Socrates was an Athenian philosopher whose genius lay not in writing books, but in the art of questioning. He developed the 'Socratic Method,' a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue that uses probing questions to expose contradictions in a person's beliefs and lead them to deeper truths. Socrates shifted the focus of philosophy from the physical world to human ethics and morality, famously stating that 'the unexamined life is not worth living.' Although he was eventually sentenced to death for 'corrupting the youth' of Athens, his method of logical inquiry became the bedrock of Western philosophy, logic, and law, as recorded by his most famous student, Plato.