Definition for Socrates
From Biology Forums Dictionary
Socrates (469 B.C.E. to 399 B.C.E.): Greek philosopher, born in Athens. Little is known of his early life. According to Plato, he devoted his last 30 years to convincing the Athenians that their opinions about moral matters could not bear the weight of critical examination. His technique, the Socratic Method, was to ask for definitions of such morally significant concepts as piety and justice, and to elicit contradictions from the responses, thus spurring deeper enquiry into the concepts. He was convicted of charges of impiety and corruption of youth by zealous defenders of a restored democracy in Athens, sentenced, and executed. Aside from Plato’s dialogues, his life inspired two works by Xenophon and a scabrous rendering in Aristophanes’ “The Clouds.”
