The Conflict Between The City And The Philosophers At The View Of The Death Of Socrates

This paper attempts to abstract the historical event of the death of Socrates at the view of Socrates’ s apology and his trial in front of the judge. I want to explore the deeper reason of the death of Socrates. If we want to understand the conflict between the city and the philosophers,we have to know the essential reason of the death of Socrates.The first chapter of this paper briefly introduces Socrates’ s life and the background at that times. The second chapter describes the trial of Socrates in front of the judge. We should carefully review Socrates defend in front of the judge.The third chapter discusses the root causes of the death of Socrates. This paper analyzed it from five aspects: First, the conflict of Socrates’ pursuing of truth and the Athenians survived by opinions; second, the conflict between Socrates and the wise in Athens; third, as Socrates’ behavior is different from the ordinary people, the conflict between Socrates’ behavior and Athens traditional order is inevitable; fourth, the conflict of Socrates’ dual role, as a good person and to be a good citizen; fifth, as a pure philosopher, Socrates’ skills can not be applied to convince the public in his own way. He lacks skills to tame the public. The way he used to teach others can not be accepted among the populace. so this would inevitably lead to the conflict.As we know the essence conflict between philosopher and the polis, we can put forward some suggestions to resolve the problem. This paper proposes some solutions to ease the conflict in the fourth chapter. Firstly, philosopher must accept the views of the public so as to ease the strained relations with the public. In order to avoid the persecution of people,the philosopher must change the way he teach people because people can not understand him by his way.Secondly, the philosopher must change his position to be a pure philosopher, he should change himself to became a political philosopher in order to achieve a good philosopher living in the city. Again, philosophers can be teachers.They can educate legislators and the politicians. The governor can have a good philosophical character to formulate a good legal. Only in this way the philosopher can defense for himself better. In addition, in order to teach people well, we should achieve a good education system.Chapter 5 introduces what we can learn from the conflict between philosophy and politics. How can contemporary philosophers do in our times to live a good life.