1. Socrates (469-399 B.C.) left no literary legacy of his own was a soldier during the Peloponnesian War involved in the politics of Athens after the War developed free-wheeling discussion with the aristocratic young citizens of Athens, questioning their confidence in the truth of popular opinions, even though he often offered them no clear alternative teaching refused to accept payment for his work with students, but many of them were fanatically loyal to him Athenian jury found other charges - corrupting the youth and interfering with the religion of the city - upon which to convict Socrates, and they sentenced him to death in 399 B.C.E. accepting this outcome with remarkable grace, Socrates drank hemlock and died in the company of his friends and disciples

2. Plato (427-347 B.C.) student of Socrates established his own school of philosophy at the Academy - tried both to pass on the heritage of a Socratic style of thinking creates the spirit of Socrates's teaching by making reports of the master’s conversational style the Kritwn (Crito) discusses whether individuals can oppose the will of the state masterpiece is Politeia (Republic) – a plan for the ideal society and requires detailed accounts of human knowledge and education he also made the allegory of the cave concludes with a review of various forms of government and an explicit description of the ideal state, in which only philosophers are fit to rule, and tries to show justice is better than injustice.

3. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) he spent twenty years of his life studying at Plato’s Academy in Athens in Macedonia, educated Alexander the Great returned to Athens and established his own school at the Lyceum investigated of an amazing range of subjects, from logic, philosophy, and ethics to physics, biology, psychology, politics, and rhetoric tried to develop a universal method of reasoning to try to learn everything there is to know about reality believed human beings are linked together in a social context in Politics he speculated about the origins of the state, described and assessed the relative merits of various types of government, and listed the obligations of the individual citizen