As one of the greatest Greek philosophers, Socrates had a passionate
             concern to discover valid guidelines for leading a just life and to prove
             that justice is better than injustice under all circumstances which in
             effect gave a new direction to Greek philosophy and teaching. Compared to
             most of his contemporaries, Socrates lived in poverty and publicly
             disdained material possessions, but as a teacher, Socrates spent a good
             deal of his time in conversation and contemplation with his fellow
             Athenians, especially the young people of Greece.
             Socrates wrote nothing and all of our knowledge of his ideas comes
             from the writings of others, especially those of Plato, his one-time pupil.
             Plato's dialogues portray Socrates as a great teacher who often conversed
             about philosophy, the arts and pedagogy. By using what has come to be
             called the Socratic method, Socrates never directly instructed his
             students; instead, he led them to draw their own conclusions in response to
             many probing questions concerning numerous cherished by unexamined
             assumptions about life and sometimes death.
             Along with Socrates, Plato's ideas were basically aimed at attempting
             to describe the ideal political and social organization to be headed by
             leaders imbued with philosophical wisdom. After his death, many of his
             views and ideas attracted little attention among philosophers for the next
             two centuries until they were revived as important points for debate in the
             Roman era. Nevertheless, the sheer intellectual power of Plato's thoughts
             and ideas and the controversies they have created since his lifetime have
             won him fame as one of the world's greatest philosophers and teachers.
             Much like his great teacher Socrates, Plato's idea that humans
             possessed immortal souls distinct from their bodies established the concept
             of dualism, being a separation between the spirit
             and the physical. This idea of the...