Socrates and the Athenian Philosophers

399 BCE — Aegean, Classical Athens

Today: Athens, Greece

Socrates wrote nothing. He walked around Athens asking people to define courage or justice, then demonstrated that they could not, which made him beloved by the young and infuriating to everyone else. Athens tried him for corrupting the youth and disrespecting the gods, and executed him. His student Plato wrote it all down and founded a school; Plato's student Aristotle catalogued everything from logic to octopuses and tutored Alexander. The method — assume nothing, define your terms, follow the argument even where you dislike where it goes — outlived the city that killed the man who taught it.

Worth knowing: Socrates was condemned by a jury of 500 ordinary Athenians voting by simple majority. The democracy this walk celebrates for inventing citizen self-rule used exactly that machinery to execute its most famous philosopher for asking questions.

Pattern: Ideological movement — A belief system rises, spreads, institutionalizes, and then schisms — changing the rules people accept as legitimate.

Entry 54 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.