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CHAPTER 4
THE WISE MAN: SOCRATES
INSTRUCTIONS: Select the best answer according to the text.
TRUE/FALSE
1. Socrates wrote the first important treatise in the
history of Western philosophy.
2. Xenophon s account of Socrates is inaccurate.
3. It is almost impossible to separate what Socrates
taught from his whole personality.
4. Socrates believed that virtue implies excellence of
function.
5. Socrates thought that attractive people are happy
people.
6. Socrates was noted for physical courage, hardiness,
and exceptional self-control.
7. The Socratic dialectic is an especially moving speech,
one that raises powerful emotions.
8. Socrates was guided by a divine sign or daimon.
9. The psyche is a combination of what we think of as
the mind and soul.
10. Socrates claimed that wisdom is a form of ignorance,
a special kind of nonknowledge.
11. Thrasymachus was a moral realist.
12. The major charge against Socrates at his trial was
refusing to honor the customs of Athens.
13. Ingesting hemlock is a relatively painless way to die.
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MULTIPLE CHOICE
14. The Socratic problem concerns _____ .
a. Socrates obnoxious personality and tendency
toward deceptive practices
b. the fact that Socrates himself wrote nothing
philosophical
c. the difficulty of reconciling Socrates teachings
with the fact that he was not a very good husband
d. recently discovered evidence that Socrates never
existed at all
15. _____ is the psychological term for practicing what
one preaches.
a. Righteousness
b. Honor
c. Integration
d. Effectiveness
16. According to Socrates, true beauty _____ .
a. is inner beauty
b. can turn a stone into a man, so powerful is its pull
c. is found only among the gods
d. is in the eye of the wise beholder
17. The two main sources of information about Socrates
are _____ .
a. Plato and Aristotle
b. Xenophon and Xanthippe
c. Plato and Xenophon
d. Plato and Protagoras
18. Socrates said that to have no wants is _____ .
a. divine
b. a tragedy
c. impossible
d. a kind of death
19. For Socrates, temperance meant _____ .
a. total abstinence from pleasure
b. extreme asceticism
c. sobriety
d. indifference to both the presence and absence of
material pleasures
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20. During a battle, Socrates is reported to have _____ .
a. slept through the shouts and clangs of the fighting
b. walked around barefoot on icy winter ground
c. slain more than 87 enemy warriors
d. saved Xenophon s life
21. Another name for a paradigmatic individual is _____ .
a. misfit or sociopath
b. archetypal individual
c. sophos
d. enigmatic personality
22. _____ coined the term paradigmatic individual.
a. Abraham Maslow
b. W. K. C. Guthrie
c. Karl Jaspers
d. Bertrand Russell
23. A paradigmatic individual is _____ .
a. a social misfit who annoys and disturbs others to
such an extent that the community exiles or kills
him (or her)
b. a paradoxical person whose fundamental confusions
and inconsistencies create social tension that
ultimately benefits the entire community
c. a rare human being whose very nature represents
something elemental about the human condition
d. a fragmented person trying to satisfy competing
desires
24. According to Thrasymachus, _____ .
a. the powerful individual is superior
b. the honest individual is superior
c. the moral life is superior to the superficial life
d. nature favors compassion
25. Thrasymachus tells Socrates that justice _____ .
a. comes to the good and bad alike, regardless of their
wealth
b. consists of paying our debts and obeying the law
c. is defined as the interest of the majority
d. is defined as the interest of the stronger party
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26. The Socratic method is also known as _____ .
a. the art of cross-examination
b. the Socratic dialectic
c. good-hearted sophistry
d. philosophy in the original sense
27. The Socratic method begins with the assumption
that _____ .
a. the function of education is to draw the truth out
of the student
b. the function of education is to fill an empty vessel
c. each individual has his or her own truth
d. students are initially dishonest and need to be
disciplined before they are ready to learn
28. A vital aspect of Socratic teaching was _____ .
a. group involvement in which everyone voted on the
best solution to a philosophical problem
b. not stopping until the main issue of the day was
solved
c. the active involvement of the audience
d. Socrates brilliant lectures
29. Socrates compared himself to _____ .
a. the goat of wisdom
b. the father of wisdom
c. a midwife
d. the sun
30. Socrates used _____ to communicate on more than
one level.
a. irony
b. illustrations
c. drama and music
d. apologetics
31. _____ communication has two levels.
a. Greek
b. Philosophic
c. Ironic
d. Apologetic
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32. What did Socrates say about the unexamined life?
a. The unlived life is not worth examining.
b. The unexamined life is fitting for only the
simplest of souls.
c. The unexamined life is rarely worth living.
d. The unexamined life is not worth living.
33. Socrates identified the soul with _____ .
a. the intellect
b. the conscious self
c. the higher emotions
d. a shadow body
34. What was the ambiguous reply of the Oracle at Delphi s to
the question: Is anyone wiser than Socrates?
a. Only he who knows more than he knows.
b. No man is wiser than Socrates.
c. Who is qualified to say?
d. Wisdom is for the asking.
