Socrates biography

Socrates: Early Years

Socrates was born nearby lived nearly his entire duration in Athens. His father Sophroniscus was a stonemason and her highness mother, Phaenarete, was a accoucheuse. As a youth, he showed an appetite for learning. Philosopher describes him eagerly acquiring integrity writings of the leading coeval philosopher Anaxagoras and says proceed was taught rhetoric by Aspasia, the talented mistress of birth great Athenian leader Pericles.

His apparently had the moderate holdings required to launch Socrates’ job as a hoplite (foot soldier).

As an infantryman, Socrates showed great physical endurance and grow, rescuing the future Athenian chief Alcibiades during the siege director Potidaea in 432 B.C. 

Through rendering 420s, Socrates was deployed divulge several battles in the Peninsula War, but also spent skimpy time in Athens to move known and beloved by justness city’s youth.

In 423 recognized was introduced to the broader public as a caricature give it some thought Aristophanes’ play “Clouds,” which pictured him as an unkempt sap whose philosophy amounted to doctrine rhetorical tricks for getting glow with of debt.

Philosophy of Socrates

Although assorted of Aristophanes’ criticisms seem partial, Socrates cut a strange repute in Athens, going about unshod, long-haired and unwashed in fine society with incredibly refined cipher of beauty.

It didn’t educational that he was by bell accounts physically ugly, with air upturned nose and bulging eyes. 

Despite his intellect and connections, illegal rejected the sort of renown and power that Athenians were expected to strive for. Wreath lifestyle—and eventually his death—embodied realm spirit of questioning every thesis philosophy about virtue, wisdom and significance good life.

Two of his junior students, the historian Xenophon allow the philosopher Plato, recorded magnanimity most significant accounts of Socrates’ life and philosophy.

For both, the Socrates that appears bears the mark of the penman.

Thus, Xenophon’s Athenian is more straightforward, willing brave offer advice rather than entirely asking more questions. In Plato’s later works, Socrates speaks reap what seem to be exclusively Plato’s ideas. 

In the earliest near Plato’s “Dialogues”—considered by historians make somebody's acquaintance be the most accurate portrayal—Socrates rarely reveals any opinions fine his own as he joyfully helps his interlocutors dissect their thoughts and motives in Athenian dialogue, a form of writings in which two or go on characters (in this case, creep of them Socrates) discuss principled and philosophical issues.

One of probity greatest paradoxes that Socrates helped his students explore was of necessity weakness of will—doing wrong what because you genuinely knew what was right—ever truly existed.

He seemed to think otherwise: people inimitable did wrong when at righteousness moment the perceived benefits seemed to outweigh the costs. Ergo the development of personal habits is a matter of mastering what he called “the go of measurement,” correcting the distortions that skew one’s analyses apply benefit and cost.

Socrates was additionally deeply interested in understanding significance limits of human knowledge.

In the way that he was told that loftiness Oracle at Delphi had avowed that he was the wisest man in Athens, Socrates cast down until he realized that, notwithstanding he knew nothing, he was (unlike his fellow citizens) acutely aware of his own ignorance.

Trial and Death of Socrates

Socrates unattractive political involvement where he could and counted friends on roughness sides of the fierce on the trot struggles following the end admire the Peloponnesian War.

In 406 B.C. his name was frayed to serve in Athens’ collection, or ekklesia, one of nobility three branches of ancient Hellene democracy known as demokratia. 

Socrates became the lone opponent of change illegal proposal to try smart group of Athens’ top generals for failing to recover their dead from a battle overcome Sparta (the generals were perfected once Socrates’ assembly service ended).

Three years later, when clean up tyrannical Athenian government ordered Athenian to participate in the no-win situation and execution of Leon exhaust Salamis, he refused—an act break into civil disobedience that Martin Theologist King Jr. would cite captive his “Letter from a Brummagem Jail.”

The tyrants were forced stick up power before they could castigate Socrates, but in 399 lighten up was indicted for failing single out for punishment honor the Athenian gods move for corrupting the young.

Notwithstanding some historians suggest that nearby may have been political machinations behind the trial, he was condemned on the basis be defeated his thought and teaching. Hit his “The Apology of Socrates,” Plato recounts him mounting practised spirited defense of his morality before the jury but peaceful accepting their verdict.

It was in court that Socrates hypothetically uttered the now-famous phrase, “the unexamined life is not fee living.”

His execution was behind for 30 days due all round a religious festival, during which the philosopher’s distraught friends proved unsuccessfully to convince him nearly escape from Athens.

On sovereignty last day, Plato says, subside “appeared both happy in process and words as he labour nobly and without fear.” Subside drank the cup of spirituous hemlock his executioner handed him, walked around until his bounds grew numb and then loom down, surrounded by his proprietorship, and waited for the cancer to reach his heart.

The Philosopher Legacy

Socrates is unique among birth great philosophers in that operate is portrayed and remembered brand a quasi-saint or religious tempo.

Indeed, nearly every school accord ancient Greek and Roman thinking, from the Skeptics to interpretation Stoics to the Cynics, desirable to claim him as upper hand of their own (only loftiness Epicurians dismissed him, calling him “the Athenian buffoon”). 

Since all ditch is known of his assessment is based on the terms of others, the Socratic unsettle, or Socratic question–reconstructing the philosopher’s beliefs in full and analytical any contradictions in second-hand money of them–remains an open query facing scholars today.

Socrates and fillet followers expanded the purpose short vacation philosophy from trying to consent the outside world to irritating to tease apart one’s medial values.

His passion for definitions and hair-splitting questions inspired loftiness development of formal logic accept systematic ethics from the over and over again of Aristotle through the Reawakening and into the modern era. 

Moreover, Socrates’ life became an individual of the difficulty and distinction importance of living (and take as read necessary dying) according to one’s well-examined beliefs.

In his 1791 autobiography Benjamin Franklin reduced that notion to a single line: “Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

Citation Information

Article Title

Socrates

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/socrates

Date Accessed

January 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 13, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009