Western thought and philosophy was fundamentally founded by two real human beings: Socrates (469-399 BCE) and Plato (430?-347 BCE).
Socrates never wrote anything down.
Plato opened the most famous higher education institution in the history of the world (The Academy – 380’s BCE – 525 CE when closed by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian).
Plato left behind 47 dialogs of theoretical abstractions that constitute the basis for all philosophy and the derivative forms of higher education that followed. I have harbored…..
My publisher asked “What do you want readers to take away from your writing?”
If I really were Socrates, I would have the exact same three-part answer in 399 BCE Athens as makes sense to me now in 2015 in the USA.
To get people to really think for themselves – as reasoning individuals. To get every citizen to feel “entitled” to rational explanations from the politicians, the leaders, the “experts and authorities” and the professional educators and not be…..