SOCRATES' EXAMPLE.

Socrates (469-399 BC) is the most interesting and influential thinker whose dedication to careful reasoning transformed the entire world.
Socrates sought genuine knowledge rather than mere victory over an opponent using the same logical tricks developed by them to a new intentional purpose, the pursuit of Truth.
Socrates was well known during his own time for his conversational skills and public teaching.
Socrates wrote nothing, so what we know about him is because of his students, especially Xenophon, Aristophanes and Plato, that did wrote a detailed knowledge of Socrates 's methods and results.
The trouble is that Plato was himself a philosopher who often injected his own theories into the dialogues he presented to the world as discussions between Socrates and other famous figures of the day. Nevertheless, it is usually assumed that at least the early dialogues of Plato provide an accurate representation of Socrates himself.
Socrates set the standard for all subsequent Western thinking by the use of critical reasoning and his unwavering commitment to Truth. As a pupil of Archelaus during his youth, he showed a great deal of interest in the theories of Anaxagoras, but he later abandoned inquires into the physical world for a dedicated investigation of the development of moral character and intention.
Socrates served with some distinction as a soldier during the Peloponnesian War. He dabbled in the political turmoil that consumed Athens after the war. Then he retired from active life to work as a stonemason and to raise his children with his wife, Xanthippe. After inheriting a modest fortune from his father, the sculptor Sophroniscus, Socrates used his financial independence as an opportunity to give full-time attention to the practice of deep thinking and dialogue towards the generation in which his own children were growing into.
Socrates devoted himself to free-wheeling discussion with the aristocratic young citizens of Athens for the rest of his life. He insistently questioned their unwarranted confidence in the Truth of popular opinions. Unlike the professional politicians of the time, Socrates pointedly declined to accept payment for his work with students, and many of them were fanatically loyal to him. Their parents, however, were often displeased with his influence on their offspring, making him look as a controversial political figure.
Socrates' views and his methods of teachings and his extended conversations with students, statesmen and friends aimed at the understanding and achieving virtue, and not material gain, through the careful application of a process of thinking by means of dialogue, discussion, debate, or argument. This method employed critical inquiry in a positive way and undermined the apparent explanation of Truth of widely-held doctrines, destroying the illusion that people already comprehended the World perfectly and honestly accepting the fact of human own ignorance. Therefore, he believed, that there are vital steps towards human acquisition of 'genuine' knowledge, by discovering spiritual and universal definitions of the key concepts governing human life.
Because of his political associations, the Athenian democracy put Socrates on trial, charging him with undermining state religion and corrupting young people. The speech Socrates offered in his own defense, as reported in Plato's Apology, provides us with the central features of Socrates' approach to Truth and its relation to practical life:
MODESTY: Socrates, explaining his mission as a teacher, reported an oracular message telling him "No One Is Wiser Than You." He then proceeded through a series of descriptions of his efforts to disprove the oracle by conversing with notable Athenians who must surely be wiser. In each case, however, Socrates concluded that he had a kind of wisdom that each of them lacked, "an open awareness of his own ignorance."
HABIT: The goal or intention of this Socratic interrogation helped individuals to achieve genuine self-knowledge, even if it often turned out to be negative in character according to the rules of the World. Socrates meant to turn the methods of the politicians of his time inside-out, using logical nit-picking to expose, rather than to create, illusions about reality. It nevertheless effectively internalized as a process of thinking and reasoning in an effort to understand everything.
TRUTH: Even after he has been convicted by the jury of his world, Socrates declined to abandon his pursuit of Truth in all matters. Refusing to accept exile from Athens or a commitment of silence as his penalty, he maintained that public discussion of the great issues of life and moral virtue is a vital part of any valuable human life. "The unexamined life is not worth living." He said to his jury that he would rather die that give up his pursuing of Truth, and his jury seemed happy to granted him that wish.
REASON: Even when his jury has sentenced him to death, Socrates calmly delivered his final public message, a speculation about what the future held. Disclaiming any certainty about the fate of a human being after death, he nevertheless expressed a continued confidence in the power of Truth and reason, which he has exhibited, while his jury hadn't. Who really wins remained unclear because Truth expose itself when the individual engage in the pursuing of it and the only winner in the individual itself.
The dramatic picture of a man willing to face death rather than abandoning his own pursuing of Truth offers up Socrates as a model for all future thinkers, and all of us are daily faced with opportunities to decide between convenient conventionality and our devotion to the pursuing of TRUTH and reason.
How we choose determines whether we, like Socrates, deserve to call our lives meaningful.