Socrates is a famous idealist philosopher in ancient Greece. Socrates himself has never written any works. His behavior and theory are mainly passed down through the records in the works of his students Plato and xenophanes. In xenophanes's memoirs, Sulagaidi is described as a good citizen who is virtuous, helpful, law-abiding, and advocates practical affairs, but his philosophical thoughts are hardly talked about. Dialogue, defense and creed in Plato. Socrates was the main interlocutor in his early and middle dialogues, expounding various philosophical thoughts. Besides, aristophanes, a contemporary poet of Socrates, described Socrates as a wise man in his comedy Cloud, deceiving young people with sophistry and lies. But it is generally believed that this is only artistic creation, not real history.

The basic point of Socrates' philosophy is that he got teleology in criticizing natural philosophy, especially Anaxagoras's philosophy, and universal moral principles in criticizing the school of wise men. The central content of Socrates' philosophy is the universal method of establishing moral principles. Specifically, Socrates' philosophy is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Teleology. Starting from the wise, ancient Greek philosophy turned from paying attention to nature itself to paying attention to social ethics and people. But they only stay in the perceptual stage and can only draw relativistic conclusions. This situation was fundamentally changed by Socrates. Plato introduced in the Phaedo that Socrates also studied natural philosophy in his early years and devoted himself to studying the causes of things. But when this kind of research can't help him explain the reasons behind natural phenomena, he feels confused and dissatisfied. Later, he was glad to hear Anaxagoras talking about "slaves". However, after studying Anaxagoras's works, he found that he gave up slaves when explaining specific natural phenomena, and still used matter as a mechanical explanation. What philosophy should study is: Why did this thing come into being? Why can you generate this kind of thing? In this way, Socrates put forward his own thought about reason, that is, teleology, in opposition to natural philosophy. In Socrates' view, the reason why the world is like this is because there is a dominant force that makes everything look like this and is the best. This dominant force is "goodness" ("goodness"). Goodness is a basic concept of his philosophy and the reason why things are "why". In Socrates' philosophy, good or purpose has the same meaning. He believes that the existence and development of all things pursue a complete principle, and everything in the whole world has such a purpose. In this way, Socrates took teleology as his world view.

Explaining the world with teleology is an important feature of Socrates' philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophy began with Socrates, and the deterministic cosmology in natural philosophy was replaced by teleological cosmology. Teleology is put forward to explain the unity of the world, the development process of things from low to high, and the harmonious phenomenon in nature. This explanation tries to overcome the mechanical determinism in natural philosophy and the circulation theory of cosmic movement. It is a one-sided view that all spiritual and conscious phenomena are attributed to different material forms. At the same time, it is of theoretical significance in the history of cognition to try to overcome the reason that wise men do not attach importance to research and regard everything as a relative, subjective and doubtful wrong view. But Socrates' understanding of the essence and regularity of world unity is wrong, with idealism and mysticism.

In Socrates' view, the whole universe obeys a purpose and a "good" principle. This is because of the existence of God and the power of God, everything in the world is designed so well and perfectly, and the best purpose is pursued, thus making the world an orderly, willing and more developed unified whole. From opposing the causal determinism of natural philosophy to the idealistic worldview advocating teleology, and then to theism acknowledging the existence of God as the highest purpose, these are the basic characteristics of Socrates' worldview. Socrates' theological teleology directly influenced Plato and Aristotle's philosophy, and had many influences on medieval philosophy and theology, and even modern philosophy and science. This is an important theory with a long history in the history of European philosophy.

