Socrates (399-470 BCE) is a famous personality in world history for his

contributions to the ancient Greek philosophy which laid the foundation

for the Western Philosophy. He is known as the "Father of Western
Philosophy". He was considered as wisest man in the world. He was a
sculptor and had a other occupations. He started a new career of
questioning those who were said to be wise.

His most renowned student was Plato (348-427- BCE) who would honor

his name through the establishment of a school for philosophical dialogues
in Athens (Plato's Academy) Plato's best known student was Aristotle 
(322-384 BCE) who would thee tutor Alexander the Great (l. 323-356 BCE)
and Greek Philosophy progressed, as first developed by Socrates. 

When Socrates was middle-aged, he started questioning people who were

held to be 'wise' than others. He found, to his dismay, "that those who
stood highest in reputation for wisdom, were lacking in it, while others
who were considered as common people were much more intelligent"

SOCRATES TEACHINGS WERE INTERPRETED THAT HIS'

MAIN FOCUS WAS ON HOW TO LIVE A GOOD AND VIRTUOUS LIFE
“an unexamined life is not worth living “

He was irritated by the Sophists and their tendency to teach logic as a means
of achieving self-centered ends, and even more their promotion of the idea
that all things are relative.  It was the truth that he loved, desired, and believed
in.

The youth of Athens delighted in watching Socrates question their elders in

the market and, soon, he had a following of young men who, because of his
example and his teachings, would go on to abandon their early aspirations
and devote themselves to philosophy (from the Greek 'Philo', love, and
'Sophia', wisdom - literally 'the love of wisdom'). Among these
were Antisthenes of Athens (l. c. 445-365 BCE), founder of the Cynic
school, Aristippus of Cyrene (l. c. 435-356 BCE), founder of the Cyrenaic
school), Xenophon, whose writings would influence Zeno of Citium, (l.c.
336-265 BCE) founder of the Stoic school, and, most famously, Plato (the
main source of our information of Socrates in his Dialogues) among many
others. Every major philosophical school mentioned by ancient writers
following Socrates' death was founded by one of his followers.

Socrates' Prison, Athens

by Mark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA)

Socratic Schools

The diversity of these schools is testimony to Socrates' wide ranging

influence and, more importantly, the diversity of interpretations of his
teachings. The philosophical concepts taught by Antisthenes and
Aristippus could not be more different, in that the former taught that the
good life was only realized by self-control and self-abnegation, while the
latter claimed a life of pleasure was the only path worth pursuing.

It has been said that Socrates' greatest contribution to philosophy was to

move intellectual pursuits away from the focus on `physical science' (as
pursued by the so-called Pre-Socratic Philosophers such
as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and others) and into the abstract
realm of ethics and morality. No matter the diversity of the schools which
claimed to carry on his teachings, they all emphasized some form of
morality as their foundational tenet. That the `morality' espoused by one
school was often condemned by another, again bears witness to the very
different interpretations of Socrates' central message.

While scholars have traditionally relied upon Plato's Dialogues  as a source

of information on the historical Socrates, Plato's contemporaries claimed he
used a character he called `Socrates' as a mouth-piece for his own
philosophical views. Notable among these critics was, allegedly, Phaedo, a
fellow student of Plato whose name is famous from one of Plato's most
influential dialogues (and whose writings are now lost) and Xenophon,
whose Memorablia presents a different view of Socrates than that presented
by Plato.

Socrates and his Vision

HOWEVER HIS TEACHINGS WERE INTERPRETED, IT SEEMS CLEAR
THAT SOCRATES' MAIN FOCUS WAS ON HOW TO LIVE A GOOD AND
VIRTUOUS LIFE. 

However his teachings were interpreted, it seems clear that Socrates' main
focus was on how to live a good and virtuous life. The claim atrributed to
him by Plato that "an unexamined life is not worth living" (Apology, 38b)
seems historically accurate, in that it is clear he inspired his followers to
think for themselves instead of following the dictates of society and the
accepted superstitions concerning the gods and how one should behave.

While there are differences between Plato's and Xenophon's depictions of

Socrates, both present a man who cared nothing for class distinctions or
`proper behavior' and who spoke as easily with women, servants, and
slaves as with those of the higher classes.

In ancient Athens, individual behavior was maintained by a concept

known as `Eusebia' which is often translated into English as `piety' but
more closely resembles `duty' or `loyalty to a course'. In refusing to
conform to the social propieties proscribed by Eusebia, Socrates angered
many of the more important men of the city who could, rightly, accuse him
of breaking the law by violating these customs.

