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In the Republic, Plato's Socrates raises a number of criticisms of democracy.He claims that democracy is a danger due to excessive freedom. He also argues that, in a system in which everyone has a right to rule, all sorts of selfish people who care nothing for the people but are only motivated by their own personal desires are able to attain power.
Thucydides, the famous ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War, witnessed the fall of Athenian democracy and applied scientific history in his critique of the democratic government. [10] At the heart of his critique were how democracy failed "in the search for truth " and how leaders and citizens attempted "to impose their own speech ...
In democracy, the lower class grows bigger and bigger. The populism of the democratic government leads to mob rule, fueled by fear of oligarchy, which a clever demagogue can exploit to take power and establish tyranny where no one has discipline and society exists in chaos. In a tyrannical government, the city is enslaved to the tyrant, who ...
Leonard Cohen's song "Democracy" contains the line "Sail on. Sail on, o mighty ship of state. To the shores of need, past the reefs of greed, through the squalls of hate." Also, in his second novel Beautiful Losers (1966), Cohen writes "Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State, auto accidents, births, Berlin, cures for cancer!" (p. 12).
The Trial of Socrates (399 BC) was held to determine the philosopher's guilt of two charges: asebeia against the pantheon of Athens, and corruption of the youth of the city-state; the accusers cited two impious acts by Socrates: "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and "introducing new deities".
Socrates is known for proclaiming his total ignorance; he used to say that the only thing he was aware of was his ignorance, seeking to imply that the realization of one's ignorance is the first step in philosophizing. Socrates exerted a strong influence on philosophers in later antiquity and has continued to do so in the modern era.
The Statesman (Ancient Greek: Πολιτικός, Politikós; Latin: Politicus [1]), also known by its Latin title, Politicus, is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato.The text depicts a conversation among Socrates, the mathematician Theodorus, another person named Socrates (referred to as "Socrates the Younger"), and an unnamed philosopher from Elea referred to as "the Stranger" (ξένος ...
Socrates rarely used the method to actually develop consistent theories, and he even made frequent use of creative myths and allegories. The Parmenides dialogue shows Parmenides using the Socratic method to point out the flaws in the Platonic theory of forms , as presented by Socrates; it is not the only dialogue in which theories normally ...