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Socrates' most important student was Plato, who founded the [[Academy]] of Athens and wrote a number of dialogues, which applied the [[Socratic method]] of inquiry to examine philosophical problems. Some central ideas of Plato's dialogues are the [[The Forms|Theory of Forms]], i.e., that the mind is imbued with an innate capacity to understand and contemplate concepts from a higher order preeminent world, concepts more real, permanent, and universal than or representative of the ''things of this world'', which are only changing and temporal; the idea of the immortal soul being superior to the body; the idea of evil as simple ignorance of truth; that true knowledge leads to true virtue; that art is subordinate to moral purpose; and that the society of the [[city-state]] should be governed by a merit class of propertyless philosopher kings, with no permanent wives or paternity rights over their children, and be protected by an athletically gifted, honorable, duty bound military class. In the later dialogues Socrates figures less prominently, but Plato had previously woven his own thoughts into some of Socrates' words. Interestingly, in his most famous work, ''[[Plato's Republic|The Republic]]'', Plato critiques democracy, condemns tyranny, and proposes a three tiered merit based structure of society, with workers, guardians and philosophers, in an equal relationship, where no innocents would ever be put to death again, citing the philosophers' relentless love of truth and knowledge of the forms or ideals, concern for general welfare and lack of propertied interest as causes for their being suited to govern.

Socrates' most important student was Plato, who founded the [[Academy]] of Athens and wrote a number of dialogues, which applied the [[Socratic method]] of inquiry to examine philosophical problems. Some central ideas of Plato's dialogues are the [[The Forms|Theory of Forms]], i.e., that the mind is imbued with an innate capacity to understand and contemplate concepts from a higher order preeminent world, concepts more real, permanent, and universal than or representative of the ''things of this world'', which are only changing and temporal; the idea of the immortal soul being superior to the body; the idea of evil as simple ignorance of truth; that true knowledge leads to true virtue; that art is subordinate to moral purpose; and that the society of the [[city-state]] should be governed by a merit class of propertyless philosopher kings, with no permanent wives or paternity rights over their children, and be protected by an athletically gifted, honorable, duty bound military class. In the later dialogues Socrates figures less prominently, but Plato had previously woven his own thoughts into some of Socrates' words. Interestingly, in his most famous work, ''[[Plato's Republic|The Republic]]'', Plato critiques democracy, condemns tyranny, and proposes a three tiered merit based structure of society, with workers, guardians and philosophers, in an equal relationship, where no innocents would ever be put to death again, citing the philosophers' relentless love of truth and knowledge of the forms or ideals, concern for general welfare and lack of propertied interest as causes for their being suited to govern.

Plato's most outstanding student was [[Aristotle]], perhaps the first truly systematic philosopher.  [[Aristotelian logic]] was the first type of [[logic]] to attempt to categorize every valid [[syllogism]]. A syllogism is a form of argument that is guaranteed to be accepted, because it is known (by all educated persons) to be [[validity|valid]]. A crucial assumption in [[Aristotelian logic]] is that it has to be about real objects. Two of Aristotle's syllogisms are invalid to modern eyes. For example, "All A are B. All A are C. Therefore, some B are C." This syllogism fails if set A is empty, but there are real members of set B. In Aristotle's syllogistic logic you could say this, because his logic should only be used for things that really exist ("no empty classes")

Plato's most outstanding student was [[Aristotle]], perhaps the first truly systematic philosopher.  [[Aristotelian logic]] was the first type of [[logic]] to attempt to categorize every valid [[syllogism]]. A syllogism is a form of argument that is guaranteed to be accepted, because it is known (by all educated persons) to be [[validity|valid]]. A crucial assumption in [[Aristotelian logic]] is that it has to be about real objects. Two of Aristotle's syllogisms are invalid to modern eyes. For example, "All A are B. All A are C. Therefore, some B are C." This syllogism fails if set A is empty, but there are real members of set B. In Aristotle's syllogistic logic you could say this, because his logic should only be used for things that really exist ("no empty classes")