Socrates: One of the Most Important Figures in Western Philosophy

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Socrates was one of the most influential thinkers in the West, even though he left no writings of himself, it was possible to reconstruct an accurate account of his life from the writings of his Greek students because he always engaged them. He was a man with a very strong conviction because he lived his life for the pursuit of knowledge, true wisdom, God’s will, and piety. Though he never wrote anything, his soul source of knowledge about him came from one of his students, Plato. Socrates was born in 469 B.C. in a village on the slopes of Mount Lycabettus, where his father was a sculptor and his mother a midwife. He soon became an apprentice and aid to his father and he continued it throughout a brief period of time until he volunteered to be a soldier in the Peloponnesian War.

After his retirement of the army, most of his time and energy in his adult life was spent in pursuing wisdom. Plato was Socrates’ most famous student because of his devotion that he had with philosophy. “Philosophy, the love of wisdom, was for Socrates itself a sacred path, a holy quest -- not a game to be taken lightly. He believed -- or at least said he did in the dialog Meno -- in the reincarnation of an eternal soul, which contained all knowledge. We unfortunately lose touch with that knowledge at every birth, and so we need to be reminded of what we already know (rather than learning something new)” (Boeree, “The Ancient Greeks, Part Two: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle”). Socrates had discussions in a wide range of subjects, for example marriage, love, war, politics, religion, science, and morals. Most of his discussions were known as dialectic meaning they consisted of conversations at which it would bring the different point of vi...

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...scaping from prison, Socrates used his death as a final lesson for his pupils with his last words meaning that death is the cure and the freedom of the soul from the body. What he left was his teachings to his students and the achievements and beliefs that are still being used today. From building the tower of Harnesses to his different beliefs of always trying to expose ignorance because he always believed that the mind and soul was more important than the body because it was immortal.

Works Cited

Dr. C. George Boeree. “The Ancient Greeks, Part Two: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.” http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/athenians.html.

Luis E. Navia. Socrates A Life Examined New York: Prometheus Books, 2007.

Paul Strathern. Socrates In 90 Minutes Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1997.

Shane Weller. The Trial And Death Of Socrates Canada: Dover Publications, 1992.

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