Any person who knows what is truly right will automatically do it, according to Socrates.

Following the ancient Greeks ( Socrates and his successors ) and modern biologists, we say that human being is a species and that each individual person is a member of the species human being.

In his dialogue Republic, Plato uses Socrates to argue for justice that covers both the just person and the just City State.

::" 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.

Paradigmatically, universals are abstract ( e. g. humanity ), whereas particulars are concrete ( e. g. the person of Socrates ).

To Socrates, truth, not aretē, was the greater good, and each person should, above all else, seek truth to guide one's life.

Socrates is convinced that virtues such as self-control, courage, justice, piety, wisdom and related qualities of mind and soul are absolutely crucial if a person is to lead a good and happy ( eudaimon ) life.

Phoinix told it to another, unnamed person ; meanwhile Apollodorus checked it with Socrates, who was present.

Regarding the charge brought against Socrates in 399, Plato surmised “ Socrates does wrong because he does not believe in the gods in whom the city believes, but introduces other daemonic beings …” Burkert notes that “ a special being watches over each individual, a daimon who has obtained the person at his birth by lot, is an idea which we find in Plato, undoubtedly from earlier tradition.

Socrates says that the only person whose opinion is of value is the one who understands justice.

In the view of Socrates ( 469 – 399 BC ), intellectualism allows that “ one will do what is right or best just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best ”; that virtue is a purely intellectual matter, since virtue and knowledge are cerebral relatives, which a person accrues and improves with dedication to reason.

Except for two brief exchanges with Meletus ( at 24d-25d and 26b-27d ), where the monologue becomes a dialogue, the text is written in the first person from Socrates ' point of view, as though it were Socrates ' actual speech at the trial.

Socrates ' first move is to accuse his accuser, Meletus ( whose name means literally, " the person who cares ," or " caring ") of not caring about the things he professes to care about.

( The Baron and his work are referred to in other Vance novels unrelated to the Demon Princes sequence: in his elusive person Bodissey is so to speak the combined Socrates, Aquinas, Montaigne, Hume and Nietzsche of Vance ’ s universe ).

Socrates ' Theory of Recollection shows that it is possible to draw information out of a person who seems not to have any knowledge of a subject prior to his being questioned about it ( a priori knowledge ).

Since the person in Socrates ' story is able to provide correct answers to his interrogator, it must be the case that his answers arose from recollections of knowledge gained during a previous life.

* Debra Nails compiled a prosopography of Plato and other Socratics by exploring the biographies of each person mentioned in the Socratic literature in an attempt to explore how Socrates interacted with others.

Given the difficulty of this task as proven in Book I, Socrates in Book II leads his interlocutors into a discussion of justice in the city, which Socrates suggests may help them see justice not only in the person, but on a larger scale, " first in cities searching for what it is ; then thusly we could examine also in some individual, examining the likeness of the bigger in the idea of the littler "

When Tissaphernes arrested and executed Clearchus, Proxenus, Menon, Agias ( possibly the same person as Sophaenetus ), and Socrates, their places were taken by Xenophon, Timasion, Xanthicles, Cleanor, and Philesius, with the Spartan Chirisophus as the general commander.

A person, according to Socrates, never chooses to act poorly or against his better judgment ; actions that go against what is best are only a product of being ignorant of facts or knowledge of what is best or good.

That is, the " middle " position, that Socrates is neither mortal nor not-mortal, is excluded by logic, and therefore either the first possibility ( Socrates is mortal ) or its negation ( it is not the case that Socrates is mortal ) must be true.

Six years later, in October 1769, Lavater sent Mendelssohn his German translation of Charles Bonnet's essay on Christian Evidences, with a preface where he publicly challenged Mendelssohn to refute Bonnet or if he could not then to " do what wisdom, the love of truth and honesty must bid him, what a Socrates would have done if he had read the book and found it unanswerable ".

Arion is alluded to in Plato's " Republic " at 453d, where Socrates says: “ Then we, too, must swim and try to escape out of the sea of argument in the hope that either some dolphin will take us on its back.

Socrates concludes that if Euthyphro's definition of piety is acceptable, then there must exist at least one thing that is both pious and impious ( as it is both loved and hated by the gods )— which Euthyphro admits is absurd.

Socrates thinks that this idea must be identical in meaning, if not in actual words, to Protagoras ' famous maxim " Man is the measure of all things.

Theodorus tells Socrates that he must be kidding, that he has come to the task with boyish vigor.

With this conflict, Socrates decides that true judgement and knowledge must be different things.

Theaetetus finds the idea strange, so Socrates deduces that in order to know the syllable, the letters must be known first ( 203e ).

Socrates examines it further by suggesting that a man who can vocalize his judgement must be able to make reference to the primary elements of the subject ( 207a ).

Socrates concludes the dialogue by announcing that all the two have produced is mere " wind-eggs " and that he must be getting on now to the courthouse to face his trial being brought against him by Meletus.

The conclusion then states that " Socrates " must be " mortal " because he inherits this attribute from his classification as a " man ".

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 ).

He must have begun this about the year 405 BC, and by 400 he had perfected the dialogue, especially in the cycle directly inspired by the death of Socrates, and is considered a master of the genre.

Socrates taught that no one desires what is bad, and so if anyone does something that truly is bad it must be unwillingly or out of ignorance ; consequently, all virtue is knowledge.

In the Physics he adopts and improves on Socrates ' teleological argument, the major premise of which is " Whatever exists for a useful purpose must be the work of an intelligence ".

The assertion of wisdom must consist in the assertion of some relation between Socrates and Wisdom.

Socrates finds this particularly offensive, and tells Charmides that he must have heard this from some fool ( 162b ).

It is equally clear that to be a universal, the definition must express what is essential about the thing defined, and be in terms of genus, species, and its differentiae ( this terminology is somewhat later than Socrates, made more famous with Aristotle ).

Socrates ' interpretation is that, since Simonides was a wise man, he must know that no one does any wrong willingly ; accordingly, he must mean that he will willingly praise those who do no wrong, not that some do wrong willingly and others unwillingly, only the latter garnering his praise ( 345d – 46b ).

Socrates objects: there must be some virtue common to all human beings.

Socrates asks Meno to consider whether good things must be acquired virtuously in order to be really good.