At one essay competition about Socrates, a 12-year-old girl won who wrote the shortest: “Socrates walked among people and told them the truth. They killed him for this." There is perhaps no better way to say it in a few words about this barefoot old man, whom the Delphic oracle called “the wisest of mortals.”

He was born in 469 BC. in Athens and died there in 399 BC, having drunk a cup of juice from the poisonous hemlock plant as ordered by the court. His father, a poor sculptor-mason, could not give him a decent education, and it is unknown where Socrates acquired his extensive knowledge, which delighted his contemporaries.

It is known that in winter and summer he wore the same clothes, worse than those of other slaves, often barefoot. But his popularity was such that in 404 BC. the government of 30 tyrants invited him to serve, but he, risking his life, flatly refused. He condemned all forms of government: aristocracy, plutocracy, tyranny and democracy - as equally hypocritical and unjust. But he believed that the tyranny of one is still better than the tyranny of many - and that a citizen is obliged to comply with any, even the worst laws of his homeland.

In his youth, he distinguished himself in three military campaigns, carrying a wounded comrade from the battlefield.

His wife Xanthippe, whose union with the poet Mandelstam depicted this way, went down in legend as an example of grumpiness:

Meets a drunken Socrates

Winged curse wife.

Perhaps he really often came home drunk, since what he loved most, hanging around the city all day, was asking everyone who was not too lazy to engage in conversation with him, his famous questions. Well, among the ancient Greeks, conversation was a companion to feasts and wine. In his entire life he did not write a single line, imprinting himself, like Christ, in the retellings of his speeches by his disciples - most importantly by Plato and Xenophon.

Socrates is considered the founder of dialectics and the first to delve deeply into the question of essences - general concepts for different things. For example, what is in itself “beautiful”, “bad”, “useful” and so on. However, he himself, a master of figurative and tenacious speech, did not formulate his philosophical task in any way. But as if drawn by a certain guiding goal, the wanderer tortured everyone with seemingly simple-minded, but gradually insidious, even sometimes filled with caustic irony questions.

The more arrogant and self-confident the interlocutor was, the more mercilessly Socrates set him up - and, having driven him into a dead end, he seemed to realize: Yes, I myself am such a fool that I completely confused the man!

But behind this seemingly funny business lay a method that immortalized Socrates, which he compared to the efforts of a midwife helping a woman in labor. And the purpose of these efforts was to fish out from the chaos of contradictions and nonsense what Socrates put above all else in life - truth.

But what great truth did he bring to light? Yes, none - except for the only one that I never tired of repeating: that he knows only that he knows nothing. And this is what makes him different from the ignorant, who also know nothing, but think that they know everything.

Why then was he so revered during his lifetime - and posthumously he was elevated almost to the founders of the science of philosophy? Formally, for his dialectical method, later formalized into the doctrine of “unity and struggle of opposites.”

But in essence - for the image of a thinker he embodied, who has the courage to go beyond everything known in order to comprehend the mysterious, bottomless world with the power of the mind - first of all, the world of man. His frantic passion for impartially and meticulously judging everything in the world did not bypass the simplest seemingly “childish” questions, nor the most paradoxical and even forbidden: about the essence of gods and power. He was perhaps the first of all thinkers to systematize the view that truth is not some kind of God-given absolute, but a collection of contradictory and even mutually exclusive sides at first glance.

Here he is, for example, starting from the most trivial, trying to establish the essence of such a concept as courage: “Is it courage,” he asks his interlocutor, “not to leave the battlefield first?” - "Certainly". - “Is it cowardice to run from the enemy?” - “Of course.” - “And if the warrior fled with cunning and with its help defeated the enemy?” At this point the interlocutor is already somewhat embarrassed: how could he have missed such a catch? And further from question to question, as if stripping a head of cabbage leaf by leaf, weeding out every false or even inaccurate judgment, Socrates strives for the core - and what does he come to? More often than not, there is no clear answer. But the powerful mind of the persistent tramp seemed to tear us through all the contradictions of the subject, infecting us with the feeling that this tearing through the outer foliage is the path to the truth. You just need, as he constantly instills, to fearlessly, without blinking, look into the eyes of the truth - or the darkness, in the absence of sufficient light.

Just as others have an absolute ear for music, he had an absolute ear for every lie. And his statement about his own ignorance was most likely neither a deliberate paradox nor the coquetry of a secret know-it-all. It seems that he had some kind of inexpressible image of truth in his soul, realizing that in his contemporary world there was no way to express it. Therefore, he mainly tirelessly swept away everything untrue, and in his conversations there are much more denials than affirmations, and the former sound much more convincing than the latter.

