Socrates

Socrates k´rtz) (KEY) , 469–399 B.C., Greek philosopher of Athens. Famous for his view of philosophy as a pursuit proper and necessary to all intelligent men, he is one of the great examples of a man who lived by his principles even though they ultimately cost him his life. Knowledge of the man and his teachings comes indirectly from certain dialogues of his disciple Plato and from the Memorabilia of Xenophon. In spite of conflicting interpretations of his teachings, the accounts of these two writers are largely supplementary. 1 Life Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor. It is said that in early life he practiced his father’s art. In middle life he married Xanthippe, who is legendary as a shrew, although the stories have little basis in ascertainable fact. It is not certain who were Socrates’s teachers in philosophy, but he seems to have been acquainted with the doctrines of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and the atomists. He was widely known for his intellectual powers even before he was 40, when, according to Plato’s report of Socrates’s speech in the Apology, the oracle at Delphi pronounced him the wisest man in Greece. In that speech socrates, philosophy, knowledge, man, virtue, view, trial, socrates’s, life, sophists, plato, own, method, although, true, things, teachings, teachers, speech, soul, seems, public, professional, one, moral, lead, intellectual, ignorance, identical, great, good, forms, form, famous, fact