1.
Plato
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Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Platos entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead once noted, the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. In addition to being a figure for Western science, philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, amongst other scholars, called Christianity, Platonism for the people, Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy, which originate with him. He was not the first thinker or writer to whom the word “philosopher” should be applied, few other authors in the history of Western philosophy approximate him in depth and range, perhaps only Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant would be generally agreed to be of the same rank. Due to a lack of surviving accounts, little is known about Platos early life, the philosopher came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Ancient sources describe him as a bright though modest boy who excelled in his studies, the exact time and place of Platos birth are unknown, but it is certain that he belonged to an aristocratic and influential family. Based on ancient sources, most modern scholars believe that he was born in Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BCE. According to a tradition, reported by Diogenes Laertius, Ariston traced his descent from the king of Athens, Codrus. Platos mother was Perictione, whose family boasted of a relationship with the famous Athenian lawmaker, besides Plato himself, Ariston and Perictione had three other children, these were two sons, Adeimantus and Glaucon, and a daughter Potone, the mother of Speusippus. The brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon are mentioned in the Republic as sons of Ariston, and presumably brothers of Plato, but in a scenario in the Memorabilia, Xenophon confused the issue by presenting a Glaucon much younger than Plato. Then, at twenty-eight, Hermodorus says, went to Euclides in Megara, as Debra Nails argues, The text itself gives no reason to infer that Plato left immediately for Megara and implies the very opposite. Thus, Nails dates Platos birth to 424/423, another legend related that, when Plato was an infant, bees settled on his lips while he was sleeping, an augury of the sweetness of style in which he would discourse about philosophy. Ariston appears to have died in Platos childhood, although the dating of his death is difficult. Perictione then married Pyrilampes, her mothers brother, who had served many times as an ambassador to the Persian court and was a friend of Pericles, Pyrilampes had a son from a previous marriage, Demus, who was famous for his beauty. Perictione gave birth to Pyrilampes second son, Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato and these and other references suggest a considerable amount of family pride and enable us to reconstruct Platos family tree
2.
Raphael
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Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running a large workshop and, despite his death at 37. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, the best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings and he was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region and his poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture, growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a humanistic education however, it is unclear how easily he read Latin. His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1,1494 by his father, Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven, his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master and he had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been a great help to his father. A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity and his fathers workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter, and Luca Signorelli, according to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice despite the tears of his mother. The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, an alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters, the Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a master, that is to say fully trained and his first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was named in the commission
3.
The School of Athens
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The School of Athens is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphaels commission to decorate the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, the picture has long been seen as Raphaels masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the Renaissance. The School of Athens is one of a group of four main frescoes on the walls of the Stanza that depict distinct branches of knowledge, accordingly, the figures on the walls below exemplify Philosophy, Poetry, Theology, and Law. The traditional title is not Raphaels, indeed, Plato and Aristotle appear to be the central figures in the scene. However, all the philosophers depicted sought knowledge of first causes, many lived before Plato and Aristotle, and hardly a third were Athenians. The architecture contains Roman elements, but the general semi-circular setting having Plato, compounding the problem, Raphael had to invent a system of iconography to allude to various figures for whom there were no traditional visual types. For example, while the Socrates figure is immediately recognizable from Classical busts, aside from the identities of the figures depicted, many aspects of the fresco have been variously interpreted, but few such interpretations are unanimously accepted among scholars. The popular idea that the gestures of Plato and Aristotle are kinds of pointing is very likely. Aristotle, with his four-elements theory, held that all change on Earth was owing to motions of the heavens, in the painting Aristotle carries his Ethics, which he denied could be reduced to a mathematical science. Finally, according to Vasari, the scene includes Raphael himself, however, as Heinrich Wölfflin observed, it is quite wrong to attempt interpretations of the School of Athens as an esoteric treatise. The all-important thing was the motive which expressed a physical or spiritual state. An interpretation of the fresco relating to hidden symmetries of the figures, the identities of some of the philosophers in the picture, such as Plato or Aristotle, are certain. Beyond that, identifications of Raphaels figures have always been hypothetical, to complicate matters, beginning from Vasaris efforts, some have received multiple identifications, not only as ancients but also as figures contemporary with Raphael. Vasari mentions portraits of the young Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, leaning over Bramante with his hands raised near the bottom right and he was writing over 40 years after the painting, and never knew Raphael, but no doubt reflects what was believed in his time. Many other popular identifications of portraits are very dubious, luitpold Dussler counts among those who can be identified with some certainty, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Pythagoras, Euclid, Ptolemy, Zoroaster, Raphael, Sodoma and Diogenes. Other identifications he holds to be more or less speculative, both figures hold modern, bound copies of their books in their left hands, while gesturing with their right. Plato holds Timaeus, Aristotle his Nicomachean Ethics, Plato is depicted as old, grey, wise-looking, and bare-foot. By contrast Aristotle, slightly ahead of him, is in manhood, handsome, well-shod and dressed with gold
4.