From here, apparently, come two of his most mysterious confessions for his contemporaries, for which he ultimately paid with his head. One thing is that for some time now a certain inner voice settled in him, which he called a “demon,” which never said what to do, but said what not to do. Well, the second is already the most seditious. Considering the manifestations of a huge number of gods of that time, he suspected that they did not act anyhow, but behind them stood a certain nameless arch-god who controlled their actions.

But with all this, he strictly adhered to certain positive principles. Probably the same inner feeling, which broke all the patterns of abstract judgment, forced him to elevate civic virtue to the highest human quality. And surprisingly echoing Christ again, 4 centuries before Christ he uttered one of the main guidelines of the future God-man - that for everyone it is much better to endure evil than to create it. But along the way, he fell into a kind of infancy that was crazy for a sage - considering that if people understand what is good, they will only follow it!

He steadfastly fulfilled his civic duty not only in war. Fellow citizens remembered his integrity in the post of prytan - a member of the council of Prytanaeus, an institution that exercised power and ritual functions. In Prytaneia, heroes who distinguished themselves in favor of their fatherland, for example, winners at the Olympic Games, were also treated to an exquisite dinner at public expense. And when someone was sentenced to execution, unfairly in the opinion of Socrates, he was one of all 50 fellow prytans who loudly opposed it.

But even a modern child is probably already clear that such a truth-fighter with his indomitable word and mind was bound to suffer sooner or later. For aristocrats, he was a defiant commoner, mercilessly beating their education, bought for big money, in public disputes. For the Democrats - a whistleblower who scares away their catch and tears down their filthy signs. Someone even compared it to an electric stingray, which with its blow deprives the tongue of any debater. Someone else was frightened by his great criticism and complete detachment of judgment...

But since even 30 tyrants did not dare to openly persecute him for refusing to serve them, the democrats who replaced them started a secret intrigue against him. It is believed that the sophists, whom he ridiculed for their aimless verbal balancing act, also had a hand in it. But then a fashion arose for them, they gave expensive lessons to noble young men - and Socrates, who taught everyone for free, also undermined their business.

The famous comedian Aristophanes also played a bad role in his fate. Belonging to the conservative party of the agrarians, he did not make a distinction between Socrates and the Sophists: both of them were for him only freethinkers who trampled on holy antiquity. In the comedy “Clouds,” he portrayed Socrates as a sophist who sits like an owl in his “thought room” and teaches young people not to pay taxes and not to care about their elders.

As a result, a “group of comrades” of democrats, led by a certain Anytus, brought Socrates to trial on trumped-up charges, as they call them now. He was charged with corrupting youth, denying the gods of his fathers, and introducing a new deity - an article that was “executed by firing squad” at that time. True, in Athens, which prided itself on its enlightenment, it was practically not used - and the trial of Socrates was considered rather as a sham, with the goal only of shortening him, but not of taking his life. But old Socrates, a military veteran who did not bow to the former 30 tyrants, did not allow himself to be shown in the role of a buffoon.

When he was given the floor, he, usually very modest in his self-assessments, radically changed his rule and said something like the following. Everything that was said here against me is a lie. And although everyone knows that I can outshine anyone with eloquence, today I will not resort to it and will tell one truth. And it is that if there is an impeccable citizen in Athens, it is Socrates, the hero of three wars, the servant of the fatherland and truth, not a corrupter, but an educator of the best men, whose names everyone knows. And if you want to hear, according to custom, what I myself consider worthy for my deeds, it’s dinner in Prytaneia. Moreover, I need it more than the winners of the Olympics: they do not need food, but I do.

After such a daring rebuke, the judges, who were expecting a request to replace the death penalty with exile or at least a conciliatory repentance, became enraged with rage. And contrary to their original plan, Socrates was sentenced to death.

This was an unprecedented sentence: in Athens no one had ever been so severely condemned for just expressive words. And when the first rage of the judges subsided, they decided to correct one of their meanness with another - telling Socrates’ friends that if he wanted to escape from custody, there would be no obstacles to this. Plato’s heart-tugging dialogue “Crito” is dedicated to this detail of the nasty deed. Crito, a student of Socrates, was sent to persuade his teacher to escape, for which rich fellow citizens even contributed. But Socrates, who did not run from the enemy, responded to Crito’s arguments that the most worthy of the Athenians should not be executed, and responded as follows.

All my life I have preached obedience to the law, and can I now allow people to say that it was only hypocrisy that was revealed as soon as the matter touched my life? Would it be better for my children if I perished in dishonor in a foreign land? I’m already old, I’m going to die soon anyway, so I’d better die with honor! A premonition tells me that my judges will be punished by fate, and my name will be in glory.

