My Reflective Diary for 29th jan 2013 by Munira Seylaa

This subject has recently become the center of my judgement. I honestly ask myself every now and then whether certain things are ethical or not ethical. Today’s topic about the philosophy of Ethics in the ancient Greek was amazing. I have come to know about Sophists. I learnt that Sophists are people who are hired for their brain or rather their gift of gab to protect the rights of the people. The lecturer introduced Socrates to us and I had come to wonder why he was put in trial. The more I thought of Socrates and his trial the more I wanted to research. I did my research this evening and I came to know that Socrates was indeed a fascinating man. He was known to be wise for his claim to know nothing. One of his many great quotes was “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.” This quote at first made me ask myself, why Socrates had many followers if he knew nothing. I even pondered on why we should waste our time by reading his dialogues with Callicle or why even bother to write about him after all he was a fool. A good friend of mine who is a medical student listened to me for a while as I bombarded him with so many questions about Socrates and he told me to look beyond what I see. Because no one would waste their time on him if he had no inner meaning for what his quote said. After a while I concluded that it could either be the two; for one that Socrates was trying to be modest or two he had inner meaning that if he said he was wise and knew everything then his thirst for knowledge will disappear and that would make him arrogant in not wanting to know more. Either way I enjoyed teasing my brain with Socrates’ Philosophy. I can say that he is a wise man who is better than the fools of his time and that is why they executed him. Well that’s my opinion actually, because for a man of Socrates standard who didn’t follow what others believed in he ought to get arch-enemies who will plan for his down fall and they succeeded. But I guess Socrates will forever be in books as long as his wise sayings are passed from generation to generation. Basically the whole lecture was insightful and Alhamdulillah I gladly say that I have learnt a lot. The End 

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