Socrates is an idealist. He openly preached theological idealism and believed that everything in the universe was created and dominated by God. He believes that there are no laws to follow in nature, and it is meaningless to study nature, but the human soul can be known. In Socrates' view, man is a free individual with thoughts, all his actions are determined by reason, and the highest goodness is wisdom. Therefore, he advocates that people should not explore natural phenomena, but should fully study their own minds, explore and seek eternal truth in self-knowledge, and seek the highest goodness of mankind-wisdom.
In Socrates' view, virtue is not innate, but can be acquired by exploring in one's own mind. Therefore, he emphasized that education is a process of guiding young students to improve their personality, that is, a process of teaching people knowledge and wisdom. He believes that in Athens, only the noble children of slave owners have good thinking ability, and they can receive education and become the rulers of a country with perfect virtues. Therefore, he emphasized that the purpose of Athens education is to cultivate "knowledge by knowing yourself, and eventually become a wise and morally perfect person."
(2) Guide students to use Socratic method for inquiry learning.
Socrates believes that knowledge is an inherent thing in an individual's mind, but not all individuals can discover it by themselves, and often need the timely help and guidance of philosophers and teachers. He said that the task of midwives is not to have their own children, but to help mothers have their own children. The teacher's task is not to impart knowledge to students, but to help them discover the knowledge firmly in their minds. Therefore, Socrates does not directly impart specific knowledge to students during lectures or debates, but exposes contradictions in students' understanding through dialogues or questions, and guides students to discover the inherent knowledge in their minds. This method is called Socrates method, Socrates question and answer method or Socrates midwifery method.
The main feature of Socrates method is to guide students to get a correct understanding of things through dialogue between teachers and students. Because this kind of dialogue is carried out in the daily teaching environment, it is not based on the teacher's forced instillation of knowledge into the students, but on the equal discussion between teachers and students from the known to the unknown, from the concrete to the abstract. It is helpful to stimulate students' enthusiasm for learning and encourage them to actively participate in inquiry learning activities and discover knowledge independently. In this sense, Socrates was the first educator in the west who proposed heuristic teaching method or discovery method. Many scholars believe that "Socrates' midwifery is the origin of western heuristic teaching. "