Constantin Brancusi.Socrates
Image © The Museum of Modern Art;
Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NY
©2005 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York/ADAGP, Paris
reproduced with permission
of the Brancusi Estate

The philosopher Socrates remains, as he was in his lifetime(469–399 B.C.E.),^[1] an enigma, an inscrutable individual who, despite having writtennothing, is considered one of the handful of philosophers who foreverchanged how philosophy itself was to be conceived. All our informationabout him is second-hand and most of it vigorously disputed, but histrial and death at the hands of the Athenian democracy is neverthelessthe founding myth of the academic discipline of philosophy, and hisinfluence has been felt far beyond philosophy itself, and in everyage. Because his life is widely considered paradigmatic not only forthe philosophic life but, more generally, for how anyone ought tolive, Socrates has been encumbered with the adulation and emulationordinarily reserved for religious figures – strange for someonewho tried so hard to make others do their own thinking and for someoneconvicted and executed on the charge of irreverence toward the gods.Certainly he was impressive, so impressive that many others were movedto write about him, all of whom found him strange by the conventionsof fifth-century Athens: in his appearance, personality, and behavior,as well as in his views and methods.

So thorny is the difficulty of distinguishing the historical Socratesfrom the Socrateses of the authors of the texts in which he appearsand, moreover, from the Socrateses of scores of later interpreters,that the whole contested issue is generally referred to astheSocratic problem. Each age, each intellectual turn, produces aSocrates of its own. It is no less true now that, “The‘real’ Socrates we have not: what we have is a set ofinterpretations each of which represents a ‘theoreticallypossible’ Socrates,” as Cornelia de Vogel (1955, 28) putit. In fact, de Vogel was writing as a new analytic paradigm forinterpreting Socrates was about to become standard—GregoryVlastos’s model (§2.2), which would hold sway until the mid1990s. Who Socrates really was is fundamental to virtually anyinterpretation of the philosophical dialogues of Plato becauseSocrates is the dominant figure in most of Plato’sdialogues.

• 1. Socrates’s strangeness
• 2. The Socratic problem: Who was Socrates really?
  • 2.1 Three primary sources: Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato
  • 2.2 Contemporary interpretative strategies
  • 2.3 Implications for the philosophy of Socrates
• 3. A Chronology of the historical Socrates in the context of Athenian history and the dramatic dates of Plato’s dialogues
• 4. Socrates outside philosophy
  • Resources for Teaching
• Bibliography
  • General overviews and reference
  • Analytic philosophy of Socrates
  • Continental interpretations
  • Interpretive issues
  • Specialized studies
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Socrates’s strangeness

Standards of beauty are different in different eras, and inSocrates’s time beauty could easily be measured by the standardof the gods, stately, proportionate sculptures of whom had beenadorning the Athenian acropolis since about the time Socrates reachedthe age of thirty. Good looks and proper bearing were important to aman’s political prospects, for beauty and goodness were linkedin the popular imagination. The extant sources agree that Socrates wasprofoundly ugly, resembling a satyr more than a man—andresembling not at all the statues that turned up later in ancienttimes and now grace Internet sites and the covers of books. He hadwide-set, bulging eyes that darted sideways and enabled him, like acrab, to see not only what was straight ahead, but what was beside himas well; a flat, upturned nose with flaring nostrils; and large fleshylips like an ass. Socrates let his hair grow long, Spartan-style (evenwhile Athens and Sparta were at war), and went about barefoot andunwashed, carrying a stick and looking arrogant. He didn’tchange his clothes but efficiently wore in the daytime what he coveredhimself with at night. Something was peculiar about his gait as well,sometimes described as a swagger so intimidating that enemy soldierskept their distance. He was impervious to the effects of alcohol andcold weather, but this made him an object of suspicion to his fellowsoldiers on campaign. We can safely assume an average height (since noone mentions it at all), and a strong build, given the active life heappears to have led. Against the iconic tradition of a pot-belly,Socrates and his companions are described as going hungry(Aristophanes,Birds 1280–83). On his appearance, seePlato’sTheaetetus 143e, andSymposium215a–c, 216c–d, 221d–e; Xenophon’sSymposium 4.19, 5.5–7; and Aristophanes’sClouds 362. Brancusi’s oak sculpture, standing 51.25inches including its base, captures Socrates’s appearance andstrangeness in the sense that it looks different from every angle,including a second “eye” that cannot be seen if the firstis in view. (See the Museum of Modern Art’spage on Brancusi’sSocrates which offers additional views.) Also true to Socrates’sreputation for ugliness, but less available, are the drawings of thecontemporary Swiss artist, Hans Erni.

