Socrates Flaws

“Let him that would move the world first move himself,” said Socrates. This is just one of the new and radical ideologies that Socrates attempted to show the city of Athens in his teaching. Over the course of this month, our class has been discussing those teachings and how profound and deep they really were. Socrates demonstrated that he was the wisest man mainly by exposing flaws in democracy, using Socratic questioning, and finding inconsistencies with opinion and morality.

According to Claude Levi-Strauss, “The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.” Socrates was known mainly for his skill at questioning, which helped him discover the answers to many questions. His paradoxical wisdom made the prominent …show more content…
In Plato’s dialogue “The Republic,” Socrates was in no way subtle about his particular beliefs on government. He openly objected to the democracy that ran Athens during his adult life, and he was eventually arrested and put to death for corrupting the youth and openly defying the government. However, him being put to death could be argued as the best evidence against democracy, as its flaws could easily be exposed because the “wisest man,” according to the Oracle, was put to death due to direct democracy. This has happened many times throughout history, with a notable case being the followers of Islam in the United States. Once the attacks on the World Trade Center occurred, there was a stigma across the country against Muslims due to this incident. The same could have happened with Socrates and direct democracy. Overall, Socratic questioning led Socrates to try and expose the flaws with democracy, fact, and