Ancient Greek idealist philosopher. Born in Athens. My father is a sculptor and my mother is a midwife. When he was a teenager, he worked with his father in sculpture. It is said that he has read many works of ancient philosophers, listened to lectures by Anaxagoras, an ancient Greek materialist philosopher, and studied geometry, astronomy, music and poetry. During the Peloponnesian War, he served in the army three times. He also participated in the Senate under the rule of the "Thirty Tyrants" supported by Sparta. He has been arguing all his life. He is used to discussing war, politics, ethics and philosophy with young people in the streets, markets and stadiums. Because of collusion with the slave owners optimates, at the age of 70, he was accused by the slave owners' Democrats of not believing in the god the country believed in, spreading different opinions and corrupting the youth. The court sentenced him to death for drinking.
Socrates didn't have any books himself, nor did he run a school. To understand his remarks and thoughts, we can only rely on other people's records. Aristophanes, an ancient Greek playwright, mocked Socrates as a cunning sophist in his comedy The Cloud, but Xenophon, a student of Socrates, praised him highly in His Words and Actions and Plato's Dialogues. Generally speaking, Plato's dialogues, such as Argument, Phedros, Credo and Tyades, are more credible. Socrates' theory was inherited and developed by his great disciple Plato after his death.
Socrates was familiar with Anaxagoras's natural philosophy, but when the wise man doubted the old habits and moral principles of Athens and the foundation of Athens was shaken, he turned from studying nature to studying ethics and politics. He thinks that "knowing yourself" is more urgent than knowing nature, because nothing can be learned from trees, stones and stars. Socrates always insists that he knows nothing. The reason why he is smarter than others lies in "knowing his ignorance". He insists that knowledge is the only necessary condition for all people to be perfect in virtue without knowing and deliberately doing bad things. His conclusion is that "virtue is knowledge". He said, "If virtue is knowledge, there is no doubt that virtue comes from education". In the history of western education, Socrates first pointed out the relationship between knowledge and virtue and the role of education in cultivating virtue.
Socrates often uses the so-called Socrates question-and-answer method in his argument. When talking with shoemakers, businessmen, soldiers or rich young aristocrats and all kinds of people, he pretends that others are smarter than him, and through clever questions, he makes the other party admit that his views are chaotic. What he said is contradictory, and he really doesn't know the basic meaning of the nouns used. This first step is called Socrates irony. He thinks this is a necessary step to make people smart, because unless a person is humble and "knows his ignorance", he can learn nothing. The second step is called definition. Through repeated questions and induction, a clear definition and concept are obtained. The third step is called midwifery, which guides students to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions. As Socrates himself said, although he is ignorant, he can help others acquire knowledge, just as his mother is a midwife who can deliver babies even though she is too old to have children. Plato said in Mino that when Socrates mentioned figures and definitions to a young slave who had never studied geometry, the young slave came to the correct conclusion. This means that everyone has the ability to think. Learning is not a simple process of accumulating knowledge materials, but a process in which students and teachers jointly seek correct answers. So Aristotle thinks that Socrates' greatest contribution is to put forward the method of induction and definition for the first time. Later, the heuristic method in the history of western education was developed from Socrates' method.