This detail was also widely circulated in Athens throughout the centuries. Another student of Socrates, Apollodorus, having come to say goodbye to his teacher, bitterly lamented: “It’s especially hard for me, Socrates, because you were convicted unjustly!” To which Socrates replied: “Would it be easier for you if I were convicted fairly?”

His last wish was to wash himself before he died, so that others would not have to bother with him later. He drank the cup of poison like a healthy cup, lay down and died. The Athenians, who until the very end did not believe in the execution of Socrates, became retroactively so angry against his accusers that they fled from Athens in fear - thereby confirming the philosopher’s dying prophecy...

It is significant that Christianity, which had a rather bad attitude towards the ancient pagan world, singled out Socrates from it as the harbinger of Christ - for his guess about that arch-god. And in early Christian churches, Socrates was even depicted on icons.

But why, if we ignore the details, was this rattling righteous man killed? I think he answered this best with his dialectical message. Such individuals, who served the posthumous glory of their peoples, during their lifetime it was precisely their perfection that came into conflict with the authorities, composed one way or another of an imperfect majority. And therefore, such luminaries as Socrates, Christ, Giordano Bruno, Archpriest Avvakum always had such executioners as the Athenian court, the Sanhedrin, the Holy Inquisition, the Russian Orthodox Church. Moreover, the latter executed those convicted by them in the name of the executed Christ.

The dialectics of Socrates, which went beyond the scope of his time, perhaps explains such a paradox that is now inexplicable. It was the cult of personality that gave rise to the cruel Stalinist regime in our country - when there were an unimaginable number of powerful personalities. Composers Prokofiev and Shostakovich, writers Sholokhov, Bulgakov and Pasternak, designers Tupolev, Yakovlev, Ilyushin, Lavochkin; scientists Kapitsa, Landau, Kurchatov - and this list can be continued endlessly. According to the current metaphysical interpretation, they all happened “in spite of” - but for some reason, in our “free” and good times, nothing like this happens. There is no smell of anything similar to the achievements of that “bad” time, and the last wreckage of that great “in spite of” aircraft construction - Tu-204 and Il-96 - were ditched thanks to the current “thanks”.

That is, our “freedom”, paradoxically, but captured by Socrates, turned into the Athenian court, the Sanhedrin and the Inquisition combined. With this circular clamp, she killed the entire creative urge in the bud, once again proving the Socratic message: that the appearance from the outside can be the complete opposite of the essence hidden under it.

Socrates survived under tyranny, but under the democrats he was executed - and with his whole life and death he gave us 24 centuries to come a reason to think about the paradoxes of existence that he learned on his own skin!

In his youth, he distinguished himself in three military campaigns, carrying a wounded comrade from the battlefield.

His wife Xanthippe, whose union with the poet Mandelstam depicted this way, went down in legend as an example of grumpiness:

Meets a drunken Socrates

Winged curse wife.

Why then was he so revered during his lifetime - and posthumously he was elevated almost to the ancestors of the science of philosophy? Formally, for his dialectical method, later formalized into the doctrine of “unity and struggle of opposites.”

But in essence - for the image of a thinker he embodied, who has the courage to go beyond everything known in order to comprehend the mysterious, bottomless world with the power of the mind - first of all, the world of man. His frantic passion for impartially and meticulously judging everything in the world did not bypass the simplest seemingly “childish” questions, nor the most paradoxical and even forbidden: about the essence of gods and power. He was perhaps the first of all thinkers to systematize the view that truth is not some kind of God-given absolute, but a set of contradictory and even mutually exclusive sides at first glance.

Here he is, for example, starting with the most trivial, trying to establish the essence of such a concept as courage: “Is it courage,” he asks his interlocutor, “not to leave the battlefield first?” - "Certainly". - “Is it cowardice to run from the enemy?” - “Of course.” - “And if the warrior fled with cunning and with its help defeated the enemy?” At this point the interlocutor is already somewhat embarrassed: how could he have missed such a catch? And further from question to question, as if stripping a head of cabbage leaf by leaf, weeding out every false or even inaccurate judgment, Socrates strives for the core - and what does he come to? More often than not, there is no clear answer. But the powerful mind of the persistent tramp seemed to tear us through all the contradictions of the subject, infecting us with the feeling that this tearing through the outer foliage is the path to the truth. You just need, as he constantly instills, to fearlessly, without blinking, look into the eyes of the truth - or the darkness, in the absence of sufficient light.

He steadfastly fulfilled his civic duty not only in war. Fellow citizens remembered his integrity in the post of prytan - a member of the council of Prytaneus, an institution that exercised power and ritual functions. In Prytaneia, heroes who distinguished themselves in favor of their fatherland, for example, winners at the Olympic Games, were also treated to an exquisite dinner at public expense. And when someone was sentenced to execution, unfairly in the opinion of Socrates, he was one of all 50 fellow prytans who loudly opposed it.