Virtue theory. Since Socrates classified the world as a kind of good purpose and thought it was decided by God, it would be meaningless and fruitless for people to study nature. Besides, interfering with nature is disrespectful to God. In this way, Socrates advocates studying philosophy from a new direction and in a new way. Therefore, Socrates called for a "spiritual turn" to shift philosophy from studying nature to studying itself. That is, to pull philosophy back from the sky to the earth. He put forward such a philosophical slogan: "Know yourself." This constitutes Socrates' basic philosophical proposition, and at the same time marks the transformation of the history of ancient Greek philosophy from natural philosophy to human studies. In Socrates' thought, the so-called "knowing yourself" means shifting the focus of philosophical research to personnel and one's own mind, knowing the goodness in personnel and mind, and improving one's mind. Since then, Socrates has established his theory of virtue and methodology.

In Socrates' time, the movement of the wise made the traditional moral concept face complete collapse. According to Aristotle's records, Socrates gave up the study of nature, wanted to seek universal truth on ethical issues, and began to seek universal definitions for things. He opposes the relativism of the wise, and thinks that there can be various views, but there is only one truth. "Viewpoint" can change with people and other conditions, but "truth" is eternal. In Plato's early dialogues, the topics discussed are almost all about how to define ethics, such as what is courage, beauty, justice and so on. Interlocutors all answered with such and such special cases, which were denied by Socrates. He said, I don't want you to answer this kind of beauty or that kind of beauty, I want you to answer. What Socrates pursues is not the specific knowledge about "beautiful things" and "just things", but the knowledge about "beauty itself" and "justice itself", which is the universal definition of beauty and justice and the real knowledge. The "beauty itself" and "justice itself" that Socrates seeks are Plato's "idea of beauty" and "idea of justice".

Socrates further pointed out that the causal series in nature is endless, and if philosophy only seeks this causal series, it is impossible to know the ultimate reason of things. He believes that the ultimate cause of things is "goodness" and goodness is the purpose of things. He replaced the study of causality with teleology, which opened the way for later idealism philosophy.

Socrates established an ethical thought system that knowledge is morality, and its center is to explore the purpose and goodness of life. The proposition that "virtue is knowledge" constitutes Socrates' basic proposition on moral issues, which is contrary to the relativism and individualism of the wise school. In his view, with knowledge, he understood the essence of morality and grasped the concept of goodness. He emphasized that people should know the universal laws of social life and "know themselves", and thought that all kinds of beneficial or harmful purposes and moral norms that people get in real life are relative. Only by exploring the concept of universal and absolute goodness and mastering the true knowledge of this concept is the highest purpose of human life and the ultimate virtue of goodness. That is to say, in his view, realistic and concrete moral behaviors are contradictory and relative. There are both good and evil, but morality as knowledge is absolute and eternal, because the concept of good itself, that is, good is good, is complete and absolute, and it does not contain any evil. Only when people know the meaning of morality and truly understand it can they act according to it. Therefore, Socrates attached great importance to moral education. In his view, morality is not only knowledge, but knowledge and wisdom are of course education. Therefore, morality can also be educated. Through education, people can have moral knowledge, understand the difference between good and evil, arm their minds with wisdom, and become moral people. Socrates believes that only when people get rid of the temptation of material desires and the limitations of acquired experience and acquire conceptual knowledge can they have virtues such as wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. This ethical thought of asceticism and mysticism was later inherited and developed by antisthenes, forming a cynic school characterized by emphasizing asceticism. The hedonism thought contained in Socrates' ethical thought was inherited and developed by Aristib, and the Guler School advocating hedonism was formed. Plato comprehensively inherited Socrates' ethical thought system and further systematized and theorized it. Socrates emphasized the importance of knowledge and thought that ethics should be decided by reason. This rationalism has played a positive role in the development of western philosophy in the future.

There is another important idea in Socrates' moral theory: people don't do evil on purpose. He believes that since morality is knowledge, if they have knowledge and understand righteousness, they will naturally have morality, and ignorance will have no morality. However, because fools are ignorant, they can't do good, but they don't know evil. On the contrary, they will regard evil as good, so no one deliberately does evil. He said that those who deliberately do evil are more unintentional.