35. Socrates thought he possessed _____ wisdom.
a. practical
b. special
c. human
d. divine
36. Socrates thought that the first step toward
wisdom _____ .
a. must begin with an honest admission of our
present ignorance
b. cannot occur until the individual has suffered
either great failure or great success
c. varies from individual to individual
d. occurs without our knowledge, in a kind of sleep
37. Socrates believed that _____ is the essence of humanness.
a. the human mind
b. Logos
c. the human soul
d. techne
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38. _____ is what we think of today as a combination
of the mind and soul.
a. Techne
b. Psyche
c. Cogne
d. Nous
39. Jaspers refers to Socrates profession of ignorance
as _____ .
a. nonknowledge
b. dramatic inversion
c. paradigmatic license
d. hooey
40. The Socratic distinction between _____ and _____
is similar to distinctions made in Buddhist and Taoist
philosophies.
a. irony/techne
b. wisdom-as-power/wisdom-as-love
c. knowledge/belief
d. human wisdom/more-than-human wisdom
41. Socrates considered himself to be a kind of _____ .
a. robber of wisdom
b. physician of the soul
c. bridegroom of sophrosyne
d. pruner of the fruits of wisdom
42. According to Socrates, _____ is wisdom.
a. theoretical knowledge
b. love
c. virtue
d. psyche
43. Socrates believed that _____ .
a. you can be anything you want to be if you really
work at it
b. humans always seek what they perceive to be
their own welfare
c. humans usually seek what they perceive to be
their own welfare
d. the wisest humans always seek what they perceive
to be their own welfare
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44. Socrates believed that human excellence was based
on a special kind of knowledge that the Greeks referred
to as _____ .
a. agape
b. logape
c. theope
d. techne
45. According to Socrates, all evil is _____ .
a. ignorance
b. due to weakness of will
c. rooted in human nature
d. intellectual
46. Intellectualism is _____ .
a. the claim that all evil is intellectual
b. the claim that behavior is always controlled by
beliefs about what is good
c. another name for the Socratic belief that psyche is
rooted in techne
d. the belief that only the mind is important in
determining human excellence
47. According to Socrates, there is no such thing as _____ .
a. ignorance
b. human excellence
c. wisdom
d. weakness of will
48. Socrates reputation suffered because two of his close
friends were members of the _____ .
a. Athenian aristocracy
b. Commission of Thirty
c. Klan of Thebes
d. jury that set Protagoras free
49. Athenian trials consisted of _____ parts.
a. one
b. two
c. three
d. four
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50. Socrates jury consisted of _____ .
a. all adult men and women who owned property
in Athens
b. 501 Athenian citizens
c. twelve members from each of the twelve tribes of Athens
d. three peers and twenty-six citizens
51. When asked how his friends should bury him, Socrates
replied _____ .
a. As I was in life, with my mouth open
b. In any way you like; but first you must get hold of
me
c. Don t bury me at all; then I shall continue to make a
stink until democracy is restored
d. In a simple grave, without a marker; the gods will
know where to find me
52. Once convicted, Socrates was expected to _____ at the
next stage of his trial.
a. humiliate himself
b. pray in public
c. accuse others
d. demand his right of recount
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Chapter 4
THE WISE MAN: SOCRATES
1. Suppose it were discovered that Socrates secretly violated many
of his own teachings. How would this affect your attitude toward his
philosophy? Which do you see as most important: the man or the
ideas? Explain.
2. Explain Socrates view of self-control. Reconstruct his position
in your own words.
3. Use Socratic principles to defend Socrates against the charge of
being a bad husband and father.
4. Using the encounter between Socrates and Thrasymachus,
thoroughly describe the Socratic dialectic. How did irony function
as part of Socrates method? Give some examples. *
5. Many Athenians thought that Socrates was a Sophist. Point out
ways in which Socrates and the Sophists were alike and different.
Then make your case that he was or was not a Sophist. Be sure to
justify your conclusion with specific examples. *
6. Citing specific passages from Socratic dialogues, defend or
refute the claim that Socrates was a sophist. *
7. Carefully analyze Socrates claim that the unexamined life is
not worth living for a human being. What did he mean? Was he
correct? Why or why not? *
8. Socrates thought it very important not to teach for money. Why?
What kind of teaching did he mean? Was he right? Should this
principle be extended to priests, rabbis, imams, preachers
philosophy professors? Explain. *
9. What is the difference, if any, between being a philosopher and
being a philosophy professor? Are there any sorts of occupations
that are utterly inconsistent with being a philosopher? If so, what
and how so? If not, why not? *
10. What is Socratic egoism? Socratic intellectualism? How do they
relate to Socrates rejection of weakness of will and belief that evil
is ignorance?
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11. Fully explain what Socrates meant when he said that virtue is
knowledge. What kind of knowledge? What is virtue? Do you agree
with Socrates? Explain. *
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CHAPTER 4 ANSWERS