470–399 BCE · Athens

Sokrates

Socrates wrote nothing. He spent his days in the streets and markets of Athens questioning generals, politicians and poets about the things they claimed to know, and showing that they did not know them. We meet him through the dialogues of his student Plato. Tried for impiety and corrupting the young, he refused to flee or beg, and drank the hemlock at seventy. His method, relentless questioning toward the truth, still bears his name.

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