Person · 3291–3362 AM · 470 BCE — 399 BCE
Socrates Σωκράτης
Athenian philosopher: the question as a method; executed for impiety
He was condemned and put to death in 399 BCE.
The method of arguing by question until the other's claim collapses into contradiction is what the talmudic sugya calls teyuvta. A likeness of method with no likeness of subject: in Socrates it leads to the admission of ignorance, in the beit midrash to the sharpening of the law.
His birth is given as 470 or 469.
Sources
Documents of the period
- Plato, Apology — the trial, the charge and the refusal to flee
Basis: documents and evidence.