Socrates is accused of corrupting Athenian youth, and is sentenced to death. Playing the good citizen, he drinks the allotted poison.
Socrates had significant pedagogic influence over Plato, Aristotle, and the original pillars of western philosophy.
The “Socratic problem” is the problem of gaining accurate information about the true philosophy of Socrates. He has no known writings, and the primary writings about his philosophy are in a quasi–artistic medium. It is not clear if Plato’s later Dialogues simply use Socrates to mouth Plato’s own ideas.
Socrates is the architect of the “Socratic method,” a dialectic method whereby, in order to solve a problem, it is broken down into a series of questions, the answers to which presumably yield the correct solution. [Author – The problem with the Socratic method is that it works best if you know the answer first.]
However, the inherent power of the Socratic method is perhaps more that it reveals the contours of an issue.