Socrates (/ˈsɒkrətiːz/;[2] Ancient Greek: Σωκρᾰ́της, romanized: Sōkrátēs, [sɔːkrátɛːs]; c.

 470 –
399 BC)[3][4] was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western
philosophy, and as being the first moral philosopher[5][6] of the Western ethical tradition of
thought.[7][8][9] An enigmatic figure, he made no writings, and is known chiefly through the accounts
of classical writers writing after his lifetime, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. Other
sources include the contemporaneous Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Aeschines of
Sphettos. Aristophanes, a playwright, is the main contemporary author to have written plays
mentioning Socrates during Socrates' lifetime, though a fragment of Ion of Chios' Travel
Journal provides important information about Socrates' youth.[10][11]
Plato's dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity,
from which Socrates has become renowned for his contributions to the fields
of ethics and epistemology. It is this Platonic Socrates who lends his name to the concepts
of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. However, questions remain regarding the
distinction between the real-life Socrates and Plato's portrayal of Socrates in his dialogues.[12]
Socrates exerted a strong influence on philosophers in later antiquity and in the modern era.
Depictions of Socrates in art, literature and popular culture have made him one of the most widely
known figures in the Western philosophical tradition.