hello everybody
we are going to learn English
from a another great
person
it's part of
this section I have
on biographies stories of great people to inspire us
to live better lives
I'm going way back in time
to
the modern day capital of Greece of Athens
and we will learn about one of the greatest philosophers
ever named Socrates
Socrates lived in ancient times we call that from 469 BC
until 399 BC and BC stands for before
Christ
now it is 2013 AD
Socrates is best known for
his Socratic
method
and
to make it simple it's basically
asking questions
and fining out
what people really think and going deep
into a serious
problem or issue
it is used today with the scientific method
with using a hypothesis
to find out greater research
from an interesting question
it's also used in law schools today
this would be a typical
law school
in the United States you can see here with lawyers and judges
here's the Yale law school
what happens in law school like with the socratic method
the professor will play
this word called a devil's advocate
in English this idiom devil's advocate you'll hear a lot and it's basically someone who
given a certain argument takes a position he or she
does not necessarily agree with
for the sake of debate and this is the key word debate so a professor
might challenge
a student
on what he or she thinks
but they may not believe it just to get the student
to think
and that's what
Socrates
really believed he wanted people
to be challenged in their thinking
Socrates really was a philosopher
that believed in philosophy which means
literally love of
wisdom and wisdom is like knowledge
sagacity
here is a definition of wisdom
so intelligence prudence
learning
Socrates really believed learning was the most important thing you can do
so for example he believed that virtue
all virtue is knowledge
and that virtue is sufficient for happiness in other words all you need is virtue so what is virtue
basically Socrates believed
the best way for people to live was to focus on self development rather than the pursuit of material wealth
that means that
learning
and knowledge
are much more important
than getting a big house
or car
or clothes or material wealth
he had what's called these paradoxes where it goes up
against common sense common sense means
that most people
think
something
is the way it is
but Socrates liked to challenge that so let's do an example so
he says
no one desires evil
no one errors or does wrong bad things
willingly or knowingly
so let me ask you this question
so this is Hitler
and you all know
he was a very bad man
according to Socrates he says no one desires they want
evil
do you think Hitler
I'll ask the question did Hitler
want
evil
in the comments section
let me know it's a good way for you to practice
your English
Socrates believed so much in his philosophy that he
died
instead of changing
his ways
there was a trial here
and 399 BC
he was
charged they call that in a trial
with corrupting they youth so Athens said he was bad
for young people
and impiety and impiety means
he was against the gods
of the city he believed in different gods or he questioned
the gods or the religion of Athens at the time
so instead of
leaving he could have left
Socrates
drank or drinking a hemlock which is a poison
this is a poison
or back then they just called it a hemlock
so poison is if you drink something
you die
so it's interesting he chose to die
instead of giving up his philosophy and one great quote
that he said that the
it'll make you think is
he says I know that I know nothing
so it's kind of a practice in humility we say in English humility
he was always
asking questions and wondering
call that wondering
about life or another word is pondering to ponder life
so that's our biography of today with the great
philosopher of Socrates
if you go to my website to
here at www.english-quickly.com
I have many many free English lessons to help with
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you might like this if you like Socrates debating and business English
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