But even a modern child is probably already clear that such a truth-fighter with his indomitable word and mind was bound to suffer sooner or later. For aristocrats, he was a defiant commoner, mercilessly beating their education, bought for big money, in public disputes. For the Democrats - a whistleblower who scares away their catch and tears down their pursing signs. Someone even compared it to an electric stingray, which with its blow deprives the tongue of any debater. Someone else was frightened by his great criticism and complete detachment of judgment...

As a result, a “group of comrades” of democrats, led by a certain Anytus, brought Socrates to trial on trumped-up charges, as they call them now. He was charged with corrupting youth, the denial of the paternal gods and the introduction of a new deity was a “firing” article at that time. True, in Athens, which prided itself on its enlightenment, it was practically not used - and the trial of Socrates was considered rather as a sham, with the goal only of shortening him, but not of taking his life. But old Socrates, a military veteran who did not bow to the former 30 tyrants, did not allow himself to be shown in the role of a buffoon.

When he was given the floor, he, usually very modest in his self-assessments, radically changed his rule and said something like the following. Everything that was said here against me is a lie. And although everyone knows that I can outshine anyone with eloquence, today I will not resort to it and will tell one truth. And it is that if there is an impeccable citizen in Athens, it is Socrates, the hero of three wars, the servant of the fatherland and truth, not a corrupter, but an educator of the best men, whose names everyone knows. And if you want to hear, according to custom, what I myself consider worthy for my deeds, it’s lunch in Prytaneia. Moreover, I need it more than the winners of the Olympics: they do not need food, but I do.

This was an unprecedented sentence: in Athens no one had ever been so severely condemned for just expressive words. And when the first rage of the judges subsided, they decided to correct one of their meanness with another - telling Socrates' friends that if he wanted to escape from custody, there would be no obstacles to this. Plato’s heart-tugging dialogue “Crito” is dedicated to this detail of the nasty deed. Crito, a student of Socrates, was sent to persuade his teacher to escape, for which rich fellow citizens even contributed. But Socrates, who did not run from the enemy, responded to Crito’s arguments that the most worthy of the Athenians should not be executed, and responded as follows.

Socrates

Socrates
Σωκράτης
Portrait of Socrates by Lysippos, kept in the Louvre
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Date of death:
A place of death:
School/tradition:
Main interests:
Influenced:
Influenced by:

“Socrates’ interlocutors sought his company not in order to become orators..., but in order to become noble people and fulfill their duties well towards the family, servants (the servants were slaves), relatives, friends, the Fatherland, fellow citizens” (Xenophon, “Memoirs” about Socrates").

Socrates believed that noble people would be able to rule the state without the participation of philosophers, but in defending the truth, he was often forced to take an active part in the public life of Athens. He took part in the Peloponnesian War - he fought at Potidaea, at Delia, at Amphipolis. He defended the strategists condemned to death from the unfair trial of the demos, including the son of his friends Pericles and Aspasia. He was the mentor of the Athenian politician and commander Alcibiades, saved his life in battle, but refused to accept Alcibiades’ love in gratitude, because he considered physical love only a consequence of the inability to restrain the impulses of the base side of the human soul.

After the establishment of a dictatorship as a result of the activities of Alcibiades, Socrates condemned the tyrants and sabotaged the activities of the dictatorship. After the overthrow of the dictatorship, citizens, angry that when the Athenian army abandoned the wounded commander-in-chief and fled, Socrates saved the life of Alcibiades (if Alcibiades had died, he would not have been able to harm Athens), in 399 BC. e. charged Socrates with the fact that “he does not honor the gods whom the city honors, but introduces new deities, and guilty of corrupting youth" As a free Athenian citizen, Socrates was not executed by the executioner, but took poison himself.

Trial of Socrates

The trial of Socrates is described in two works by Xenophon and Plato with the similar title Apology of Socrates (Greek. Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους ). “Apology” (ancient Greek. ἀπολογία ) corresponds to the words “Defense”, “Defensive speech”. The works of Plato (see Apology (Plato)) and Xenophon “Defense of Socrates at the Trial” contain Socrates’ defensive speech at the trial and describe the circumstances of his trial.

At the trial, Socrates, instead of the then accepted appeal to the mercy of judges, which he declares degrading the dignity of both the defendant and the court, speaks of the words of the Delphic Pythia to Chaerephon that “there is no person more independent, just and reasonable than Socrates.” Indeed, when he, with one large club, dispersed the Spartan phalanx, who were about to throw spears at the wounded Alcibiades, not a single enemy warrior wanted the dubious glory of killing or at least wounding the elderly sage, and his fellow citizens were going to sentence him to death. Socrates also rejects accusations of blasphemy and corruption of youth.

