" Condemned to death, Socrates, strong, calm and at peace, discusses the immortality of the soul.

Whereas the Republic is premised on a distinction between the sort of knowledge possessed by the philosopher and that possessed by the king or political man, Socrates explores only the character of the philosopher ; in the Statesman, on the other hand, a participant referred to as the Eleatic Stranger discusses the sort of knowledge possessed by the political man while Socrates listens quietly.

In the dialogue, Socrates discusses the nature of the afterlife on his last day before being executed by drinking hemlock.

There Socrates discusses the meaning of wealth and identifies it with usefulness and well-being, not merely possessions.

In Plato's Ion ( Ancient Greek: ) Socrates discusses with Ion, a professional rhapsode who also lectures on Homer, the question of whether the rhapsode, a performer of poetry, gives his performance on account of his skill and knowledge or by virtue of divine possession.

" Examining the trial of Socrates, he argues that " his crime, namely, the independence of his thought, rendered a service not only to humanity but to his country " as " it served to prepare a new morality and faith that the Athenians needed ".

This appropriation of Socrates leads her to introduce novel concepts of conscience ( which gives no positive prescriptions but instead tells me what I cannot do if I would remain friends with myself when I re-enter the two-in-one of thought where I must render an account of my actions to myself ) and morality ( an entirely negative enterprise concerned with non-participation in certain actions for the sake of remaining friends with one's self ).

Socrates accepted his fate on reasons of morality and justice, rather than accept help from his supporters to flee Athens and escape execution.

Socrates, therefore, believes that morality is not inherent in rhetoric and that without philosophy, rhetoric is simply used to persuade for personal gain.

Gorgias admits under Socrates ' cross-examination that while rhetoricians give people the power of words, they are not instructors of morality.

Plato's animosity against rhetoric, and against the sophists, derives not only from their inflated claims to teach virtue and their reliance on appearances, but from the fact that his teacher, Socrates, was sentenced to death after sophists ' efforts.

Pre-modern female rhetoricians, outside of Socrates ' friend Aspasia, are rare ; but medieval rhetoric produced by women either in religious orders, such as Julian of Norwich ( d. 1415 ), or the very well-connected Christine de Pizan ( 1364 ?- 1430?

Therefore, Socrates opposed the Sophists and their teaching of rhetoric as art and as emotional oratory requiring neither logic nor proof.

Antisthenes first learned rhetoric under Gorgias before becoming an ardent disciple of Socrates.

When Socrates and Phaedrus proceed to recount the various tools of speechmaking as written down by the great orators of the past, starting with the " Preamble " and the " Statement Facts " and concluding with the " Recapitulation ", Socrates states that the fabric seems a little threadbare. He goes on to compare one with only knowledge of these tools to a doctor who knows how to raise and lower a body's temperature but does not know when it is good or bad to do so, stating that one who has simply read a book or came across some potions knows nothing of the art. One who knows how to compose the longest passages on trivial topics or the briefest passages on topics of great importance is similar, when he claims that to teach this is to impart the knowledge of composing tragedies ; if one were to claim to have mastered harmony after learning the lowest and highest notes on the lyre, a musician would say that this knowledge is what one must learn before one masters harmony, but it is not the knowledge of harmony itself. This, then, is what must be said to those who attempt to teach the art of rhetoric through " Preambles " and " Recapitulations "; they are ignorant of dialectic, and teach only what is necessary to learn as preliminaries.

In this dialogue, Socrates seeks the true definition of rhetoric, attempting to pinpoint the essence of rhetoric and unveil the flaws of the sophistic oratory popular in Athens at this time.

In the Gorgias, Socrates argues that philosophy is an art, whereas rhetoric is merely a knack.

To Socrates, most rhetoric in practice is merely flattery.

Socrates interrogates Gorgias in order to determine the true definition of rhetoric, framing his argument around the question format, " What is X?

Throughout the remainder of the dialogue, Socrates debates about the nature of rhetoric.

Although rhetoric has the potential to be used justly, Socrates believes that in practice, rhetoric is flattery ; the rhetorician makes the audience feel worthy because they can identify with the rhetorician ’ s argument.

Socrates and Polus debate whether rhetoric can be considered an art.

Polus states that rhetoric is indeed a craft, but Socrates replies, " To tell you the truth, Polus, I don't think it's a craft at all " ( 462b ).

Socrates continues to argue that rhetoric is not an art, but merely a knack: "… it guesses at what's pleasant with no consideration for what's best.

Socrates believes that rhetoric alone is not a moral endeavor.

Socrates calls rhetoric a form of flattery, or pandering, and compares it to pastry baking and beautification ( cosmetics ).

Socrates proceeds with a monologue, and reiterates that he was not kidding about the best use of rhetoric, that it is best used against one's own self.

The study of rhetoric was contested in classical Greece: on the one side were the Sophists, and on the other side were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Together with Plato and Socrates ( Plato's teacher ), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy.

He even went so far as to decorate his schoolroom with visual elements he thought would inspire learning: paintings, books, comfortable furniture, and busts or portraits of Plato, Socrates, Jesus, and William Ellery Channing.

He was formerly identified with an Egyptian priest who, after the destruction of the pagan temple at Alexandria ( 389 ), fled to Constantinople, where he became the tutor of the ecclesiastical historian Socrates.

" Critics compared the Socrates with Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling and Raphael's Stanze, and one, after ten visits to the Salon, described it as " in every sense perfect ".

His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism, both of them being frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes.

The Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus was of the opinion that Julian believed himself to be Alexander the Great " in another body " via transmigration of souls, " in accordance with the teachings of Pythagoras and Plato ".

Larissa was indeed the birthplace of Meno, who thus became, along with Xenophon and a few others, one of the generals leading several thousands Greeks from various places, in the ill-fated expedition of 401 ( retold in Xenophon's Anabasis ) meant to help Cyrus the Younger, son of Darius II, king of Persia, overthrow his elder brother Artaxerxes II and take over the throne of Persia ( Meno is featured in Plato's dialogue bearing his name, in which Socrates uses the example of " the way to Larissa " to help explain Meno the difference between true opinion and science ( Meno, 97a – c ) ; this " way to Larissa " might well be on the part of Socrates an attempt to call to Meno's mind a " way home ", understood as the way toward one's true and " eternal " home reached only at death, that each man is supposed to seek in his life ).

Leo Strauss argued that the strong influence of Xenophon, a student of Socrates more known as an historian, rhetorician and soldier, was a major source of Socratic ideas for Machiavelli, sometimes not in line with Aristotle.

* Plato: Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science.

" However Xenophon does not mention Socrates as believing in reincarnation and Plato may have systematised Socrates ' thought with concepts he took directly from Pythagoreanism or Orphism.

Socrates ', Plato's and Aristotle's ideas about truth are commonly seen as consistent with correspondence theory.

Consistent with common practice, the dikasts determined Socrates ’ punishment with another vote.

Though Socrates denied any affiliation with the sophists, Clouds suggests that Athenians associated him with the sophistic movement.

Socrates, along with the sophists, was blamed in part by a significant segment of the citizenry for instilling the younger generation with what the older generation perceived as a morally nihilistic, disrespectful attitude.

No works by Socrates himself survive, but his younger friend Plato composed numerous ' Socratic dialogues ', with Socrates as the main character.

Pre-Socratic philosophy is Greek philosophy before Socrates ( but includes schools contemporary with Socrates which were not influenced by him ).

::" Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures ; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs … A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and is certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type ; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence … It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied ; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.