The “Sidewalk” Philosopher

Socrates was a philosopher.

He created a new type of learning.

That new type was the question and answer method.

He had many enemies.

He also had many followers.

One of the followers was Plato.

Socrates was very brave. He was called a street philosopher. He also is called the father of philosophy. He believed in questioning. He died questioning. He never wrote anything down. If it wasn’t for Plato, his student, we wouldn’t know anything about Socrates.

Socrates asked lots of questions. He asked eternal questions. Here are some examples of questions he asked.

• “What is wisdom?”

“What is beauty?”

“What is good?”

Socrates’s purpose in life was to ask things--by doing that he unlocked people’s minds. When he was sentenced to death he could have agreed to stop questioning but he didn’t. He chose to follow his dream.

Socrates died doing what he loved. He chose to die when his friends tried to bail him out of jail. He chose to drink a poisoned hemlock.