Socrates is one of the few individuals whom one could say has so-shaped the cultural and intellectual development of the world that, without him, history would be profoundly different. He was the inspiration for Plato, the thinker widely held to be the founder of the Western philosophical tradition and contradicting some situations people might know the truth but refuse to prove it like with Socrates in Plato’s Apology. Socrates clearly took philosophy seriously and his own awareness of ignorance frees him from what Russell would refer to as "Self". An ethically oriented skepticism lies at the heart of his own properly philosophical way of life. For Russell, philosophy should lead to peace – to personal serenity, and to peace in the world.
