The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Socrates

c. 470 – 399 BCE

Athenian who wrote nothing but, through relentless questioning about how to live, became the founding figure of Western moral philosophy.

Marble bust of a balding, bearded man with a broad, snub nose
Roman marble bust, 1st century CE, probably after a lost bronze by Lysippos. Louvre, Paris.Photo: Eric Gaba · CC BY-SA 2.5 · See the original

Socrates spent his life in conversation in the streets of Athens, questioning people who claimed to know what justice, courage or piety are, and exposing the confusions in their answers. He claimed wisdom only in recognising his own ignorance. Because he wrote nothing, we know him mainly through the dialogues of his student Plato, and scholars still debate how far Plato’s Socrates is the historical one.

In 399 BCE he was tried for impiety and corrupting the young, and was executed by being made to drink hemlock.

Tradition
Western
Region
Athens
Influenced
Plato

Sources

  1. Debra Nails and S. Sara Monoson, Socrates, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy