The truth about Socrates is that we do not know much (if anything) about him. All that we know is from second hand accounts; if Socrates wrote anything (which is unlikely) none of it has survived. Most of what we know has been conveyed to us by Plato. Many of Plato's works are still with us today and Socrates is a main character, or vocal piece in most of them.
The most significant contribution to philosophy that Socrates gave us was the Socratic Method which is a method of teaching someone what they already know. Thats the beauty of it. It works like this: Socrates would ask a question of someone such as, "what is piety?" the person then answers, ands then Socrates pokes at the validity of the answer. The point of the socratic method is to be a teacher that does not lecture, but would rather ask: "As a student what do you know? Why do you know that? Are you justified in believing that?" Socrates had a way of forcing you to describe your beliefs in such a way that they become arguments.
At least thats what we think Socrates did. As I said, all of the accounts we have of Socrates are second hand. Socrates is an ambiguous fellow, more on him when we talk about
Plato.
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