Pederasty

Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

This article examines the cultural, historical and social aspects of pederasty as a sexual relationship between an adult man and a boy or youth. The attraction of an adult to children as a medical pathology is discussed in the article Pedophilia, unlawful acts of a sexual nature against children - in the article Sexual crimes against minors, sexual relations between persons of the same sex - in the article Homosexuality.

Etymology and history of word usage in Russian

The word "pederasty" comes from the roots παις (in Greek “boy” and in general “child”, which roughly corresponds in content to the modern concept of “minor” - adulthood in Hellas came from the age of 18) and ἐραστής (lover). In modern European use the word paederastia (from the Greek παιδεραστεια ) entered the 16th century, being borrowed from Plato's dialogue "Symposium" to denote a sexual relationship between a mature man on the one hand and a teenager or young man on the other. But since pederasty, or “Greek love,” was the most widespread and the only form of male homosexual relations reflected in culture, by the 19th century, partially in Europe, and especially in Russia, the term acquired the meaning of male homosexuality in general. Thus, the “Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary” directly identifies pederasty with sodomy, and the “Great Soviet Encyclopedia” gives the following definition: “in a narrow sense - sodomy with boys, in a broader sense - male homosexuality”; Moreover, the second meaning was the main one in the 19th-20th centuries, and the first is often not mentioned at all in dictionaries.

In our time, as a sexological term, the word has regained its original lexical meaning and meaning and is mainly understood in the sense of anal coitus between an adult man and a boy. However, in popular usage it is used as a pejorative designation for male homosexuality in general. The word "pederast" and especially its distorted forms are used as swear words and are considered highly offensive.

Of the Greek prose works dealing with the topic of pederasty, the most famous is Plato's Symposium; Xenophon's dialogue of the same name is also related to it on the topic. In Xenophon, Socrates among other things says:

"The Rape of Ganymede". Sculpture of Leohara

Despite the fact that in both dialogues Socrates defends the superiority of spiritual love for boys over physical love, ancient Greek literature shows that the atmosphere was literally saturated with sexuality aimed at boys and young men, the expression of which, ultimately, was “platonic”, or rather Socratic, love . For example, here’s an everyday scene that begins one of Plato’s dialogues, “Rivals”:

(Although the word “young” is used here, it clearly means teenage schoolchildren.)

Plato also wrote pederastic epigrams:

I felt my soul on my lips, kissing my friend:
The poor thing must have come to pour into him.

— Plato Lyrics.

Pederastic relationships were perceived by the Greeks as superior to the relationship between a man and a woman, since only in them they saw an intellectual and spiritual principle, while relationships with a woman were perceived as purely physical relationships. This idea is most clearly presented in Plato:

Scholarship has repeatedly emphasized that the long period of history of sexual practices in ancient Greece is incorrectly analyzed through the opposition of homo/heterosexual activity. More important (although not the only one possible) is the opposition between the active and passive principles (which Freud called the second pregenital phase), where the active subject (“lover”) is an adult full member of the civil community, and the role of a passive subject (“beloved”) can be woman, youth or foreigner. In general, asymmetrical (both in terms of the age of the partners and the presence of attraction) relationships throughout the history of Ancient Greece noticeably prevailed over symmetrical ones, although they did not exclude them at all. Only with the formation of the concept of personality in Greek philosophy (during the 5th-4th centuries BC) did philosophers begin to discuss the problem of the nature of an individual’s love attraction. In other societies, and especially in classical Athens, there was a certain contradiction in relation to such connections. On the one hand, the values and aesthetics of loving boys were widely accepted and practiced; on the other hand, the passive, “female” role in sexual intercourse was considered shameful and unworthy of a free citizen. In Athens there was a law that deprived of civil honor (that is, a significant share of civil, especially political, rights) to those who “gave their body to depravity.” It is clear that the border between the condemned “debauchery” and the idealized “love” was (as indeed in our time) quite subjective. It was carried out based on the presence of selfish motives; Subsequently, philosophers put forward the concept of “platonic love.”

Such a moral problem was not seen in relation to non-citizens and especially slaves: there was male prostitution and male brothels.

The gradual spread of values, first of Roman and then of Christian morality, leads to a fundamental revaluation in the public consciousness of attitudes towards various forms of love.

"Socrates Leading Alquiades from the Woman's Bed" painting by J. B. Ragno, 1791

They said that Socrates had a dream: a swan chick took off from the altar of Eros at the Academy and sat on his lap, and then fledged and rushed to the sky. Socrates compared his best student with this swan. Hemlock drank a terrible poison.

ANYONE THE CHARMS OF DEVILITY

MINUTES OF LIFE WILL BE SHORTENED.

