1 Socrates - Father of western philosophy

 

The year birth of Socrates is an assumed date. His date of birth is within period of years ranging from 470 to 469 BC or 469 to 468 BC.

He was not from a noble family. Socrates was born in Alopeke  and belonged to the tribe Antiochis. His father was a sculptor or sophroniscus. His mother was a midwife named Phaenarete.

Socrates married to Xanthippe, who is especially remembered for having undesirable temperament. She bore three sons for him.

Socrates first worked as a sculptor. As a youth, he showed an appetite for learning. His family had the moderate wealth required to launch Socrates' career as a hoplite.

Although he never rejected the standard Athenian view of religion. He reported being guided by inner divine voice.

For a while Socrates fulfill the the role of hoplite, participating in the peloponnesian war- a confilct which stretched over a period spanning 431 to 404 BC (Socrates died in this war).

His philosophy

He grew up during the golden age of pericles. Socrates is at once most exemplary and strangest ofthe Greek philosophers.

He served distinction at being soldier but become best known of questioner of everything and everyone.

His style of teaching -immortalized as a Socrates method. The method included not conveying knowledge but rathe asking question, after clarifying the question until his students arrived at thier own understanding.

He wrote nothing about himself, so all that is known about him is filtered through the writings of few comtemporiers and his followers. Most of known is from his student Plato.

He was accused for corrupting the youth of Athens and sentenced to death.

He chose not to flee, he spent his final days in the company of his friends before the executioner's cup of poisonous Hemlock.

Socrates appears to have been a critic of democracy although this is controversial.

he did hold certain convictions with confidence, including that:

Human wisdom begins with the recognition of one’s own ignorance;

The unexamined life is not worth living

Ethical virtue is the only thing that matters

A good person can never be harmed, because whatever misfortune he may suffer, his virtue will remain intact.

Socrates always emphasized the importance of mind over the relative unimportance of human body.

It is argued that Socrates believed "ideals belong in the world only the wise man can understand" making the philosopher the only type of person suitable to govern others.

It was not only Athenian democracy, Socrates found short of ideal any government that did not conform to his presentation of a perfect regime.

Socrates opposion to democracy is denied, and the question is one of the biggest philosophical debates trying to determine what exactly Socrates believed.

Socrates refused to pursue coventional politics. He never looked into others matters or never tell people how to live life. He did not yet understand how to live his own life.

He believed he was a philosopher engaged in pursuit of truth.

This was the great philosopher Socrates.