Atlantis
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In the story, Athens repels the Atlantean attack unlike any other nation of the known world, supposedly giving testament to the superiority of Platos concept of a state. At the end of the story, Atlantis eventually falls out of favor with the gods, despite its minor importance in Platos work, the Atlantis story has had a considerable impact on literature. The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacons New Atlantis. On the other hand, 19th-century amateur scholars misinterpreted Platos account as historical tradition, most notably in Ignatius L. Donnellys Atlantis, The Antediluvian World. As a consequence, Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, while present-day philologists and historians accept the storys fictional character, there is still debate on what served as its inspiration. Platos dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written in 360 BC, contain the earliest references to Atlantis, for unknown reasons, Plato never completed Critias. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent. The four people appearing in those two dialogues are the politicians Critias and Hermocrates as well as the philosophers Socrates and Timaeus of Locri, in his works Plato makes extensive use of the Socratic method in order to discuss contrary positions within the context of a supposition. The Timaeus begins with an introduction, followed by an account of the creations and structure of the universe and ancient civilizations. In the introduction, Socrates muses about the society, described in Platos Republic. Critias mentions a historical tale that would make the perfect example. In his account, ancient Athens seems to represent the perfect society and Atlantis its opponent, representing the very antithesis of the perfect traits described in the Republic. According to Critias, the Hellenic gods of old divided the land so that each god might have their own lot, Poseidon was appropriately, and to his liking, bequeathed the island of Atlantis. The island was larger than Ancient Libya and Asia Minor combined, fifty stadia from the coast was a mountain that was low on all sides. Broke it off all round about, the central island itself was five stades in diameter. In Platos myth, Poseidon fell in love with Cleito, the daughter of Evenor and Leucippe, who bore him five pairs of male twins. The eldest of these, Atlas, was made king of the entire island and the ocean, and was given the mountain of his birth. Atlass twin Gadeirus, or Eumelus in Greek, was given the extremity of the island towards the pillars of Hercules
5.
