The personality of Socrates had an enormous influence on the philosophy of Plato and was depicted in his work Apology. The strength of the spirit, that Socrates demonstrated while implementing his ideas and unveiling the truth hidden behind people’s decorous behavior and hypocritical opinions, commanded Plato’s admiration and Socrates had remained the symbol of pure philosophy for him. The word apology means ‘speaking in defense’ and aimed at vindicating Socrates posthumously from calumnies (Reeve 14). His only guilt was in fighting for the triumph of reason and virtue in the society of Athens that was clearly not ready for it.
Socrates together with Sophists started a new age in the ancient philosophy turning away from cosmology and natural philosophy to the issues of humanity, in particular the issues of the mind. They were revolutionary ideas at the time and every revolution, as is a common knowledge, needs heroes and martyrs ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the revolution. Socrates became such a hero and a martyr: his constant yearning for analyzing traditional concepts, clarifying them, attempts to preserve the best of these concepts and vanquish the worst made Socrates’s contemporaries wary…show more content… That is when the philosopher said that it was hard to believe and pronounced his famous words ‘I only know that I know nothing’. To find out where there was any truth in the pythoness’s word Socrates started asking other Athenian philosophers to evaluate their knowledge. He was a real master of exposing sanctimony and ignorance: Socrates would pretend to be ignorant and ask his vis-à-vis what exactly he knew and while he was trying to explain the ideas, Socrates would reveal the fallacy of his views by asking intricate questions. This tactics brought him the fame as an ‘Athenian