Question

Who was Socrates? Where did he live?

Answer 1

Hint: Socrates invented the famous style of teaching referred to as the ‘Socratic Method’ which involved a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between a student and teacher. He was also the motivation for Plato, the founder of the Western philosophical tradition.

Complete answer:
Socrates was a Greek philosopher and is believed to be the founding figure of modern Western philosophy. There were philosophers before Socrates (known as the pre-Socratics) but none of them, before, touched upon the diversity of topics that Socrates did. Socrates used to live in the city-state of Athens. He spent the majority of his life there until he was given the death sentence in 399 BCE.

Socrates had not written anything and whatever we know of him is only because of the dialogues of his student named Plato, and through the other ‘Sokratikoi Logoi’ (discourses of Socrates) written by other students like Xenophon. He was the motivation for Plato, the founder of the Western philosophical tradition. Plato, in turn, was the teacher of Aristotle, thus forming the popular triad of the ancient Greek philosophers: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Note: Among the primary sources about his trial and death, the Apology of Socrates is the dialogue that depicts the trial, and is one of four Socratic dialogues, along with Euthyphro, Phaedo, and Crito, by means of which the final days of the philosopher Socrates were described by Plato. He presents the philosopher as a martyr for philosophy and rational inquiry in general.