Socrates' Trial

In 399 BCE Socrates was charged with impiety by Meletus the poet, Anytus
the tanner, and Lycon the orator who sought the death penalty in the
case. The accusation read: “Socrates is guilty, firstly, of denying the gods
recognized by the state and introducing new divinities, and, secondly, of
corrupting the young.” It has been suggested that this charge was both
personally and politically motivated as Athens was trying to purge itself of
those associated with the scourge of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens who had
only recently been overthrown.

Socrates' relationship to this regime was through his former

student, Critias, who was considered the worst of the tyrants and was
thought to have been corrupted by Socrates. It has also been suggested,
based in part on interpretations of Plato's dialogue of the Meno, that
Anytus blamed Socrates for corrupting his son. Anytus, it seems, had been
grooming his son for a life in politics until the boy became interested in
Socrates' teachings and abandoned political pursuits. As Socrates' accusers
had Critias as an example of how the philosopher corrupted youth, even if
they never used that evidence in court, the precedent appears to have been
known to the jury.
The Death of Socrates
by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) (Public Domain)

Ignoring the counsel of his friends and refusing the help of the gifted
speechwriter Lysias, Socrates chose to defend himself in court. There were
no lawyers in ancient Athens and, instead of a solicitor, one would hire a
speechwriter. Lysias was among the most highly paid but, as he admired
Socrates, he offered his services free of charge.

The speechwriter usually presented the defendant as a good man who had
been wronged by a false accusation, and this is the sort of defense the court
would have expected from Socrates. Instead of the defense filled with self-
justification and  pleas for his life, however, Socrates defied the Athenian
court, proclaiming his innocence and casting himself in the role of Athens'
'gadfly' - a benefactor to them all who, at his own expense, kept them
awake and aware. In his Apology, Plato has Socrates say:

If you put me to death, you will not easily find another who, if I may use a
ludicrous comparison, clings to the state as a sort of gadfly to a horse that
is large and well-bred but rather sluggish because of its size, so that it
needs to be aroused. It seems to me that the god has attached me like that
to the state, for I am constantly alighting upon you at every point to arouse,
persuade, and reporach each of you all day long. (Apology 30e)

Plato makes it clear in his work that the charges against Socrates hold little
weight but also emphasizes Socrates' disregard for the feelings of the jury
and court protocol. Socrates is presented as refusing professional counsel in
the form of a speech-writer and, further, refusing to conform to the
expected behavior of a defendant on trial for a capital crime. Socrates,
according to Plato, had no fear of death, proclaiming to the court: 

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really

being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one
knows whether death may not be the greatest good tha can happen to
man. But men fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of
evils. (Apology 29a)

Following this passage, Plato gives Socrates' famous philosophical stand in

which the old master defiantly states that he must choose service to the
divine over conformity to his society and its expectations. Socrates
famously confronts his fellow citizens with honesty, saying: 

Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you
and, while I have life and strength, I shall never cease from the practice
and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my
manner, and convincing him saying: O my friend, why do you who are a
citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens care so much about
laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation and so
little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul,
which you never regard or heed at all?  Are you not Ashamed of this? And
if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care; I do not
depart or let him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine
him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I
reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less. And
this I should say to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and
alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For
this is the command of God, as I would have you know: and I believe that
to this day no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service
to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young
alike, not to take thought for your persons and your properties, but first and
chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that
virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come money and every
other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this
is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed. But
if anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth.
Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as
Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not; but whatever you do, know that I
shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times. (29d-30c)

When it came time for Socrates to suggest a penalty to be imposed rather

than death, he suggested he should be maintained in honor with free meals
in the Prytaneum, a place reserved for heroes of the Olympic games. This
would have been considered a serious insult to the honor of the Prytaneum
and that of the city of Athens. Accused criminals on trial for their life were
expected to beg for the mercy of the court, not presume to heroic accolades.

Conviction and Aftermath

Socrates was convicted and sentenced to death (Xenophon tells us that he

wished for such an outcome and Plato's account of the trial in
his Apology would seem to confirm this). The last days of Socrates are
chronicled in Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, the last dialogue
depicting the day of his death (by drinking hemlock) surrounded by his
friends in his jail cell in Athens and, as Plato puts it, "Such was the end of
our friend, a man, I think, who was the wisest and justest, and the best man
I have ever known" (Phaedo, 118).

Socrates' influence was felt immediately in the actions of his disciples as

they formed their own interpretations of his life, teachings, and death, and
set about forming their own philosophical schools and writing about their
experiences with their teacher. Of all these writings we have only the
works of Plato, Xenophon, a comic image by Aristophanes, and later
works by Aristotle to tell us anything about Socrates' life. He, himself,
wrote nothing, but his words and actions in the search for and defense of
Truth changed the world and his example still inspires people today.