Who is socrates for kids

Socrates married a woman named Xanthippe and together they had three sons named Lamprocles, Menexenus as well as Sophroniscus. Socrates did not spend much time with his three sons. He preferred to spend time with his students and his sons received a basic Greek education as children. There are questions about how Socrates supported his family after he started teaching.

Plato explained that Socrates never asked for money from his students. Socrates was part of the Athenian Army. Males in ancient Greece between the ages of 18 and 60 were required to be a citizen soldier. Socrates served as an infantry soldier known as a hoplite. Hoplites wore armor like a face mask, a shield and carried a long spear or pike.

Socrates was a brave hoplite during the Peloponnesian War. During three campaigns he fought with courage. While fighting, Socrates is credited with saving the life of a well-known Athenian general named Alcibiades. Socrates is credited with inventing the Socratic Method. His Socratic Method challenged students to think through a problem by asking and solving questions through reasoning.

Sometimes the answers led to more questions. Answering more questions gave his students a better understanding of the problem or subject. Socrates taught different ideas as a teacher. He believed the mind was more important than the human body. Socrates explained an ethical system based on human reasoning and not religion. He noted in his teachings that the desire for happiness was the main motivator for people.

Socrates taught his students the importance of self-reason in finding fairness and happiness. He believed happiness was not gained from material possessions but rather by living a moral life.

Many ancient Greeks considered Socrates to be a very wise man but he felt because there was so much to know the reality was that actually he did not know very much.

He questioned everything but he was different to other philosophers that have gone before him because he questioned and studied how one should live. In doing this it led Socrates to have his own unique style of reasoning. Even nowadays people still use the Socrates method in his honor.

He was very good at questioning others, listening to what they have to say and then probing them for contradictions. They would propose some point of view, and Socrates would question them, asking what they meant. He would pretend "I don't know anything; I'm just trying to understand what it is you are saying", or words to that effect.

This is now called the Socratic method of teaching. Socrates is sometimes called the "father of Western philosophy ". This is because in the discussions he uncovered some of the most basic questions in philosophy , questions which are still discussed today.

Some of the people he taught came to be important and successful , like Plato and Alcibiades. Socrates never wrote anything. All of what we know about Socrates is from what other people wrote about him.

Our main source of what we know about Socrates is from the writings of his student, Plato. Some of Plato's dialogues, such as the Crito and the Phaedo , are loosely based on fact.

They are not written records, but artistic re-creation of Socrates in action. Another of Socrates' students, Xenophon also wrote about Socrates. Aristophanes , a person who wrote brilliant satirical comedies , wrote about him in play called The Clouds.

Socrates was an easy target for satire. He walked barefoot, and with a swagger. Sometimes he stood in a trance for hours. Plato wrote that Socrates taught for free. We do not know if Plato's description of Socrates is accurate or not. That is called the 'Socratic problem'. While a lot of what Plato wrote about Socrates is accepted by historians, some believe that Plato who saw Socrates as a hero portrayed Socrates as a greater man than he actually was.

Some think that Plato was using the character of Socrates as a tool to express his own opinions rather than to accurately write about Socrates. This is what makes Socrates such a mysterious historical figure. Plato's dialogues are works of art, finely written. The general view is that they are based on reality, but no doubt adjusted for the purpose of writing.

Socrates' father was a sculptor , and his mother was a midwife who helped women give birth to children. He may have been a stonemason like his father, and Plato wrote that he served in the Athenian army as a hoplite heavy infantry. We know he was influenced by an older philosopher, Archelaus, and that he talked with anyone who had interesting ideas in Athens, but beyond that nothing is known.

Socrates was about 50 when he married a much younger woman, Xanthippe. They had three children together. Socrates made complaints about his wife, but no one knew if he was telling the truth. It is said that one of Socrates' friends went to ask the oracle at Delphi if there was anyone wiser than Socrates in Athens. The oracle said that there was no wiser person. The oracle was well known for saying things that were ambiguous or unclear.

It did not say that Socrates was the wisest, just that there was no person wiser. After being puzzled by this, Socrates finally decided that his wisdom lay in knowing that he was ignorant. His attempts to show the citizens that some of their ideas were nonsense might help explain his unpopularity. In Plato's works, Socrates says he knows nothing, but can draw out other people's ideas just as his mother helped other women to give birth.

A trial was held. In ancient Athens the procedure was quite different from the present day.