In the late fifth century B.C.E., it was more or less taken forgranted that any self-respecting Athenian male would prefer fame,wealth, honors, and political power to a life of labor. Although manycitizens lived by their labor in a wide variety of occupations, theywere expected to spend much of their leisure time, if they had any,busying themselves with the affairs of the city. Men regularlyparticipated in the governing Assembly and in the city’s manycourts; and those who could afford it prepared themselves for successat public life by studying with rhetoricians and sophists from abroadwho could themselves become wealthy and famous by teaching the youngmen of Athens to use words to their advantage. Other forms of highereducation were also known in Athens: mathematics, astronomy, geometry,music, ancient history, and linguistics. One of the things that seemedstrange about Socrates is that he neither labored to earn a living,nor participated voluntarily in affairs of state. Rather, he embracedpoverty and, although youths of the city kept company with him andimitated him, Socrates adamantly insisted he wasnot ateacher (Plato,Apology 33a–b) and refused all hislife to take money for what he did. The strangeness of this behavioris mitigated by the image then current of teachers and students:teachers were viewed as pitchers pouring their contents into the emptycups that were the students. Because Socrates was no transmitter ofinformation that others were passively to receive, he resists thecomparison to teachers. Rather, he helped others recognize on theirown what is real, true, and good (Plato,Meno,Theaetetus)—a new, and thus suspect, approach toeducation. He was known for confusing, stinging, and stunning hisconversation partners into the unpleasant experience of realizingtheir own ignorance, a state sometimes superseded by genuineintellectual curiosity.

It did not help matters that Socrates seemed to have a higher opinionof women than most of his companions had, speaking of “men andwomen,” “priests and priestesses,” likening his workto midwifery, and naming foreign women as his teachers: Socratesclaimed to have learned rhetoric from Aspasia of Miletus, thedefacto spouse of Pericles (Plato,Menexenus); and to havelearned erotics from the priestess Diotima of Mantinea (Plato,Symposium). Socrates was unconventional in a related respect.Athenian citizen males of the upper social classes did not marry untilthey were at least thirty, and Athenian females were poorly educatedand kept sequestered until puberty, when they were given in marriageby their fathers. Thus the socialization and education of males ofteninvolved a relationship for which the English word‘pederasty’ (though often used) is misleading, in which ayouth approaching manhood, fifteen to seventeen, became the beloved ofa male lover a few years older, under whose tutelage and through whoseinfluence and gifts, the younger man would be guided and improved. Itwas assumed among Athenians that mature men would find youths sexuallyattractive, and such relationships were conventionally viewed asbeneficial to both parties by family and friends alike. A degree ofhypocrisy (or denial), however, was implied by the arrangement:“officially” it did not involve sexual relations betweenthe lovers and, if it did, then the beloved was not supposed to derivepleasure from the act—but ancient evidence (comedies, vasepaintings, et al.) shows that both restrictions were often violated(Dover 1989, 204). What was odd about Socrates is that, although hewas no exception to the rule of finding youths attractive (Plato,Charmides 155d,Protagoras 309a–b; Xenophon,Symposium 4.27–28), he refused the physical advances ofeven his favorite, Alcibiades (Plato,Symposium219b–d), and kept his eye on the improvement of their, and allthe Athenians’, souls (Plato,Apology 30a–b), amission he said he had been assigned by the oracle of Apollo atDelphi, if he was interpreting his friend Chaerephon’s reportcorrectly (Plato,Apology 20e–23b), a preposterousclaim in the eyes of his fellow citizens. Socrates also acknowledged arather strange personal phenomenon, adaimonion or internalvoice that prohibited his doing certain things, some trivial and someimportant, often unrelated to matters of right and wrong (thus not tobe confused with the popular notions of a superego or a conscience).The implication that he was guided by something he regarded as divineor semi-divine was all the more reason for other Athenians to besuspicious of Socrates.

