Love the Socratic method. . .answering retards with more intelligent questions. . .and for pushing the brain-dead the state executed him. . .many nations still feel the same way. . .

Yeah, he had merits, but I can never forgive him for making irony popular.

Socrates ismy personal favorite philosopher. His teachings and ideas are easy to comprehend. Anything and everything in philosophy is very deep and profound, but Socrates makes it sound understandable. His wise ways for asking questions and admitting to not knowing became fondemental teachings to his followers and for people all together.

Socrates was a great teacher,and his dialectic method revolutionized Philosophy for thousands of years.He was wise enough to realize that admitting to "not knowing" was superior to pretending to knowledge-something that applies equally well today!

Socrates method of teaching is ironclad, that's why the socratic method is still used and advocated in almost every law school in the country. Socrates challenges us to think seriously and to probe things thouroughly before coming to any kind of conclusion.

Hands down the best philosopher of all time! Questioned everything about life including questons themselves. He was a forefather in introducing the idea that one shouldn't just believe everything they are told. His thoughts are provoking and intriguing. He is even relevant today in many aspects of life. He challenged thought and order in a time when people were killed for less. One of the best human beings to ever exist in my opinion.

speaks to all of us,even today,his questions were timeless and meaningful.It is a shame is brand of thinking and questioning died for such a long period of time.The world would have been a better place.In world where thought was open and questioning power was allowed.

Perhaps the wisest and greatest Greek philospopher in history, I think Socrates represented a revolution in self-teaching and knowledge.

A brilliant Greek philosopher that challenged the status quo. He taught to ask questions and to challenge and criticize the world around you to fully comprehend how it works. His influence in Greece lasted for centuries and really still is being used today.

People sometimes say that all European philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries is just a footnote to Socrates and Plato. Socrates was just an amazing character. First of all, he was no wimpy egghead - in his twenties he was a soldier who distinguished himself in combat. Then he decided that philosophy would be his life, and followers began gravitating towards his method of revealing wisdom (or lack thereof) through questioning. I'm a huge fan of some of his principles. Socrates didn't claim to possess any sort of special, universal wisdom. He asked people questions. At the core of that Socratic method is the implicit belief that each individual can reveal a personal truth. I love the idea that Socrates claimed to be wiser than the so-called experts he met, not because he felt he knew something, but because he acknowledged his ignorance, while the others claimed to know something when they actually didn't (as he revealed through his questioning). And if there were any questions as to Socrates' principles or convictions, his trial answered them. He chose to die rather than to take any of the easy outs they offered him, all the time claiming that the city should be rewarding him instead of putting him on trial for introducing new "gods" and corrupting the minds of children. In his last speech he made one request of the city: that they punish his sons if, when they grew to be adults, they cared more about money and conventional success than virtue. Living in San Francisco - a city with no shortage of poseurs - I can't help but wonder how Socrates would judge our progress over the past 2,400 years.