Socrates

Greek philosophy has been and always will be the greatest base for modern thought. The Greeks were people of thinking and reasoning. They helped establish what we base our entire trial of thinking that we usae today. The biggest and brightest of these Greek philosophers was a man named Socrates.
Socrates was born in 470 B.C. in such a way that allowed nobody to think that he would set the base for the modern world of thinking. He is most famous for his developement of the Socratic method, which used the form of questioning to find knowledge and wisdom. The Socratic method has been used for every philosophy book and idea since the time of Socrates where it was developed. This method is still used today with great respect for the man who trademarked it.
Socrates was a man of great thought and intellectual want in a sense that he would aggrivate one so much that one would just stop thinking about the subject and leave himself unanswered. This type of person is called a gadfly, one who says things that make you thimk. Socrates always had someone writing down his ideas, but Socrates himself never wrote any books. His one main idea and quote was "The unexamined life is not worth living." This quote is saying that Socrates believed that life was to be devoted to the study of the human mind and soul. (Stone 211) These ideas made Socrates one of the mosat respected men in the world, but one of the most hated men in the Athenian society.
Because of his challenging ideas and his new thoughts, Socrates became the one most hated man in Athens. He was smelly and disgusting and the people of Athens saw nothing but the outside of this man. (Guthrie 42) They charged him with heresy and sentenced him to death by the drinking of hemlock. He thought long and hard about his sentence and came up with a speech to use in front the royal assembly. His speech was breathtaking but still the assembly chose death for Socrates. He drank the hemlock and he died.
Socrates was a great man. He gave us the Socratic method and many great ideas, that we still use today. He was a thinker who accepted nothing at face value. He was smart enough to admit that he didn't know everything, but only that of his own ignorance. This in itself is one of the single most important things we can learn from Socrates.
Stone, I.F. The Trial of Socrates. Pan Books. 1989. New York
Guthrie, William Keith Chambers. Socrates. Cambridge University Press. 1971. New York.