Training 2 (Passed with 5)

Aristotle divided all forms of state into right and wrong. The correct ones include:
Aristocracy

The first parliament in world history arose in:
1215

What is the Norman theory?
The concept of the foreign nature of the emergence of the state in Rus'

The founder of social reformism is:
I. Kant

The name of the theory of the French scientist L. Duguis?
"Ideology of Solidarity"

Who laid the foundations of systems analysis and structural functionalism?
T. Parsons

The main political science work of G. Hegel is called:
"Philosophy of Law"

The first Marxist in Russia was:
V. G. Plekhanov

The teaching of Thomas Aquinas became official doctrine:
Catholicism

Who can be called one of the “fathers” of applied political science?
Ch. Merriam

A prominent figure in the liberal movement in Russia?
B. Chicherin

The first to demand church reformation was:
M. Luther

Who put forward the theory “Moscow is the third Rome”?
monk Philotheus

One of the trends in populism was:
Conspiratorial

The founders of liberalism are:
T. Hobbes and J. Locke

What organization was headed by P. I. Pestel?
Southern Society of Decembrists

Who went down in history as the creator of the Russian psychological theory of law?
L. I. Petrazhitsky

Which thinker was sentenced to death, but out of respect for the law refused to escape, which could have saved his life?
Socrates

The culture of liberalism has become the subject of research for:
R. Rorty

Name a revolutionary who compromised himself by killing a comrade:
S. G. Nechaev

Added after 13 minutes
Training 3 (Passed 4, 2 mistakes)

What is "legitimacy"?
The legality of power, the legality of its actions, the fairness of the demands made by the subject to the object of power, compliance with the fundamental goals of society and generally accepted ideals and values.

Lands as federal subjects exist in:
Canada

Define the early feudal type of monarchy.
A form of government characterized by the formation of feudal property, when feudal lords were grouped around royal power.

The legal theory of the origin of the state is characterized by the idea that:
State – legal consolidation of relations between government and people

The first referendum in history was held in:
Switzerland

Which thinker suggested that the state is a form of superiority of the rich over the poor, of the winners over the vanquished?
T. More

“Whoever is a citizen in a democratic state is often not considered a citizen in an oligarchic state.” These words belong to:
Aristotle

Which modern researcher considered the political system as a cybernetic model, including “input”, “output”, and a decision-making block?
D. Easton

Which thinker believed that the origins of power are in the consciousness and subconscious of people?
Z. Freud

What interpretation of the origin of power suggests that power is the ability to achieve goals?
Teleological

What theory of the origin of the state does not exist?
Political

What is not a motive for subordination?
Spirituality of power

What internal function of the state is responsible for the development of society and intra-social relations?
Political

Literally translated, the term “republic” means:
Public Affairs

A classic example of a semi-presidential republic is:
France

The most unstable state formation is:
Confederation

What function of a political system is used to ensure public recognition of politics and power?
Regulatory

One of the historical forms of power was:
Anonymous.

What is the name of power that arises as a result of the division of labor and is concentrated in the hands of the ruling person?
Individualized

What type of legitimacy of power instills the messianic idea in the performers?
Charismatic.

A synonym for the concept of “plebiscite” is:
Referendum

Anarchist interpretations of power are associated with the name:
M.A. Bakunin.

Name the largest information leak at the beginning of the 21st century.
Activities of WikiLeaks.

Under which statesman was the chance for the evolution of the Russian state to a limited monarchy missed?
Anna Ioannovna.

Socrates was born and died in Athens. He had to do the latter due to the verdict of his fellow citizens.

His father was a stonecutter (sculptor), and his mother was a midwife. By the way, very respected specialties in a variety of historical periods and among a variety of peoples. They did not die of hunger. The boy was born around 469 BC. e., received a good education and was an active citizen. He participated in the Peloponnesian War, was a teacher and senior friend of the Athenian politician and commander Alcibiades.

The views of Socrates are known from the works of his students Plato and Xenophon (“Memoirs of Socrates”, “Defense of Socrates at the Trial”, “Feast”, “Domostroy”). Socrates's own writings are unknown, since he expressed his thoughts orally, in conversations with students and other listeners. It should be noted that Plato and Xenophon often differ radically in their descriptions of Socrates and his views.

Socrates is considered the founder of philosophy sophistry, the essence of which is the desire to achieve truth.

Socrates is considered a proponent of rational ethics, since, in his opinion, virtue stems from knowledge. A person who understands what good is will not act badly. It is difficult to object to this, since otherwise a person who knows but does evil loses the right to be called a person.

In 399 BC. e. One of the Athenians had the “opinion” that Socrates “does not honor the gods whom the city honors, but introduces new deities and is guilty of corrupting youth.” Another version of Socrates’ “guilt” looks closer to the truth. “Socrates’ accusers, of course, made full use of the persistent rumor about his pro-Spartan sentiments, passing them off as a manifestation of hostility towards the Athenian polis, its foundations and morals.