Socrates was usually to be found in the marketplace and other publicareas, conversing with a variety of different people—young andold, male and female, slave and free, rich and poor, citizen andvisitor—that is, with virtually anyone he could persuade to joinwith him in his question-and-answer mode of probing serious matters.Socrates’s lifework consisted in the examination ofpeople’s lives, his own and others’, because “theunexamined life is not worth living for a human being,” as hesays at his trial (Plato,Apology 38a). Socrates pursued thistask single-mindedly, questioning people about what matters most,e.g., courage, love, reverence, moderation, and the state of theirsouls generally. He did this regardless of whether his respondentswanted to be questioned or resisted him. Athenian youths imitatedSocrates’s questioning style, much to the annoyance of some oftheir elders. He had a reputation for irony, though what that meansexactly is controversial; at a minimum, Socrates’s ironyconsisted in his saying that he knew nothing of importance and wantedto listen to others, yet keeping the upper hand in every discussion.One further aspect of Socrates’s much-touted strangeness shouldbe mentioned: his dogged failure to align himself politically witholigarchs or democrats; rather, he had friends and enemies among both,and he supported and opposed actions of both (see §3).

2. The Socratic problem: Who was Socrates really?

The Socratic problem is a rat’s nest of complexities arisingfrom the fact that various people wroteabout Socrates whoseaccounts differ in crucial respects, leaving us to wonder which, ifany, are accurate representations of the historical Socrates.“There is, and always will be, a ‘Socratic problem’.This is inevitable,” said Guthrie (1969, 6), looking back on agnarled history between ancient and contemporary times that isnarrated in detail by Press (1996), but barely touched on below. Thedifficulties are increased because all those who knew and wrote aboutSocrates lived before any standardization of modern categories of, orsensibilities about, what constitutes historical accuracy or poeticlicense. All authors present their own interpretations of thepersonalities and lives of their characters, whether they mean to ornot, whether they write fiction or biography or philosophy (if thephilosophy they write has characters), so other criteria must beintroduced for deciding among the contending views of who Socratesreally was. A look at the three primary ancient sources of informationabout Socrates (§2.1) will provide a foundation for appreciatinghow contemporary interpretations differ (§2.2) and why thedifferences matter (§2.3).

One thing is certain about the historical Socrates: even among thosewho knew him in life, there was profound disagreement about what hisactual views and methods were. This is evident in the threecontemporaneous sources below; and it is hinted at in the few titlesand scraps by other authors of the time who are now lumped together as‘minor Socratics’, not for the quality of their work butbecause so little or none of it is extant. We shall probably neverknow much about their views of Socrates (see Giannantoni 1990).^[2] After Socrates’s death, the tradition became even moredisparate. As Nehamas (1999, 99) puts it, “with the exception ofthe Epicureans, every philosophical school in antiquity, whatever itsorientation, saw in him either its actual founder or the type ofperson to whom its adherents were to aspire.”

