equal to the diagonal of the square that they had been discussing. This still didn’t give the young boy/slave the proper way to come up with the correct answer for the problem. At this point Socrates decided that the best way for the young boy/slave to understand was to have him really concentrate...
His/105
October 23, 2013
Christopher Allen
Socrates & Knowledge
Socrates was one of the first intellectuals in human history. When most people think about the word “knowledge” they take it to mean something individual obtain through education or things they have encounter in life, but is there a deeper meaning to this word. “Knowledge” is something that people believe they already have embedded deep down inside of them.
Socrates understood that a person cannot come to know something when they do not have the “knowledge” first hand of what they are supposed to be looking for. His belief was that learning did not entirely come from discoveries, but instead that it comes from a person soul, which began long before inception. Socrates firmly believed that our memory of “knowledge” is hidden deep down inside each of us, but we keep it suppressed until something occurs in our life that allows that “knowledge” to resurface.
To prove Socrates point he had to come up with a good idea. His idea was to use one of Meno’s young boy/slave that had no previous teaching or given any lesson in geometry and he decided to do this he started off drawing a square in the sand. Each side of the square that he drew was approximately two feet. Socrates asked the young boy/slave to calculate how long the square would be if he doubled the area of the previous one. The young boy/slave made some attempts his first response was four, then he changed it to three but each time he was still wrong. Socrates decided the young boy/slave needed help to have a better understanding that the square consisted of double the area and would have sides where there length would be equal to the diagonal of the square that they had been discussing. This still didn’t give the young boy/slave the proper way to come up with the correct answer for the problem. At this point Socrates decided that the best way for the young boy/slave to understand was to have him really concentrate...