This was a malicious and unscrupulous play on the patriotic feelings of the Athenian demos. If Socrates liked some features of the Spartan or Cretan political system, it did not at all follow that he preferred these policies to his own. His reformist criticism was aimed at the reasonable and fair, as he understood, conduct of public affairs, and not at causing damage to Athens. The life and especially the death of Socrates leave no doubt on this score,” explained an authoritative Soviet biographer of the philosopher.

It is known that Socrates rejected the students’ proposals to flee, which was the general rule, as time passed, “opinion” changed and many returned back without any consequences. But Socrates was nearly seventy, and for some reason he didn’t want to run. Here it is worth remembering that Socrates had a very quarrelsome wife, Xanthippe, who annoyed him no less than some of his fellow citizens.

Before his death, a rooster was sacrificed to Asclepius at the insistence of Socrates. Usually the rooster was slaughtered for its health, but Socrates explained that he viewed his death as recovery, liberation from earthly shackles.

It is often said that Socrates took hemlock. But taking this poison usually causes foaming at the mouth, nausea, vomiting, and seizures. Socrates, after taking the poison, according to Plato’s description, gradually became numb until the cold reached his heart. Such symptoms accompany the use of spotted hemlock. However, these details are unlikely to be of great importance. The great sage passed away.

"Encyclopedia of Death. Chronicles of Charon"

Part 2: Dictionary of Selected Deaths

The ability to live well and die well is one and the same science.

Epicurus

SOCRATES

(470/469-399 BC) - ancient Greek philosopher

Socrates was sentenced to death on official charges of “introducing new deities and corrupting the youth in a new spirit,” that is, for what we now call dissent. About 600 judges took part in the trial of the philosopher. 300 people voted for the death penalty, against 250. Socrates had to drink the “state poison” - hemlock (Conium maculatum, spotted hemlock). The toxic element in it is the alkaloid horsemeat. This poison causes paralysis of the motor nerve endings, apparently with little effect on the cerebral hemispheres. Death occurs due to convulsions leading to suffocation. Some experts, however, believe that hemlock was not called hemlock, but poisonous weed (Cicuta Virosa), which contains the poisonous alkaloid cicutotoxin. However, this does not change the essence of the matter.

For some reason, Socrates' execution was postponed for 30 days. Friends tried to persuade the philosopher to run away, but he refused.

As Socrates’ student and friend Plato narrates, the philosopher’s last day was spent in enlightened conversations about the immortality of the soul. Moreover, Socrates so animatedly discussed this problem with Phaedo, Simmias, Cebes, Crito and Apollodorus that the prison servant several times asked his interlocutors to calm down: a lively conversation, they say, gets hot, and Socrates should avoid anything that gets hot, otherwise the prescribed portion of poison will not work and he will have to drink the poison twice and even three times.

As a matter of fact, the entire month from the day of sentencing to the day of execution was for Socrates a continuous monologue in dialogues about the essence of death. The beginning was given at the trial when, after the verdict was pronounced, Socrates said: “... It seems, in fact, that everything happened for my good, and this cannot be so that we correctly understand the matter, believing that death is evil.. .

To die, to tell the truth, means one of two things: either to cease to be anything, so that the deceased does not experience any sensation from anything, or this is some kind of transition for the soul, its relocation from here to another place... And if this were the absence of any sensation, like a dream, when one sleeps so that one does not even see anything in a dream, then death would be an amazing acquisition. It seems to me, in fact, that if someone were to take that night in which he slept so that he did not even dream, compare this night with the rest of the nights and days of his life and, after thinking, say how many days and he lived better and more pleasant nights in his life than that night, then, I think, not only every simple person, but even the Great Tsar himself would find that counting such days and nights in comparison with the rest is worth nothing. So if death is like this, I, for my part, will call it gain, because in this way it turns out that all life is no better than one night.”

On the eve of his execution-suicide, Socrates admitted to his friends that he was full of joyful hope - after all, as ancient legends say, a certain future awaits the dead. Socrates firmly hoped that during his just life, after death he would end up in the society of wise gods and famous people. Death and what follows is the reward for the pains of life. As a proper preparation for death, life is a difficult and painful business.

“Those who are truly devoted to philosophy,” said Socrates, “are, in essence, occupied with only one thing - dying and death. People, as a rule, do not notice this, but if this is still the case, it would, of course, be absurd to spend their entire lives strive for one goal, and then, when it appears nearby, be indignant at what you have been practicing for so long and with such zeal.”

