The Life & Thought OF Socrates, Third Part.

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Socrates attitude toward politics was obedient but generally

steered clear of politics, restrained by what he believed to be

a divine warning. He believed that he had received a call to pursue

philosophy and could serve his country best by devoting himself

to teaching, and by persuading the Athenians to engage in

self-examination and intending to their souls. He didn't write

any books and established no regular school of philosophy.

All that is known, with certainty about his personality and his way

of thinking are derived from the works of two of his distinguished

scholars. Plato and the historian Xenophon, a prosaic writer who

probably failed to understand many of Socrates' doctrines. Plato

portrayed Socrates as hiding behind an ironical profession of

ignorance, known as Socrates irony, and possessing a mental

acuity and resourcefulness that enabled him to penetrate

arguments with great facility.

Socrates contribution to philosophy was essentially ethical in

character. Belief in a purely objective understanding of such

concepts as justice, love, and virtue, and the self-knowledge

that he inculcated were the basis of his teachings. He believed

that all vice is the result of ignorance and that no person is

willingly bad, correspondingly, virtue is knowledge, and those

who know the right will act rightly. His logic placed particular

emphasis on rational argument and the quest for general

definitions, as evidenced in the writings of his younger contemporary

and pupil, Plato, and of Plato's pupil, Aristotle...

Another thinker befriended and influenced by Socrates was

Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic school of philosophy.

Socrates was also the teacher of Aristippus, who founded the

Cyrenaicphilosophy of experience and pleasure, from which

developed the more lofty philosophy of Epicures. To such Stoics

as the Greek philosopher Epictetus, the Roman philosopher

Seneca the Elder, and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius,

Socrates appeared as the very embodiment and guide

of the higher life.

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