Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher whose way of life, character, and thought exerted a profound influence on ancient and modern philosophy. He believed that philosophy had a very important role to play in the lives of individuals and held virtue to be the greatest good in life. Socrates believed that he had a mission to seek the truth and to lead others to knowledge, truth, and virtue. He used the dialectical method as a midwife to ideas to lead others to knowledge, truth, and virtue. He believed that the unexamined life is not worth living and that the best manner to examine that life is through reasoning which employs the dialectical method of inquiry. Socrates held that all virtue is one and that the true, good, and beautiful are all good and united in the good as one. He believed that human wisdom begins with the recognition of ones own ignorance and that the unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates never wrote anything down but was committed to living simply and to interrogating the everyday views and popular opinions of those in his home city of Athens. He was the inspiration for Plato, the thinker widely held to be the founder of the Western philosophical tradition.