Socrates and Plato

1. Socrates and Plato Presented by Nicolas Guinyard

2. Socrates • Socrates was born in Athens in 470 B.C.E. • Socrates most important contribution to western civilization is his Socratic way of thinking. He used this method to examine his society and their moral concepts such as “good,” and “justice.”

3. Occupation, teachings, and beliefs • Before he began to majorly teach and discuss philosophy Socrates was a stonecutter. After finding his passion he opened a sophist [deception and rhetoric based teaching style to teach virtue] school. • Socrates believed that death and access to heaven would give people absolute knowledge and taught this to his students. • Socrates primarily believed in the realm of Ideas and perfect forms. • He also acknowledged the infinite amount of knowledge that a human can learn and remarked that in comparison to this amount of knowledge he knew nothing. • Plato was Socrates’ most famous student. Socrates is known through Plato’s book “Apology of Socrates.”

4. Socrates’ Death • In 399 B.C.E, Plato died by being sentenced to poison himself [as shown in background image] after being wrongfully found guilty of incorrectly influencing Athenian’s minds and not believing in their gods.

5. Plato • Plato was born in 428 B.C.E. • Plato was the most famous student of Socrates and was the main source of the proof of Socrates’ existence to past historians because of his book “Apology of Socrates.” • Plato opened up the official School of Athens in order to further teach and discuss philosophy.

6. Views, Students and Death • Similarly to his teacher, Socrates, Plato believed in and mostly focused on the realm of ideas and perfect forms. • Plato’s most famous students were Alexander the Great and Aristotle. • Plato died in 348 B.C.E.