SOCRATES

Socrates

Socrates

Introduction

Socrates, the Greek philosopher and moralist, was born at Athens in the year 469 B.C. Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy. By far the most important source of information about Socrates is Plato, who depicts him as a contradictory character. Socrates was renowned for his contribution in the ethics field. He was also specially known for the writers as his students Xenophon and Plato.

His life

Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and Phænarete, a nonprofessional mid wife. The family was neither poor nor wealthy, and Socrates received the usual elementary education in gymnastics and music, to train the body and mind. He may have planned to follow his father's occupation, and there are some reports that he did produce some works of sculpture; but he apparently decided that he was more at ease with ideas than with stone. He had a reflective, almost mystical temperament at times, and throughout his life had the habit of assuming static positions, or trancelike states, during which he sometimes thought he heard a supernatural voice that warned him against certain acts he was considering. He claimed that he always regretted it when he disregarded the voice.

Socrates has been pictured as a short, snub-nosed person with widely spaced, perhaps protruding eyes and broad nostrils. The comic dramatists of the time, Aristophanes, Amipsias, and Eupolis, made him the subject of satirical dramas in which his physical traits, as well as his dialectical habits, were exaggerated. He lived simply, wearing the same garment winter and summer and traveling barefoot in all seasons. He ate and drank moderately, although he could drink more wine than most men without being affected. He was married to Xanthippe, who is reputed to have been a virago, and they had two children (Bakalis, 2005).

Philosophical studies

Socrates began his philosophical studies with the ideas of Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Anaximander, Zeno, and others. Because of conflicting and sometimes fantastic ideas he found in these philosophies concerning the nature of the universe, he came to the conviction that more was to be gained by a study of justice and goodness. He combined his interest in ethics and the philosophy of politics with a faith in the capacity of the mind to clarify itself by working out the inconsistencies in various notions. Through a conversational technique, that has come to be known as the Socratic Method. He claimed that if there were any truth in the report that the Oracle at Delphi had called him the wisest man in Greece, it was only because, unlike others, he recognized his own ignorance. He believed that he had a mission in life to make people aware of the limitations and defects in their beliefs and thus, by knowing themselves, to prepare for knowledge (Bakalis, 2005).

He wandered the streets and marketplaces of Athens, and when young men, politicians, or other bystanders became involved in conversation with him about justice, honor, courage, or some other philosophical matter, Socrates ...