Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher viewed by many as the founding figure of Western philosophy. He searched for the truth by questioning everything and everyone. His approach to analysis of truth became known as Socratic method.
Socrates left no writings. His ideas must be reconstructed from the publications of his students, which include the philosophers Antisthenes and Plato and the historian Xenophon.
Biography[]
Socrates is estimated to be born in 469 or 470 B.C. in Athens. His father Sophroniscus was a stonemason and his mother, Phaenarete, was a midwife. He had a great intrest in knowledge and read works of philosopher Anaxagoras. He was taught rhetoric by Aspasia, the talented mistress of the great Athenian leader Pericles.
Socrates became a hoplite (foot soldier). During the siege of Potidaea in 432 B.C. he managed to rescue the future Athenian leader Alcibiades. Through the 420s, Socrates was deployed for several battles in the Peloponnesian War
Socrates would often spend time with Athenian youth, often trying to teach them questioning and critical thinking. He served as a teacher to Plato and Xenophon who would later record significant aspects of his life and methods into their works.
Socrates became member of Athens' ekklesia, one of the three branches of ancient Greek democracy. When it was illegally propossed to try a group of Athens’ top generals for failing to recover their dead from a battle against Sparta Socrates was the only one who opposed it. The generals were executed once Socrates’ assembly service ended. After three years the Thirty Tyrants ordered Socrates to participate in the arrest and execution of Leon of Salamis. Knowing Leon was an honorable man and that demanded execution was unjust, Socrates decisively refused.
The tyrants were forced from power before they could punish Socrates, but in 399 he was indicted for failing to honor the Athenian gods and for corrupting the young. Although some historians suggest that there may have been political machinations behind the trial, he was condemned on the basis of his thought and teaching. In his “The Apology of Socrates,” Plato recounts him mounting a spirited defense of his virtue before the jury but calmly accepting their verdict. It was in court that Socrates allegedly uttered the now-famous phrase, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates died in prison after drinking poison.
Trivia[]
- Martin Luther King, Jr. cited Socrates' act of civil disobedience against the Thirty Tyrants in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”