Socrates' thought that morality is knowledge has certain theoretical significance in the history of ethics. He combined morality with cognition and knowledge with behavior, on the one hand, making moral behavior knowledgeable and scientific, on the other hand, linking knowledge judgment with value judgment. This way of understanding the essence of morality from epistemology and science is positive and enlightening. But Socrates made morality absolute and eternal. When he completely denied the concreteness, historicity and reality of morality, he went to idealism.

Methodology and conceptualism. Socrates' moral theory confirms that morality is knowledge. He believes that moral knowledge has nothing to do with reality and is not based on personal feelings and relative opinions. In this way, to study moral problems, we must first improve people's minds, and then we can use the correct way of thinking to understand the truth. Therefore, in Socrates' view, moral problems become problems of truth and epistemology. Socrates leads to the problem of methodology.

Socrates' method mainly refers to the method of discussing the definition of morality, which has the following characteristics: First, Socrates' method is a skeptical method. According to Socrates' self-report recorded in the pleadings, he found that the way of self is inseparable from the pursuit of true knowledge. Socrates used to look for people smarter than him everywhere. He went to politicians, poets and masters. After his visits one by one, he realized that all people who think they are smart are actually not smart, but this proves that Socrates is smart. Socrates is better than them, not because he has knowledge, but because he admits that he has no knowledge and "knows his ignorance." The philosophical significance of this self-report lies in: he believes that the pursuit of natural truth is endless; I feel that the world is constantly changing, so the knowledge I get is uncertain. He wants to pursue an unchangeable, definite and eternal truth, that is to say, he can't seek the natural outside world, but he wants to return to himself and study himself. Therefore, since Socrates, self and nature have been clearly distinguished; Man is no longer just a part of nature, but another unique entity different from nature. In this way, Socrates determined the important proposition of "knowing his ignorance". The idea contained in this proposition is that knowledge begins with doubt. In Socrates' view, people who think they are smart are actually dogmatists. He believes that only by admitting one's ignorance can one be liberated from rash opinions. Socrates' proposition of "knowing one's ignorance" is against the school of the wise, and even more against protagoras's subjective view that the individual is the measure of truth.

Secondly, Socrates' method is a way to expose contradictions, overcome contradictions and finally reach the truth through the opposition and conflict of various opinions in the process of discussing problems. Socrates' method includes four links: (1) satire, which leads to contradictions from the other side's point of view, forcing them into embarrassment or forcing them to deny what they believe. (2) midwifery. Socrates admitted that he had no knowledge. And he wants to teach others knowledge. He solved this contradiction in this way: this knowledge is not instilled by him, but what people already have. People are pregnant with a "fetus" in their hearts, but they just don't know it yet. Socrates is like a "midwife", helping others to produce knowledge. Socrates' midwifery is embodied in the form of "questioning" he often uses, through which he reveals what the other party has put forward. In the cross-examination, Socrates himself did not give a positive answer, because he admitted his ignorance. This theory directly produced Plato's idealistic transcendentalism "theory of recollection", and it was also the forerunner of later idealism "concept of talent". From the perspective of educational thought, Socrates advocates heuristic education method and opposes indoctrination method, which is of positive significance. (3) induction. That is, denying individuals and individuals through irony. Through midwifery, we constantly discover the universal and inevitable truth, that is, from individual to general method. (4) Conclusion or definition. In other words, we express or define the truth of discovery. Socrates started from ignorance, used irony and midwifery, and finally got the definition. This method is developed from the logical reasoning of Elijah School and Zhi Nuo's reduction to absurdity. In the negative form of Socrates' irony, there is a positive result of dialectical thinking that exposes contradictions. Socratic

Socrates' methodology puts forward the important issue of pursuing commonness rather than individuality. When he led people to get rid of the so-called subjective feelings, self-righteous opinions and the confusion of individual accidents, the universal principle was determined. This formed Socrates' concept theory. Looking for the concept of morality, or looking for the concept of things, is the goal of Socrates' dialogue and argumentation, and his methodology is the means to realize conceptualism.

