Send Me To Sleep | Socrates (Voice Only)
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What does the phrase 'the unexamined life is not worth living' mean?
The unexamined life is not worth living. I remember the first time that I heard that phrase and I mean I couldn't quite tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing but I remember the profound feeling of being recognized in a certain way in that phrase encompassing some feelings and ideas that I'd been having for some time at that point, perhaps most of my life. And it made me feel validated. It felt like an incredibly true statement to hear. And I feel like perhaps I was a little jaded at that time because I think I was surrounded by people who weren't particularly interested or perhaps ready to engage in philosophical ideas on a particular level and if you're someone who likes to dig deep into a topic or a conversation where you pick apart things.
And you're with people who aren't really in that frame of mind. They can sometimes accuse you of being over-analytical or perhaps of overthinking. And this is something that always annoyed me, you know. And if you're the same as me, then you might sympathize with that feeling of being put down for questioning too much. But I think I've always thought of the philosophical process, although I don't think I will have always have called it the philosophical process. But I've always thought of that way of thinking as essential to life, as a means of properly understanding life and yourself. And so to hear this phrase was like an awakening really, a realization that these ideas and this way of thinking that I enjoyed so much was in fact also supported by what is considered to be one of the greatest minds in Western philosophy.
Hello, by the way. My name's Andrew. Thank you for joining me this evening. Tonight, I'll be talking about the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, and that phrase which I stated previously, the unexamined life is not worth living. I could be paraphrasing there, I'm not entirely sure if that's the exact phrase. But that phrase is attributed to Socrates. And, like I say, when I first heard it, I felt it to be very true. It resonated with it very much. And I think this was around the time when I first became interested in the topic of philosophy, or dare I say, even first began to really understand what philosophy was. Now, it wasn't exactly the first encounter with philosophical ideas that I'd had. I remember distinctly that that was a book that involved ideas of stoicism.
And so after reading a little bit about, well, what I've come to learn was it was essentially sort of pop culture-ism around stoicism, but still ideas that I resonated with.
How did Socrates influence modern philosophical thought?
quite profoundly, I began to look a little bit more into Stoicism. And then I realized that Stoicism, although it may seem simple to others, you know, when I was first exploring these ideas at the age of 20, I believe, I then began to realize that Stoicism was, of course, just a smaller part of what was broadly known as philosophy, the study of philosophy. And then these names that I had heard of, spoken about before in various contexts, though not really given much attention to, started cropping back up names such as Socrates such as Aristotle such as Plato and of course at this stage I began to look a little bit more into these ancient Greek philosophers and I think Socrates has so much appeal to me personally.
Well, first of all, I suppose because he is widely considered to be the first great Western philosopher. Of course, there are many philosophies that have existed for thousands of years across the world, and I think sometimes there is a tendency to believe that the ancient Greeks invented philosophy because, I suppose, I think, although don't quote me on this, I'm not entirely sure, but I believe philosophy as a word itself is derived from the ancient Greek term. So that might contribute to it. Of course, we're looking at things through quite a Western lens. But also, I don't know, I think there are these strong biases for whatever reason to attribute the ancient Greek philosophers, and especially Socrates, as being the first philosophers at all.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does the phrase 'the unexamined life is not worth living' mean?
0:00–5:29
2
How did Socrates influence modern philosophical thought?
5:29–11:25
3
What is the Socratic method and how is it applied?
11:25–18:51
4
What role did Socrates' lifestyle play in his philosophy?
18:51–23:21
5
How does dialectics contribute to understanding truth?
23:21–29:32
6
What is the significance of Socrates' trial and death?
29:32–35:41
7
How did Socrates' ideas shape future philosophers?
35:41–41:42
8
What can we learn from Socrates about knowledge and ignorance?
41:42–46:19