Socrates
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Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is a figure known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon. Platos dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity, though it is unclear the degree to which Socrates himself is hidden behind his best disciple, nothing written by Socrates remains extant. As a result, information about him and his philosophies depends upon secondary sources, furthermore, close comparison between the contents of these sources reveals contradictions, thus creating concerns about the possibility of knowing in-depth the real Socrates. This issue is known as the Socratic problem, or the Socratic question, to understand Socrates and his thought, one must turn primarily to the works of Plato, whose dialogues are thought the most informative source about Socrates life and philosophy, and also Xenophon. These writings are the Sokratikoi logoi, or Socratic dialogues, which consist of reports of conversations apparently involving Socrates, as for discovering the real-life Socrates, the difficulty is that ancient sources are mostly philosophical or dramatic texts, apart from Xenophon. There are no straightforward histories, contemporary with Socrates, that dealt with his own time, a corollary of this is that sources that do mention Socrates do not necessarily claim to be historically accurate, and are often partisan. For instance, those who prosecuted and convicted Socrates have left no testament, historians therefore face the challenge of reconciling the various evidence from the extant texts in order to attempt an accurate and consistent account of Socrates life and work. The result of such an effort is not necessarily realistic, even if consistent, amid all the disagreement resulting from differences within sources, two factors emerge from all sources pertaining to Socrates. It would seem, therefore, that he was ugly, also, Xenophon, being an historian, is a more reliable witness to the historical Socrates. It is a matter of debate over which Socrates it is whom Plato is describing at any given point—the historical figure. As British philosopher Martin Cohen has put it, Plato, the idealist, offers an idol, a Saint, a prophet of the Sun-God, a teacher condemned for his teachings as a heretic. It is also clear from other writings and historical artefacts, that Socrates was not simply a character, nor an invention, the testimony of Xenophon and Aristotle, alongside some of Aristophanes work, is useful in fleshing out a perception of Socrates beyond Platos work. The problem with discerning Socrates philosophical views stems from the perception of contradictions in statements made by the Socrates in the different dialogues of Plato and these contradictions produce doubt as to the actual philosophical doctrines of Socrates, within his milieu and as recorded by other individuals. Aristotle, in his Magna Moralia, refers to Socrates in words which make it patent that the virtue is knowledge was held by Socrates. Within the Metaphysics, he states Socrates was occupied with the search for moral virtues, however, in The Clouds, Aristophanes portrays Socrates as accepting payment for teaching and running a sophist school with Chaerephon. Also, in Platos Apology and Symposium, as well as in Xenophons accounts, more specifically, in the Apology, Socrates cites his poverty as proof that he is not a teacher. Two fragments are extant of the writings by Timon of Phlius pertaining to Socrates, although Timon is known to have written to ridicule, details about the life of Socrates can be derived from three contemporary sources, the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of Aristophanes
6.
Soul
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In many religious, philosophical and mythological traditions, the soul is the incorporeal essence of a living being. Depending on the system, a soul can either be mortal or immortal. In Judeo-Christianity, only human beings have immortal souls, for example, the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas attributed soul to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal. Other religions hold that all organisms have souls, as did Aristotle, while some teach that even non-biological entities possess souls. The latter belief is called animism, Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, understood that the soul must have a logical faculty, the exercise of which was the most divine of human actions. Anima mundi is the concept of a world soul connecting all living organisms on planet Earth, the Modern English word soul, derived from Old English sáwol, sáwel, was first attested in the 8th-century poem Beowulf v.2820 and in the Vespasian Psalter 77.50. Further etymology of the Germanic word is uncertain, the Koine Greek word ψυχή psychē, life, spirit, consciousness, is derived from a verb meaning to cool, to blow, and hence refers to the breath, as opposed to σῶμα, meaning body. Vulgate, et nolite timere eos qui occidunt corpus animam autem non possunt occidere sed potius eum timete qui potest et animam et corpus perdere in gehennam. Authorized King James Version And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, vulgate Creavitque Deus cete grandia, et omnem animam viventem atque motabilem. KJV And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, Paul of Tarsus used ψυχή and πνεῦμα specifically to distinguish between the Jewish notions of נפש nephesh and רוח ruah. The ancient Greeks used the word alive for the concept of being ensouled, the soul was considered the incorporeal or spiritual breath that animates the living organism. Francis M. Cornford quotes Pindar by saying that the soul sleeps while the limbs are active, but when one is sleeping, the soul is active and reveals an award of joy or sorrow drawing near in dreams. Erwin Rohde writes that an early pre-Pythagorean belief presented the soul as lifeless when it departed the body, drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, Plato considered the psyche to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how we behave. He considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being, Socrates says that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is reborn in subsequent bodies and Plato believed this as well, however. Thymos is located near the chest region and is related to anger, eros is located in the stomach and is related to ones desires. Plato also compares the three parts of the soul or psyche to a caste system. According to Platos theory, the soul is essentially the same thing as a states class system because, to function well
7.
