Wikipedia summarizes some information about Socrates at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates. I particularly like the part about his virtue in relation to friendships among people. Friendships that are cultured through consturctive dialogs, I believe, can bring about peace and progress among us humankind.

Here's what Wikipedia provides:

Socrates believed that the best way for people to live was to focus on self-development rather than the pursuit of material wealth. (Gross 2). He always invited others to try to concentrate more on friendships and a sense of true community, for Socrates felt that this was the best way for people to grow together as a populace. His actions lived up to this: in the end, Socrates accepted his death sentence when most thought he would simply leave Athens, as he felt he could not run away from or go against the will of his community; as above, his reputation for valor on the battlefield was without reproach.

The idea that humans possessed certain virtues formed a common thread in Socrates' teachings. These virtues represented the most important qualities for a person to have, foremost of which were the philosophical or intellectual virtues. Socrates stressed that "virtue was the most valuable of all possessions; the ideal life was spent in search of the Good. Truth lies beneath the shadows of existence, and that it is the job of the philosopher to show the rest how little they really know." (Solomon 44)

Ultimately, virtue relates to the form of the Good; to truly be good and not just act with "right opinion" one must come to know the unchanging Good in itself. In the Republic, he describes the "divided line", a continuum of ignorance to knowledge with the Good on top of it all; only at the top of this line do we find true good and the knowledge of such.


I am still left wondering, though, what "unchanging Good in itself" is! The Good, especially One that is not defined by God or based on Piety, must be something very tricky and subtle. I have been struggling to frame "the common good" that educators across the globe can aim for and integrate in different education systems under different cultures influenced by different religions or the absence of them (secularism).

I am wandering, but definitely not aimless.