As a famous thinker, educator, philosopher in ancient Greece, and a famous historical figure with a distinct personality, who has been destroyed from ancient times to the present, he and his student Plato, as well as Plato's student Aristotle, are called the "Three Sages of Ancient Greece", so how did such a holy founder of Western philosophy end his life in the end?
Socrates was born into a family of ordinary citizens in Athens, Greece. His father was a carver and his mother was a midwife. He was ordinary in appearance and simple in language, but had a divine mind. He was born at the time of the complete victory of the Persian War and grew up in the heyday of Pericles, when wise men gathered in Athens from all over Greece and brought many new ideas and free debates to the democratic Athens.
He was familiar with the works of Homer and other poets, and at the age of 30 he became a teacher of social morality without a salary, imparting knowledge everywhere, and at the age of 40 he became a well-known figure in Athens, and his teachings were rich in mystery, and he believed that the survival, development and destruction of all things in heaven and on earth were arranged by God, and God was the master of the world. He objected to the study of the natural world, believing that it was blasphemous.
As a citizen, he fought in the army three times, served as a heavy infantryman, and served as a juror in the Athenian Citizens' Assembly. However, after the restoration of slave-owning democracy in Athens in 399 BC, Socrates was charged with contempt for traditional religion, the introduction of new gods, the corruption of youth, and opposition to democracy.
The accuser of Socrates was anatollah, the leader of the democrats. In court, Anito said: This man, who does not believe in our religion, preaches his heresy everywhere and leads our youth astray, and I ask the court to sentence him to death. Socrates said in a confused manner: You Athenians, wake up, and don't focus only on money and status. There is something more noteworthy in the world than that, and that is virtue. There was an uproar in the courtroom.
Socrates smiled slightly: You can sentence me to death or acquit me, this is your right. But for me, whatever the outcome, I have only one answer, and that is, I won't change my thinking or my behavior. During the month of awaiting execution, he was constantly persuaded to give up his views, to ask the citizens of Athens for forgiveness, and even to plan a prison escape for him, but he refused. He said: Death is not terrible, sometimes death is greater than life. Looking at his unrepentant attitude, the judge decided to sentence him to death.
When the time of execution came, his wife and children cried bitterly beside him, which made him very unhappy, and while pushing out, he said: My soul is not dead, and then calmly took up the poisonous wine, making it impossible for me to change my mind, I would rather choose death, and when I finished, I drank it all, and in this way, Socrates died at the age of 71.
Such a philosopher, in the history of European culture, has always been regarded as a saint who died in pursuit of truth, almost the same position that Confucius occupies in Chinese history. In Socrates' view, he paid the price of his life for his thoughts, and in doing so, he was to arouse the awakening of all the Athenians, and he opened a new era of Greek philosophy with a new understanding of philosophy, and even gave Plato a profound and great influence on Plato with his basic ideas of soul reincarnation and purification, and through them he has always influenced Western philosophy in hellenistic Roman times and even in later generations.