Dialogue
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Dialogue is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. In the 20th century, philosophical treatments of dialogue emerged from thinkers including Mikhail Bakhtin, Paulo Freire, Martin Buber, although diverging in many details, these thinkers have articulated a holistic concept of dialogue as a multi-dimensional, dynamic and context-dependent process of creating meaning. Educators such as Freire and Ramón Flecha have also developed a body of theory, the term dialogue stems from the Greek διάλογος, its roots are διά and λόγος. The first extant author who uses the term is Plato, in whose works it is associated with the art of dialectic. Latin took over the word as dialogus, in the West, Plato has commonly been credited with the systematic use of dialogue as an independent literary form. Ancient sources indicate, however, that the Platonic dialogue had its foundations in the mime and these works, admired and imitated by Plato, have not survived and we have only the vaguest idea of how they may have been performed. The Mimes of Herodas, which were found in a papyrus in 1891, Plato further simplified the form and reduced it to pure argumentative conversation, while leaving intact the amusing element of character-drawing. By about 400 BC he had perfected the Socratic dialogue, all his extant writings, except the Apology and Epistles, use this form. Following Plato, the became a major literary genre in antiquity. Soon after Plato, Xenophon wrote his own Symposium, also, Two French writers of eminence borrowed the title of Lucian’s most famous collection, both Fontenelle and Fénelon prepared Dialogues des morts. Contemporaneously, in 1688, the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche published his Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, in English non-dramatic literature the dialogue did not see extensive use until Berkeley employed it, in 1713, for his treatise, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. His contemporary, the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, a prominent 19th-century example of literary dialogue was Landor’s Imaginary Conversations. In Germany, Wieland adopted this form for several important satirical works published between 1780 and 1799, in Spanish literature, the Dialogues of Valdés and those on Painting by Vincenzo Carducci are celebrated. Italian writers of collections of dialogues, following Platos model, include Torquato Tasso, Galileo, Galiani, Leopardi, in the 19th century, the French returned to the original application of dialogue. English writers including Anstey Guthrie also adopted the form, but these seem to have found less of a popular following among the English than their counterparts written by French authors. Authors who have employed it include George Santayana, in his eminent Dialogues in Limbo. Also Edith Stein and Iris Murdoch used the dialogue form, Stein imagined a dialogue between Edmund Husserl and Thomas Aquinas. Murdoch included not only Socrates and Alcibiades as interlocutors in her work Acastos, Two Platonic Dialogues, more recently Timothy Williamson wrote Tetralogue, a philosophical exchange on a train between four people with radically different epistemological views
8.
Logos
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Logos is the logic behind an argument. Logos tries to persuade an audience using logical arguments and supportive evidence, Logos is a persuasive technique often used in writing and rhetoric. Ancient Greek philosophers used the term in different ways, the sophists used the term to mean discourse, and Aristotle applied the term to refer to reasoned discourse or the argument in the field of rhetoric. The Stoic philosophers identified the term with the animating principle pervading the Universe. Under Hellenistic Judaism, Philo adopted the term into Jewish philosophy, the Gospel of John identifies the Logos, through which all things are made, as divine, and further identifies Jesus Christ as the incarnate Logos. Despite the conventional translation as word, it is not used for a word in the sense, instead. However, both logos and lexis derive from the same verb legō, meaning count, tell, say, jeanne Fahnestock describes logos as a premise. She states that, to find the reason behind a rhetors backing of a position or stance. The rhetors success, she argues, will come down to objects of agreement. between arguer and audience. Logos is logical appeal, and the logic is derived from it. It is normally used to describe facts and figures that support the speakers topic, furthermore, logos is credited with appealing to the audiences sense of logic, with the definition of “logic” being concerned with the thing as it is known. Philo distinguished between logos prophorikos and the logos endiathetos, the Stoics also spoke of the logos spermatikos, which is not important in the Biblical tradition but is relevant in Neoplatonism. Early translators from Greek, such as Jerome in the 4th century, were frustrated by the inadequacy of any single Latin word to convey the Logos expressed in the Gospel of John. The Vulgate Bible usage of in principio erat verbum was thus constrained to use the noun verbum for word, but later romance language translations had the advantage of nouns such as le mot in French. Martin Luther rejected Zeitwort in favor of Wort, for instance, although later commentators repeatedly turned to a dynamic use involving the living word as felt by Jerome. For Heraclitus, logos provided the link between rational discourse and the rational structure. This logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, but other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep. For this reason it is necessary to follow what is common, but although the logos is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding
9.
