PHI 101-40

Assignment Three

Jessica Minton September 20, 2008

Assignment Three
The assigned readings from Philosophical Problems were selections from the works of Plato and Leo Tolstoy. Although these two individuals may be separated by many years there are definite correlations between the two works, both Plato (through Plato, Socrates and Tolstoy work to determine what makes a life worth living. !n Plato"s A Life Worth Living, he details the trial of his teacher Socrates by the government of Athens. !t starts with Socrates laying out his supposed crimes and then goes through with an e#planation by Socrates on how he has come to undertake this role as a $gadfly% to the government because the oracle of &elphi proclaimed him the wisest man. !n an attempt to prove he wasn"t the wisest man Socrates converses with many different men, politicians, poets, and artists and finds that in the course of 'uestioning these individuals that they are not wise men and while he is not a wise man ether, he is better off because he reali(es that he is not wise while the other men think they are. Socrates proclaims in his trail that the une#amined life is not worth living and if he were to be given a choice between never seeking the truth of life or die he would chose to die. The )udges then pronounce him guilty and give him the penalty of death which he accepts and drinks poison.
2

!n Tolstoy"s What is the Aim of Life, he starts with his leaving college and leaving his *rthodo# +hristian faith and how through the ne#t several years of his life, although he lead a life that was approved of and enviable by his contemporaries it did not satisfy him and he felt unfulfilled. Tolstoy e#periences a period of despair and doubt as he has 'uestions but has no answers. ,e is torn between the rational and the irrational the finite and the infinite and so agoni(ed about life"s meaning he considers suicide. Tolstoy looked to established sources to find a meaning and was unsatisfied but through contemplation of the poor and peasants he came to believe that through faith you could find the meaning of life. Tolstoy and Socrates are similar in that they both e#amined what makes a life worth living and came to different answers. !n Socrates instance although he claimed to believe in the gods, the felt that an une#amined life is not worth living, that the truth was in each person and that through e#amination it could be discovered. Tolstoy came to believe that though faith we could find the meaning of life. ,e doesn"t" stay through faith in what. -e can safely assume the peasants he studied had faith in .od but he doesn"t specify and by having that faith in something they find meaning in life and find a life worth living. /oth Tolstoy and Socrates e#perienced trials and tribulations that caused them to e#amine their lives and the ideas and principles they stood for. Through this e#amination they both came to a conclusion about what makes life for them worth living but came to differing conclusions.