Commenting on the ideas of the great Greek, researcher of ancient philosophy V. Nersesyants writes: “Such judgments of Socrates are based on the majestic and very deep, in his assessment, secret teaching of the Pythagoreans, which stated that “we, people, are, as it were, in custody and should not be freed from from it on your own, nor to run away." The meaning of the Pythagorean teaching about the mystery of life and death is, in particular, that the body is the prison of the soul (this idea belongs to Philolaus) and that the liberation of the soul from the shackles of the body occurs only with death.

Therefore, death is liberation, but it is wicked to arbitrarily take one’s own life, since people are part of the divine heritage, and the gods themselves will show a person when and how they want his death. By thus closing the loophole of suicide as an arbitrary path to liberation, the Pythagorean teaching gives life an intense and dramatic sense of anticipation of death and preparation for it.

Reasoning in the spirit of Pythagorean teaching, Socrates believed that he deserved his death, since the gods, without whose will nothing happens, allowed his condemnation. All this casts additional light on the irreconcilable position of Socrates, on his constant readiness to defend justice at the cost of his life, as he understood it. A true philosopher must spend his earthly life not haphazardly, but in intense concern for the immortal soul given to him.

Socrates' version of living in anticipation of death was not indifference to life, but rather a conscious determination to carry out and complete it with dignity. It is clear, therefore, how difficult it was for his opponents, who, when faced with him, saw that the usual arguments of force and methods of intimidation did not work on their opponent. His readiness for death, which gave unprecedented strength and steadfastness to his position, could not help but confuse all those with whom he encountered in dangerous skirmishes regarding polis (city, in the sense: state) and divine affairs. And the death sentence, which so logically ended the life of Socrates, was to a large extent a desired outcome and provoked by him. The death of Socrates gave his words and deeds, everything connected with him, that monolithic harmonious integrity, which is no longer subject to the corrosion of time...

The Socratic case of crime allows us to trace the difficult vicissitudes of truth, which enters the world as a criminal in order to then become a legislator. What was obvious to us in historical retrospect was, in perspective, clear to Socrates himself: wisdom, unjustly condemned to death in his person, will yet become a judge over injustice. And, having heard from someone the phrase: “The Athenians condemned you, Socrates, to death,” he calmly replied: “And nature condemned them to death.”

The philosopher spent his last day as calmly as the previous ones. At sunset, leaving his friends, Socrates retired to his dying ablutions. According to Orphic-Pythagorean ideas, this ablution had a ritual meaning and symbolized the cleansing of the body from the sins of earthly life. Having completed his ablutions, Socrates returned to his friends and family. The moment of farewell has arrived. The relatives received the last instructions from the philosopher, after which he asked them to return home. The friends remained with Socrates until the end. When they brought the hemlock in a cup, the philosopher asked the prison servant: “Well, dear friend, what should I do?” The minister said that the contents of the cup should be drunk, then walk until a feeling of heaviness arises in the thighs. After this you need to lie down. Having mentally repaid the gods for the successful transmigration of the soul to another world, Socrates calmly and easily drank the cup to the bottom. His friends began to cry, but Socrates asked them to calm down, reminding them that they should die in reverent silence.

He walked a little, as the minister ordered, and when his legs became heavy, he lay down on his back on the prison trestle bed and wrapped himself up. The jailer from time to time approached the philosopher and touched his legs. He squeezed Socrates' foot tightly and asked if he felt pain? Socrates answered in the negative. Pressing his leg higher and higher, the attendant reached his thighs. He showed Socrates' friends that his body was growing cold and numb, and said that death would occur when the poison reached the heart. Suddenly Socrates threw off his robe and said, turning to one of his friends: “Crito, we owe Axlepius a rooster. So give it back, don’t forget.” These were the last words of the philosopher. Crito asked if he wanted to say anything else, but Socrates remained silent, and soon his body shuddered for the last time.

An interesting commentary on the last words of the Greek thinker belongs to Nietzsche: “I admire the courage and wisdom of Socrates in everything he did, said, and did not say. This mocking and loving Athenian freak and pied piper, who made arrogant young men tremble and burst into tears, was not only the wisest talker who ever lived: he was just as great in silence. I wish he had been silent at the last moment of his life - perhaps he would then have belonged to an even higher order of minds. Whether it was death or poison , piety or malice - something loosened his tongue at that moment, and he said: “Oh, Crito, I owe Asclepius a rooster.”

This funny and terrible last word means to those who have ears: “Oh, Crito, life is a disease!” Is it possible to! A person like him, who lived happily as a soldier and in front of everyone, was a pessimist! He only put a good face on life and hid his last judgment, his innermost feeling all his life! Socrates, Socrates suffered from life! And he took revenge on her for this - with that mysterious, terrible, pious and blasphemous word!