Platonic Academy
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The Academy was founded by Plato in ca.387 BC in Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years before founding his own school, the Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a skeptical school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC. Among the religious observances that took place at the Akademeia was a night race from altars within the city to Prometheus altar in the Akademeia. Funeral games also took place in the area as well as a Dionysiac procession from Athens to the Hekademeia, the road to Akademeia was lined with the gravestones of Athenians. The site of the Academy is located near Colonus, approximately,1.5 km north of Athens Dipylon gates, the site was rediscovered in the 20th century, in modern Akadimia Platonos neighbourhood, considerable excavation has been accomplished and visiting the site is free. Visitors today can visit the site of the Academy located on either side of the Cratylus street in the area of Colonos and Platos Academy. According to Debra Nails, Speusippus joined the group in about 390 BC and she claims, It is not until Eudoxus of Cnidos arrives in the mid-380s BC that Eudemus recognizes a formal Academy. Originally, the location of the meetings was on Platos property as often as it was the nearby Academy gymnasium, though the Academic club was exclusive, not open to the public, it did not, during at least Platos time, charge fees for membership. Therefore, there was not at that time a school in the sense of a clear distinction between teachers and students, or even a formal curriculum. There was, however, a distinction between senior and junior members, Two women are known to have studied with Plato at the Academy, Axiothea of Phlius and Lasthenia of Mantinea. In at least Platos time, the school did not have any doctrine to teach, rather. There is evidence of lectures given, most notably Platos lecture On the Good, according to an unverifiable story, dated of some 700 years after the founding of the school, above the entrance to the Academy was inscribed the phrase Let None But Geometers Enter Here. Many have imagined that the Academic curriculum would have resembled the one canvassed in Platos Republic. Others, however, have argued such a picture ignores the obvious peculiar arrangements of the ideal society envisioned in that dialogue. The subjects of study almost certainly included mathematics as well as the topics with which the Platonic dialogues deal. Platos Academy is often said to have been a school for politicians in the ancient world. Diogenes Laërtius divided the history of the Academy into three, the Old, the Middle, and the New, at the head of the Old he put Plato, at the head of the Middle Academy, Arcesilaus, and of the New, Lacydes. Sextus Empiricus enumerated five divisions of the followers of Plato and he made Plato founder of the first Academy, Arcesilaus of the second, Carneades of the third, Philo and Charmadas of the fourth, Antiochus of the fifth
10.
Philosophy
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Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation, classic philosophical questions include, Is it possible to know anything and to prove it. However, philosophers might also pose more practical and concrete questions such as, is it better to be just or unjust. Historically, philosophy encompassed any body of knowledge, from the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, natural philosophy encompassed astronomy, medicine and physics. For example, Newtons 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics, in the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize. In the modern era, some investigations that were part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology. Other investigations closely related to art, science, politics, or other pursuits remained part of philosophy, for example, is beauty objective or subjective. Are there many scientific methods or just one, is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy. Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, since the 20th century, professional philosophers contribute to society primarily as professors, researchers and writers. Traditionally, the term referred to any body of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is related to religion, mathematics, natural science, education. This division is not obsolete but has changed, Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences, especially astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. Moral philosophy has birthed the social sciences, but still includes value theory, metaphysical philosophy has birthed formal sciences such as logic, mathematics and philosophy of science, but still includes epistemology, cosmology and others. Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today, colin McGinn and others claim that no philosophical progress has occurred during that interval. Chalmers and others, by contrast, see progress in philosophy similar to that in science, in one general sense, philosophy is associated with wisdom, intellectual culture and a search for knowledge. In that sense, all cultures and literate societies ask philosophical questions such as how are we to live, a broad and impartial conception of philosophy then, finds a reasoned inquiry into such matters as reality, morality and life in all world civilizations. Socrates was an influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was a pursuer of wisdom