2.1 Three primary sources: Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato

Aristophanes (±450–±386)

Our earliest extant source—and the only one who can claim tohave known Socrates in vigorous midlife—is the playwrightAristophanes. His comedy,Clouds, was produced within a yearof the battle of Delium (423) at which Socrates fought as a hoplite,and when both Xenophon and Plato were infants. In the play, thecharacter called Socrates heads a Think-o-Rama in which young menstudy the natural world, from insects to stars, and study slickargumentative techniques as well, lacking all respect for the Atheniansense of propriety. The actor wearing the mask of Socrates makes funof the traditional gods of Athens (lines 247–48, 367,423–24), mimicked later by the young protagonist, and givesnaturalistic explanations of phenomena Athenians viewed as divinelydirected (lines 227–33; cf.Theaetetus 152e,153c–d, 173e–174a;Phaedo 96a–100a). Worstof all, he teaches dishonest techniques for avoiding repayment of debt(lines 1214–1302) and encourages young men to beat their parentsinto submission (lines 1408–46).

Comedy by its very nature is a tricky source for information aboutanyone. Yet, in favor of Aristophanes as a source for Socrates is thatXenophon and Plato were some forty-five years younger than Socrates,so their acquaintance could only have been during Socrates’slater years. Could Socrates really have changed so much? Can thelampooning of the younger Socrates found inClouds and othercomic poets be reconciled with Plato’s characterization of aphilosopher in his fifties and sixties? Some have said yes, pointingout that the years betweenClouds and Socrates’s trial(399) were years of war and upheaval, changing everyone. The Athenianintellectual freedom of which Pericles been so proud at the beginningof the war (Thucydides 2.37–39) had been eroded completely bythe end (see §3). Thus, what had seemed comical a quarter centuryearlier, Socrates hanging in a basket on-stage, talking nonsense, wasominous in memory by then. A good reason to believe thatAristophanes’s representation of Socrates is not merely a comicexaggeration but systematically misleading in retrospect is KennethDover’s view thatClouds amalgamates in one character,Socrates, features now well known to be unique to specific otherfifth-century intellectuals (1968, xxxii-lvii). Perhaps Aristophaneschose Socrates to represent garden-variety intellectuals becauseSocrates’s physiognomy was strange enough by itself to get alaugh. Aristophanes sometimes speaks in his own voice in his plays,giving us good reason to believe he genuinely objected to socialinstability brought on by the freedom Athenian youths enjoyed to studywith professional rhetoricians, sophists (see §1), and naturalphilosophers, e.g., those who, like the presocratics, studied thecosmos or nature. Such professions could be lucrative. That Socrateseschewed any earning potential in philosophy does not seem to havebeen significant to the great writer of comedies.

Aristophanes’s depiction of Socrates is important becausePlato’s Socrates says at his trial (Apology18a–b, 19c) that most of his jurors have grown up believing thefalsehoods attributed to him in the play. Socrates calls Aristophanesmore dangerous than the three men who brought charges against himbecause Aristophanes had poisoned the jurors’ minds while theywere young. Aristophanes did not stop accusing Socrates in 423 whenClouds placed third behind another play in which Socrates wasmentioned as barefoot; rather, he soon began writing a revision, whichhe circulated but never produced. Complicating matters, the revisionis our only extant version of the play. Aristophanes appears to havegiven up on revivingClouds in about 416, but his comicridicule of Socrates continued. Again in 414 withBirds, andin 405 withFrogs, Aristophanes complained ofSocrates’s deleterious effect on the youths of the city,including Socrates’s neglect of the poets. Aristophanes evencoins a verb,to socratize, conveying a range of unsavory behaviors.^[3]

Xenophon (±425–±386)

