Socrates

Socrates (about 469-399 bc), Greek thinker.

Socrates was a citizen of Athens and he served as a soldier in three wars. Then he became a teacher.

He was also a philosopher, spending his life trying to understand the world around him.

He taught people to think more deeply simply by asking them questions. Every time they gave an answer, he asked another question about the answer.

He found that people had different ideas of what was good and bad for Athens, and he tried to make them grow wiser.

He was not afraid to speak out against the leaders of the city and after a time they turned upon him. He was arrested for being 'an evil-doer' and teaching young people wrong ideas, was found guilty and condemned to death.

Friends planned to help him to escape from prison but he refused. He said, 'A citizen must obey the laws.' Socrates spent his last days still teaching his friends and, at the appointed time, drank a cup of poison called hemlock.

Socrates never wrote down any of his teachings but his pupil, Plato, included them, and the story of Socrates's trial, in his Dialogues.

See The Trial and Death of Socrates ~ Plato