Socrates
![A marble head of Socrates in the [[Louvre]] (copy of a lost bronze head by [[Lysippus]])<ref> Amy C. Smith (2003), [http://www.stoa.org/demos/article_portraits@page=12&greekEncoding=UnicodeC.html “Athenian Political Art from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE: Images of Historical Individuals,”] p. 14, in C.W. Blackwell, ed., ''Dēmos: Classical Athenian Democracy''. The Stoa: a consortium for electronic publication in the humanities.</ref>](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Socrate_du_Louvre.jpg)
Plato's dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity. They demonstrate the Socratic approach to areas of philosophy including epistemology and ethics. The Platonic Socrates lends his name to the concept of the Socratic method, and also to Socratic irony. The Socratic method of questioning, or elenchus, takes shape in dialogue using short questions and answers, epitomized by those Platonic texts in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine various aspects of an issue or an abstract meaning, usually relating to one of the virtues, and find themselves at an impasse, completely unable to define what they thought they understood. Socrates is known for proclaiming his total ignorance; he used to say that the only thing he was aware of was his ignorance, seeking to imply that the realization of one's ignorance is the first step in philosophizing.
Socrates exerted a strong influence on philosophers in later antiquity and has continued to do so in the modern era. He was studied by medieval and Islamic scholars and played an important role in the thought of the Italian Renaissance, particularly within the humanist movement. Interest in him continued unabated, as reflected in the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Depictions of Socrates in art, literature, and popular culture have made him a widely known figure in the Western philosophical tradition.
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