I am taking Philosophy 101. I am in the first week learning about presocratics and Greek mythology poets.
It was recommended that I take this on my degree plan. Last minute without my advisor’s knowledge, I dropped a communications class and enrolled in Philosophy 101.
I had already taken Communications I and saw that it would be recommended for me to take Philosophy 101 instead of Communications II.
I must say this class is getting interesting, and I have a newfound appreciation for Greek Mythology.
Understanding how those who contributed laid the foundational framework for the Romans, upcoming philosophers, and modern times.
I can see the thread weaving from Greek mythology to philosophy to psychology and how they are intrinsically intertwined with one another.
Update…
The second week is now ending as I finish up this blog post. Philosophy has become interesting, although statistics is still the class I really enjoy doing homework for right now.
I scored a 90% on the second quiz this time, better than the 80% last time.
This time the discussion was on Socrates, and I had fun writing out my responses regarding the readings.
You can read the first one for the first discussion here.
“Here are two reasons why Socrates was not a sophist even though mistaken:
The Search for Absolute Truth: Socrates believed in the truth, all truth, nothing but the truth. Socrates reminds me of the quote ‘People don’t want to hear the truth, the real truth.’
Whereas the sophists believed man is the measure of all things. In other words, what can be argued well to make your point is the truth.
“I am the greatest playwright ever to exist,” a sophist could speak well, deem it truth, but Socrates would have debated, using dialectic thinking, which would have rubbed a sophist the wrong way.
Man of Moral Integrity: Socrates stood within the pursuit of absolute truth to the end. It could be argued that a sophist would have bent the truth to their gain and walked away with Crito.
However, Socrates believed that holding oneself to what he examined, as he famously stated, ‘a life unexamined isn’t a life worth living,’ even at the expense of his own life, was far more important. In other words, stand for what you believe in right until the end, even in the face of death.”
And then this one was for the last discussion of the reading:
“Indoctrinating the youth: Because Socrates encouraged the youth to think for themselves, always question, especially truth, and develop their reasoning abilities, Meletus accused Socrates of encouraging the youth to have a ‘morally nihilistic and disrespectful attitude’ towards their society.
Socrates defended himself, using what is now known as the Socratic method, by saying that if he were corruptive, especially towards the youth, none would want to be associated with him, given its human nature to stay away from harm. He argues that corrupting the youth means harming not only themselves but also himself. (No sir, corrupting the youth does neither them good nor me, as it would reflect poorly upon not only me as their teacher but also for what I have stood for)
Disrespecting the belief in God: Socrates was accused of disrespecting the honor of their gods and not honoring society’s beliefs outside of his own. But he argued, “believing in the mules but not the horse,” which meant how could one believe in divine activities and not acknowledge a divinity. ( I imagine him saying, sir that is absurd! How can I believe in activities of a God, but not acknowledge that there is one?)
Was his self-defense strong: In today’s perspective, his self-defense would have been strong enough to be considered. But back then when truth was easily bent, and the legal system was heavily influenced by personal biases or political motives (not saying we don’t have these flaws in today’s society), and less forgiving even of minor infractions that wouldn’t see the light of today, given his sentence of death where 30 could have made a difference. I don’t think the probability of him ever standing a chance was in his favor, but yes, it made all the sense.
His philosophy was indeed different than the majority.”
Both discussion posts received a thumbs up from my professor. It’s nice to know I am on track, especially considering the first week I struggled with adjusting to the material.
Next week we will be reading about Plato, and I look forward to it.
The Broke College Student 
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