Another source for the historical Socrates is the soldier-historian,Xenophon. Xenophon says explicitly of Socrates, “I was neveracquainted with anyone who took greater care to find out what each ofhis companions knew” (Memorabilia 4.7.1); and Platocorroborates Xenophon’s statement by illustrating throughout hisdialogues Socrates’s adjustment of the level and type of hisquestions to the particular individuals with whom he talked. If it istrue that Socrates succeeded in pitching his conversation at the rightlevel for each of his companions, the striking differences betweenXenophon’s Socrates and Plato’s is largely explained bythe differences between their two personalities. Xenophon was apractical man whose ability to recognize philosophical issues isalmost imperceptible, so it is plausible that his Socrates is apractical and helpful advisor. That is the side of Socrates Xenophonexperienced. Xenophon’s Socrates differs additionally fromPlato’s in offering advice about subjects in which Xenophon washimself experienced, but Socrates was not: moneymaking (Xenophon,Memorabilia 2.7) and estate management (Xenophon,Oeconomicus), suggesting that Xenophon may have entered intothe writing of Socratic discourses (as Aristotle labeled the genre,Poetics 1447b11) making the character Socrates a mouthpiecefor his own views. His other works mentioning or featuring SocratesareAnabasis,Apology,Hellenica, andSymposium.

Something that has strengthened Xenophon’sprima facieclaim as a source for Socrates’s life is his work as ahistorian; hisHellenica (History of Greece) is oneof the chief sources for the period 411–362, afterThucydides’s history abruptly ends in the midst of thePeloponnesian wars. Although Xenophon tends to moralize and does notfollow the superior conventions introduced by Thucydides, still it issometimes argued that, having had no philosophical axes to grind,Xenophon may have presented a more accurate portrait of Socrates thanPlato does. But two considerations have always weakened that claim:(1) The Socrates of Xenophon’s works is so pedestrian that it isdifficult to imagine his inspiring fifteen or more people to writeSocratic discourses in the period following his death. (2) Xenophoncould not have chalked up many hours with Socrates or with reliableinformants. He lived in Erchia, about 15 kilometers and across theHymettus mountains from Socrates’s haunts in the urban area ofAthens, and his love of horses and horsemanship (on which he wrote astill-valuable treatise) took up considerable time. He left Athens in401 on an expedition to Persia and, for a variety of reasons(mercenary service for Thracians and Spartans; exile), never residedin Athens again. And now a third is in order. (3) It turns out to havebeen ill-advised to assume that Xenophon would apply the same criteriafor accuracy to his Socratic discourses as to his histories.^[4] The biographical and historical background Xenophon deploys in hismemoirs of Socrates fails to correspond to such additional sources aswe have from archaeology, history, the courts, and literature. Thewidespread use of computers in classical studies, enabling thecomparison of ancient persons, and the compiling of information abouteach of them from disparate sources, has made incontrovertible thisobservation about Xenophon’s Socratic works. Xenophon’smemoirs are pastiches, several of which simply could not have occurredas presented.

Plato (424/3–347)

Philosophers have usually privileged the account of Socrates given bytheir fellow philosopher, Plato. Plato was about twenty-five whenSocrates was tried and executed, and had probably known the old manmost of his life. It would have been hard for a boy of Plato’ssocial class, registered in the political district (deme) of Collytuswithin the city walls, to avoid Socrates. The extant sources agreethat Socrates was often to be found where youths of the city spenttheir time. Further, Plato’s representation of individualAthenians has proved over time to correspond remarkably well to botharchaeological and literary evidence: in his use of names and places,familial relations and friendship bonds, and even in his rough datingof events in almost all the authentic dialogues where Socrates is thedominant figure. The dialogues have dramatic dates that fall intoplace as one learns more about their characters and, despiteincidental anachronisms, it turns out that there is more realism inthe dialogues than most have suspected.^[5] TheIon,Lysis,Euthydemus,Meno,Menexenus,Theaetetus,Euthyphro,Cratylus, the frame ofSymposium,Apology,Crito,Phaedo (although Plato says he was nothimself present at Socrates’s execution), and the frame ofParmenides are the dialogues in which Plato had greatestaccess to Athenians he depicts.

