<P> While Socrates' recorded conversations rarely provide a definite answer to the question under examination, several maxims or paradoxes for which he has become known recur . Socrates taught that no one desires what is bad, and so if anyone does something that truly is bad, it must be unwillingly or out of ignorance; consequently, all virtue is knowledge . He frequently remarks on his own ignorance (claiming that he does not know what courage is, for example). Plato presents him as distinguishing himself from the common run of mankind by the fact that, while they know nothing noble and good, they do not know that they do not know, whereas Socrates knows and acknowledges that he knows nothing noble and good . </P> <P> Numerous subsequent philosophical movements were inspired by Socrates or his younger associates . Plato casts Socrates as the main interlocutor in his dialogues, deriving from them the basis of Platonism (and by extension, Neoplatonism). Plato's student Aristotle in turn criticized and built upon the doctrines he ascribed to Socrates and Plato, forming the foundation of Aristotelianism . Antisthenes founded the school that would come to be known as Cynicism and accused Plato of distorting Socrates' teachings . Zeno of Citium in turn adapted the ethics of Cynicism to articulate Stoicism . Epicurus studied with Platonic and Stoic teachers before renouncing all previous philosophers (including Democritus, on whose atomism the Epicurean philosophy relies). The philosophic movements that were to dominate the intellectual life of the Roman empire were thus born in this febrile period following Socrates' activity, and either directly or indirectly influenced by him . They were also absorbed by the expanding Muslim world in the 7th through 10th centuries AD, from which they returned to the West as foundations of Medieval philosophy and the Renaissance, as discussed below . </P> <P> Plato was an Athenian of the generation after Socrates . Ancient tradition ascribes thirty - six dialogues and thirteen letters to him, although of these only twenty - four of the dialogues are now universally recognized as authentic; most modern scholars believe that at least twenty - eight dialogues and two of the letters were in fact written by Plato, although all of the thirty - six dialogues have some defenders . A further nine dialogues are ascribed to Plato but were considered spurious even in antiquity . </P> <P> Plato's dialogues feature Socrates, although not always as the leader of the conversation . (One dialogue, the Laws, instead contains an "Athenian Stranger .") Along with Xenophon, Plato is the primary source of information about Socrates' life and beliefs and it is not always easy to distinguish between the two . While the Socrates presented in the dialogues is often taken to be Plato's mouthpiece, Socrates' reputation for irony, his caginess regarding his own opinions in the dialogues, and his occasional absence from or minor role in the conversation serve to conceal Plato's doctrines . Much of what is said about his doctrines is derived from what Aristotle reports about them . </P>

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