Socrates and Callicles We May Research Proposal

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Then, my good friend, take my advice, and refute no more." In short, you must learn to take care of yourself and deal with current circumstances -- refusing to participate in 'the system' will only cause you harm, and by extension, harm to those you care about. If politicians did not learn to deal with the real world on a practical level, nothing would get accomplished, including social justice. That is why people think little of individuals who do not work at anything practical, and merely philosophize -- often living off of the good will of others.

Callicles positions himself as a great orator, but Socrates states that the humbleness of philosophy and its necessity is what makes it great -- in other words, Callicles' advocacy of the political life does not involve real, material work, but only empty hot air. Knowing how to philosophize is as necessary as knowing how to swim: "Surely swimming saves a man from death, there are occasions on which he must know how to swim. And if you despise the swimmers, I will tell you of another and greater art, the art of the pilot, who not only saves the souls of men, but also their bodies and properties from the extremity of danger, just like rhetoric.

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Yet his art is modest and unpresuming: it has no airs or pretences of doing anything extraordinary." Socrates says that the governing body of Athens is engaged in flattery when they profess to admire Callicles, and that they do nothing real and substantial, unlike a pilot.

If every good person were to follow Socrates' advice, no one who was good would become involved in politics, at least not in an effective manner. To be an able politician is to be an able educator. It is both knowing what is right, and communicating what is right: that is why Abraham Lincoln is considered America's greatest politician. He often made great compromises with the opposition when necessary, as well as stood by his core principles and used eloquence to defend his ideals. Knowing how to swim, philosophically, may indeed by vitally important, but people must understand why they need to swim, and be persuaded to do so, and that requires the tools of rhetoric. To change Callicles' 'dog-eat-dog' world where 'might makes right' ironically requires using the types of political and rhetorical skills Callicles advocates that his audience learn......

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