ise" people of Athens, which was unintentional, caused him to go to jail and then sentenced to death:The nub of this defense is Socrates' claim that he has positively benefited the Athenians by subjecting them to his philosophical cross-examinations, but that they have failed to realize this and merely been angered by it, which is why he has ended up on trial for his life. (p. 13)Nevertheless, the significance of examining and understanding our lives is far greater than one might think. Socrates taught us the importance of understanding and comprehending the behavior of friends, as well as of ourselves, to enable us to have empathy and compassion for them. And, allows us not to stand in judgment, which, in turn, allows us to live the moral, noble lives that Socrates spoke of. Socrates equated virtue with the knowledge of one's true self, holding that no one knowingly does wrong. He looked upon the soul as the seat of both waking consciousness and moral character, and held the universe to be purposively mind-ordered. Socrates' method of philosophical inquiry consisted in questioning people on the positions they asserted and working them through questions into a contradiction, thus proving to them that their original assertion was wrong. Socrates believed in the limitless possibilities of human knowledge - that there was no limit to what a man can learn. And in the language of logic, Socrates' contribution, as Aristotle observed, constituted the origin and development of the system of induction and definition. Socrates is the man who established the basis of western thought, which has persisted to the present day. Socrates contribution to philosophy is immeasurable. His practice of philosophy is a turning point in the history of the subject. He marks the turning point away from philosophy as a study of the natural world to philosophy, the study of human nature. ...
