Sculpture "Socrates", artificial marble
Sculpture "Socrates", artificial marble

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museum replica | artificial marble | size 20 x 12 x 6 cm (h/w/d)

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Product no. IN-773071

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Sculpture "Socrates", artificial marble
Sculpture "Socrates", artificial marble

Detailed description

Sculpture "Socrates", artificial marble

"I know that I know nothing."

This saying should become the essence of the teaching of the man whom the Delphic Oracle proclaimed to be the wisest of his time. At Delphi, the god Apollo had killed the dragon Python. This spirit had overpowered the spirits of the animate and inanimate world. Thus the Greeks had erected a temple to reason.

Socrates, the son of a midwife and a stone sculptor, was born during this already illuminated age. It is unknown whether Socrates followed his father's footsteps but he had the money for equipment and weapons to take part as a hoplite in three campaigns, during which he proved himself to be strong in privation, prudent and courageous, for example, when he pulled his injured friend Alcibiades together with his weapons out of the midst of the battle.
Through his students, first and foremost Plato, we know that Socrates, who did not write down a legacy or anything, spent a large part of his life in the agora, the centre of life for the Athenians, to hold exploratory conversations with his fellow citizens. Whether with the craftsman, the merchant, the politician, the judge or the wise sophist, he wanted to discover what was correct in their thoughts and actions.

Socrates was convinced that the ability to recognise the good was inherent in every human being as a divine light or gift - like a god. Incidentally, in the biblical creation story, the same basic idea, positive in this case, was constructed into the tragic Fall.
Socrates developed a form of questioning dialogue, as a result of which interlocutors often needed to refute their supposed knowledge. He called this questioning technique his midwifery, his intellectual obstetrics. Because of these penetrating dialogues, he made friends, such as those who later founded schools of philosophy in his spirit. But he also made enemies, to whose vanity and career he stood in the way.

For Socrates, not knowing or faking knowledge was just as reprehensible as malicious deception, for: " A person behaves badly when he does not know the good!" Oh, how fitting to our times! Following the Delphic saying "Know thyself!" he did not cease to search for fundamental values, such as virtue, justice or bravery, in his love for wisdom, philosophy, for an ethical basis for right thought and action.

His opponents accused him. For "corrupting the youth" and "disrespecting the Greek gods", he was sentenced to death by the authorities of the still pubescent democracy. In his defence speech, he said that for his work he should rather receive a life honourary sentence, like the Olympic winners. Nevertheless, he accepted the miscarriage of justice, in keeping with his moral standards, because "it is better to suffer injustice than to do injustice".
With his sovereign way of accepting his death, he became immortal. "Do not forget to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius!" were his last words after he had drunk the cup of hemlock.

Where is the Socrates of our time? In each and every one of us! Let this sincerely wise man watch over your decisions.

Socrates (469-399 BC): Polymer museum replica. Artificial marble. Size 20 x 12 x 6 cm (h/w/d). Accurate portrait of the philosopher as an unfinished work after a figure from the 4th century BC in the British Museum.

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