Reflection Paper 11

The impact of the ideas Socrates had on modern Western education was a huge leap in education. Socrates was a man of knowledge and reasoning who thought outside of the box which led to his great impact on education. With modern education today in Western societies we now have things such as the law of logic, science, technology, math, etc. Instead of relying solely on religion to explain the happenings around us we are now able to think logically of what actually occurs instead of saying through God we were able to build cars and buildings. We know that it was the usage of mathematics and science that we were able to build thing such as buildings and cars. With Socrates’ elenchus we were able to see that what we believed was morally correct in fact was not and that it needed to be altered. The elenchus lead us to discover the truth of things instead of constantly claiming religious reasons. Socrates gave us the basic form of our laws and the methods used in criminal justice with the use of the elenchus (“cross- examination”). With Socrates’ influence we have such an array of different areas to learn in education. Instead of religion being the main subject it is now, in public schools, an option or in some cases not offered at all. He basically theorized that knowledge is power; we just have to use it the right way. He influenced us to have the courage to want to know. Socrates influenced us to not be afraid of wanting to find out the unknown and to question the world. We might not always get an answer we want or an answer at all but it is still worth wanting to know. When we ask questions we gain knowledge and that is how we learn. Without Socrates’ influence in our society today I don’t think we would be as knowledgeable as we are. If we didn’t have the courage to ask and to want to know then I don’t believe we would be as advanced as we are. We would still have religion set as our basic form of education and we wouldn’t have the sense of justice. Our laws might not have even been as they are in today’s world without his imprint on our society.