“The unexamined life is not worth living” – What does it mean?

[Mindful]

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” These were the words that came out of Socrates’ mouth when he was asked to choose between death and exile.
He chose death over exile.

Since there had been no further explanation regarding this statement, it sparked several arguments if this holds true or not. When he chose death, would that meant that he saw life as no longer worth living?

Amidst all these, the statement is something modern age still listens to.

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - What does it mean? -

The unexamined life is not worth living. - the words that came out of Socrates' mouth when he was asked to choose between penalty and exile.

moralparadigm.com

 

[Mindful]

^ A point of reference
Imagine this: You are born just as you were before but on a different Earth. The two Piles of the earth are the exact same except one thing.

The new one has no light at all. No sun, fire, light bulbs or any way to see anything. If this happened to ask yourself, what would you call the darkness?

Nothing, everything, it would just be. Simply because there is no point of reference to distinguish its existence.

There is no opposite and there is nowhere to start.

Unless we examine who we are, examine our lives, we lose our point of reference.

We will go through life blind, deaf and hardly with any real understanding of this controlled chaos we call life.

 

[cnm]

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” These were the words that came out of Socrates’ mouth when he was asked to choose between death and exile.

Rather, those are the words that were put in his mouth.

 

[Grumblenuts]

An individual's life may have worth whether at home or in exile. One's death would appear to have none. The clear purpose of life is life itself regardless of any potential higher meaning. Death is just failure to live. Death is nothing anyone can claim to know from personal experience or self-reflection. To consider "life not worth living" is then opinion at best, never a logical deduction.

That said, we often deem clear suffering and irreversible decay in others to be worse than death even though we can never be sure. The only purpose to death (itself) then being the ending an individual's apparently otherwise untreatable, abject suffering and decline. One simply being "in exile" clearly fails to qualify. For now I'd just add that one cannot "examine" oneself in a vacuum. We are social animals, like it or not. Aside from looking at ourselves in actual mirrors, self-reflection really only amounts to projecting upon ourselves what we imagine to be perspectives of others.

 

[jackflash]

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” These were the words that came out of Socrates’ mouth when he was asked to choose between death and exile.
He chose death over exile.

Since there had been no further explanation regarding this statement, it sparked several arguments if this holds true or not. When he chose death, would that meant that he saw life as no longer worth living?

Amidst all these, the statement is something modern age still listens to.

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - What does it mean? -

The unexamined life is not worth living. - the words that came out of Socrates' mouth when he was asked to choose between penalty and exile.

moralparadigm.com

I only took one philosophy class but actually got to help break up a catfight between two female students in class, so it's a class I will NEVER forget. Alright, I will take a stab @ answering your question. I take the quote to mean that "If you have not experienced or know about something in life why waste time(short supply) looking for it". I have experienced several discussions with various folks in my life so far that say once dead they want to remain in unconscious death instead of another conscious life. They ALL replied that they were so fed up with this life & any other life had to be the same as this life that they were done with life altogether. This was more than just a couple people so I'd say five or six opined the same answer or close to it anyways. This was back in my college days 1985 through 1991 so I may be off a number or two. I can understand those folks viewpoints as they desired the serenity of a peaceful eternal sleep where nothing can go wrong. Personally I would prefer living in concious life than being turned off in nothingness but maybe they were right. I mean we might exit our physical bodies & find out we are then in a living hell, I mean who knows for sure???