From the development history of human cognition, Socrates' method touched on the process of human cognition from individual to general, and became the forerunner of formal logic inductive reasoning later. His concept theory highlights the principle of relative stability and certainty of cognition, which has a certain influence on the later formal logic definition theory. His methodology and conceptualism are also of certain significance for overcoming some sophistry tendencies among the wise. Socrates' methodology is characterized by generally rejecting individuals and denying the relativity and contradictory changes of things. His conceptualism regards the * * of things reflected by concepts as absolute, unchangeable and transcendental, thus denying the truth of specific things. This idealistic viewpoint and method in Socrates' philosophy provides a direct theoretical premise for Plato's idealism.

The theory of immortality of the soul. Socrates' soul theory further clarifies the difference between spirit and matter. Philosophers before Socrates have long said that the soul is immortal, and the bud of opposition between idealism and materialism has emerged. But philosophers before him still had vague views on the soul, and some even regarded the soul as the most refined substance. So the boundary between idealism and materialism is not clear. It was not until Socrates that the soul was clearly regarded as a spiritual entity that was essentially different from matter. In Socrates' view, the emergence and disappearance of things is just the aggregation and dispersion of something. The body is "multiple", it can aggregate and decompose; The soul is one, a single thing. Without parts, it cannot be dispersed, so there is no aggregation, so the soul will not be born and die, but will exist forever. This single thing is not an "atom" of matter, but a spiritual entity. From the development of philosophical thought, Socrates put forward the distinction between spiritual entity and material entity, which made the opposition between idealism and materialism break away from the simple state of early philosophy and enter a more mature stage. He raised the maxim-like ethical thought of early Greek philosophers to the height of philosophy; He inspires thoughts, exposes contradictions with logical debates and goes deep into the essence of things with dialectical thinking. All these contribute to the development of philosophical thinking. However, as the first systematic idealist philosopher in the history of western philosophy, he began an era of exaggerating subjectivity and rationality, exaggerating abstract thinking and replacing religious myths with philosophical idealism myths. Socrates explicitly opposed spirit and matter and became the founder of idealistic philosophy in the history of western philosophy.

Aristotle's academic research activities in his life involved logic, rhetoric, physics, biology, psychology, politics, economics, ethics, history, aesthetics and philosophy, and he wrote a lot of works. Many of these works have been lost, but many have survived. These works are compiled by later generations, but there are also mistakes, omissions, incompleteness and so on.

The first philosophy. Aristotle has conducted many discussions and studies in the field of knowledge. According to the research object and purpose, he divided science into several categories: (1) logic, which is a tool for seeking knowledge, which Aristotle called "analytical method"; (2) Theoretical science, which aims at seeking knowledge itself, is divided into the first philosophy, mathematics, physics (including astronomy, meteorology, biology, physiology, psychology, etc. ); (3) Practical science, that is, exploring knowledge as a standard of behavior, including politics and ethics; (4) Production, that is, the knowledge of seeking to produce things with practical and artistic value, such as poetics.

Aristotle clearly distinguished the first philosophy from other sciences. He said: The first kind of philosophy specializes in the study of "existence" itself and the various attributes that "existence" is born with; It examines "you" as "you" and its various attributes. In Aristotle's view, philosophy is different from other sciences. It studies the most fundamental and primitive reasons for the emergence, extinction, movement and change of everything in the objective nature, that is, the "first cause". Philosophy is knowledge about the first cause. Therefore, Aristotle called it "the first philosophy". The "first philosophy" discusses the basic theoretical problems of philosophy, especially the most fundamental problem about the relationship between thinking and existence. Here, Aristotle's view is very close to materialism and reveals many dialectical thoughts. However, his views on materialism and dialectics are not thorough, and he often falls into chaos, vacillating between materialism and idealism, dialectics and metaphysics, and finally falls into idealism and metaphysics.