Socrates

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Socrates (470 BC - 399 BC) was an important Greek philosopher and teacher. He lived in the Greek city of Athens. He is perhaps most important because he started trying to find out how people thought. He asked questions about people, for example, how to be a truly good person. He also answered questions with other deeper questions. In his time, this was a new way of finding important facts, and we think that Socrates was the first to do this. This is now called the Socratic method after this man.

Socrates is sometimes called the "father of Western philosophy". This is because the things that he said made people think that he was very wise, and because of the importance and success of the people that he taught, like Plato, a younger philosopher.

[edit] The Life of Socrates

Not much is truly known about the life of Socrates. He lived such a long time ago that we do not have much real news about him. We have some important stories from a few people who lived at the same time. Some were his friends (such as Plato, and Xenophon, a Greek historian) and some were people who made fun of him (such as Aristophanes, who wrote plays).

Socrates may or may not have written any books himself. Plato was one of his good friends and wrote about Socrates' life and thoughts, as well as about his teacher's death. Plato is our main source of information about Socrates.

Plato said that the father of Socrates was Sophroniscus, and that his mother was called Phaenarete. His mother was a nurse who helped women give birth to children. Socrates may have said that his mother's example made him help young people to give birth to new thoughts and ideas.

Socrates was said to be short and ugly. He was married to a much younger woman called Xanthippe. It was said that she was often very angry with him and was sometimes violent. No-one is sure if their marriage was happy, although they had three children together. People say that Socrates sometimes made complaints about his wife, but no-one knew if he was telling the truth.

One source said that Socrates was a stonemason, that is someone who builds with stone. This may be true or not true. It is also said that he fought as a soldier for Athens in three wars. He is said to have been very brave and to have fought well.

Socrates made many people angry, perhaps by being too honest. He would say what he thought and often said things that people did not want to hear. He showed that some important people knew nothing. He was called a gadfly which is a small fly that attacks cattle (the cattle cannot stop the pain and get angry).

It is said that one of Socrates' friends asked an oracle (a holy person that was wise, respected and who people thought could talk to the gods), if there was any person wiser than Socrates in Athens. The oracle said that there was no wiser person. The oracle was well known for saying things that were not very clear. It did not say that Socrates was the wisest, just that there was no person wiser. Socrates may have then asked many people in the city about this. He made many enemies among the people who were important in the city.

As an old man Socrates would often talk to young men and boys and try to teach them. (In this time women and girls were not given education). Some people were grateful for this and some people hated him for it. He had a group of young friends who loved him a lot and spent a lot of time with him. Sometimes their parents were very unhappy about this.

[edit] The death of Socrates

At about the age of 70 years, Socrates was accused of crimes, such as making young people bad (corrupting them), and talking against the religion of the city of Athens. Socrates was brought to justice in front of a jury of other Athenians. The jury decided that Socrates had broken the law, perhaps because he refused to change his ideas and refused to stop teaching. As punishment he was given death by poison.

Plato wrote a lot about how the death of Socrates was wrong. He said that Socrates was very brave and drank the poison, with his friends around him, even though he could have escaped. It may be that Socrates wanted to die, to be a martyr for his ideas. This story of a man willingly dying for his beliefs is very important, and has been shown by artists many times.

[edit] The ideas of Socrates

Socrates helped people to see what was wrong with their ideas. Sometimes they liked this, sometimes they were not happy or grateful. He said that he, Socrates, was not wise, but he said something like "I know what I don't know." In other words, he knew the limit of his knowledge. He said that people who do bad things do so because they do not know any better.

People think that Socrates was a good man because he did no harm, except he asked questions about everything. However, during his life many people thought he was a bad person, because he asked those questions and because he made young people unhappy about their lives.

Someone once wrote that Socrates said that "A life that was not examined was not worth living". This means that one must think about one's own life and its meaning. Some people have said that most humans are happier if they do not think too much about their life.

Socrates also taught that many people can look at something and not truly see it. He asked questions about the meaning of life and goodness. These are still very important questions. Much of philosophy (love of wisdom) is about these things.

Most of what we know about Socrates' ideas comes from Plato's writings. We are not sure that Plato was always being truthful, or if he was making Socrates say things that were Plato's ideas.