Socrates has been dead about 2,500 years. Why should anyone care what he thought about anything? Because Socrates was one of the greatest and most important philosophers who ever lived. He charted the course of Western philosophy that served as part of the foundation of Western civilization–the other part being the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Socrates was the teacher of Plato, who was the teacher of Aristotle, so Socrates was one of the three greatest thinkers in history, and the one who influenced the other two. All of the philosophers who came before Socrates are simply lumped together into a group and referred to as the pre-socratics–the guys who came before Socrates. Socrates is known as the father of moral philosophy, and as such provided a framework for asking and answering some of the most important questions that humans can and should ask. If more people paid attention to Socrates, learning the lessons he tried to teach people, the world would be a better place to live. That’s why what he thought matters.