In Plato's Pleadings, Socrates tells a story about why he persevered in his search for wisdom: a friend of Socrates, Keller Feng, once went to the Delphi Temple to ask God who was wiser than Socrates, and the Oracle priestess replied no. Socrates was very confused because he didn't think he had wisdom, so he visited many famous politicians, poets and craftsmen and tried to find that they were wiser than himself. However, the result is disappointing. These people not only have no real wisdom, but also are clever and ignorant of their own ignorance. Socrates therefore understood why God said that he was the wisest, because only he "knew his ignorance". Socrates further deduced from this that only God deserves true wisdom, while man loves wisdom at best. "The Oracle's intention is that human wisdom has little value or no value at all. It seems that what he said is not really Socrates. He just used my name as an example, which means:' People! People like Socrates find their wisdom really worthless, and that is the wisest among you. " "It is inspired by this Oracle that Socrates has been persistently searching for wisdom in a critical manner all his life, exposing those who claim to be wise (especially the wise), thus offending many people. When he was pushed to court, he still did not change his original intention and publicly said: "Today, I still follow God's will and visit people I think are wise everywhere, no matter whether he is a citizen of this city or a foreigner; Every time I think of someone who is not smart, I try to help God's cause by pointing out that he is not smart. This cause makes me have no time to participate in politics or mind my own private affairs. In fact, my service to God has left me penniless. "

Contrary to Ionian philosophers who explored the mysteries of nature, Socrates believed that people should only care about things around them. Because nature is created by God, full of God's special will and purpose, and the object of God's wisdom, people can't know it. If people insist on understanding nature, it is an arrogant trespass, and as a result, they can't not only know nature, but also know themselves. Socrates quoted the famous words engraved in front of the temple of Delphi to call on people: "Man, know yourself." In his view, philosophy should study issues related to life, such as justice, virtue, courage and piety, instead of focusing on the profound and mysterious nature. Because of this, Cicero said that Socrates pulled philosophy back from heaven to earth. In a sense, Socrates' "Know yourself" and protagoras's "Man is the measure of everything" seem to have the same effect, both of which want people to turn their attention from nature to themselves. However, protagoras understood man as an isolated special subject, so "man is the measure of everything" led to relativism; Socrates regards man as a rational thinking subject, and "knowing yourself" requires people to discover the common and universal essence of man. The wise school abandoned the essence by emphasizing "man is the measure of all things", while Socrates rebuilt the essence by emphasizing "knowing yourself", but this essence, as a universal logos (definition), mainly refers to things in the spiritual and moral world. Therefore, the wise sent people to talk just to sell money. Socrates had a sense of moral mission when arguing with people, thinking that he was a big gadfly sent by God to Athens in order to stimulate Athens, a slow-moving stupid cow, to move forward quickly.