It does not follow, however, that Plato represented the views andmethods of Socrates (or anyone, for that matter) as he recalled them,much less as they were originally uttered. There are a number ofcautions and caveats that should be in place from the start. (i) Platomay have shaped the character Socrates (or other characters) to servehis own purposes, whether philosophical or literary or both. (ii) Thedialogues representing Socrates as a youth and young man took place,if they took place at all, before Plato was born and when he was asmall child. (iii) One should be cautious even about the dramaticdates of Plato’s dialogues because they are calculated withreference to characters whom we know primarily, though not only, fromthe dialogues. (iv) Exact dates should be treated with a measure ofskepticism for numerical precision can be misleading. Even when aspecific festival or other reference fixes the season or month of adialogue, or birth of a character, one should imagine a margin oferror. Although it becomes obnoxious to usecirca orplus-minus everywhere, the ancients did not require or desirecontemporary precision in these matters. All the children born duringa full year, for example, had the same nominal birthday, accountingfor the conversation atLysis 207b, odd by contemporarystandards, in which two boys disagree about who is the elder.Philosophers have often decided to bypass the historical problemsaltogether and to assume for the sake of argument that Plato’sSocrates isthe Socrates who is relevant to potentialprogress in philosophy. That strategy, as we shall soon see, givesrise to a new Socratic problem (§2.2).

What, after all, is our motive for reading a dead philosopher’swords about another dead philosopher who never wrote anything himself?This is a way of asking a popular question, Why do history ofphilosophy? —which has no settled answer. One might reply thatour study of some of our philosophical predecessors isintrinsically valuable, philosophically enlightening andsatisfying. When we contemplate the words of a dead philosopher, aphilosopher with whom we cannot engage directly—Plato’swords, say—we seek to understand not merely what he said andassumed, but what his statements imply, and whether they are true.Others’ words can prompt the exploration of new and rich veinsof philosophy. Sometimes, making such judgments about the textrequires us to learn the language in which the philosopher wrote, moreabout his predecessors’ ideas and those of his contemporaries.The truly great philosophers, and Plato was one of them, are stillcapable of becoming our companions in philosophical conversation, ourdialectical partners. Because he addressed timeless, universal,fundamental questions with insight and intelligence, our ownunderstanding of such questions is heightened whether we agree ordisagree. That explains Plato, one might say, but where is Socrates inthis picture? Is he interesting merely as a predecessor to Plato? Somewould say yes, but others would say it is not Plato’s butSocrates’s ideas and methods that mark the real beginning ofphilosophy in the West, that Socrates is the better dialectical guide,and that what is Socratic in the dialogues should be distinguishedfrom what is Platonic (§2.2). But how? That again is theSocratic problem.

2.2 Contemporary interpretative strategies

If it were possible to confine oneself exclusively to Plato’sSocrates,the Socratic problem would nevertheless reappearbecause one would soon discover Socrates himself defending oneposition in one Platonic dialogue, its contrary in another, and usingdifferent methods in different dialogues to boot. Inconsistenciesamong the dialogues seem to demand explanation, though not allphilosophers have thought so (Shorey 1903). Most famously, theParmenides attacks various theories of forms that theRepublic,Symposium, andPhaedo develop anddefend. In some dialogues (e.g.,Laches), Socrates only weedsthe garden of its inconsistencies and false beliefs, but in otherdialogues (e.g.,Phaedrus), he is a planter as well,advancing structured philosophical claims and suggesting new methodsfor testing those claims. There are differences on smaller matters aswell. For example, Socrates in theGorgias opposes, while intheProtagoras he supports, hedonism; the details of therelation between erotic love and the good life differ fromPhaedrus toSymposium; the account of the relationbetween knowledge and the objects of knowledge inRepublicdiffers from theMeno account; despite Socrates’scommitment to Athenian law, expressed in theCrito, he vowsin theApology that he will disobey the lawful jury if itorders him to stop philosophizing. A related problem is that some ofthe dialogues appear to develop positions familiar from otherphilosophical traditions (e.g., that of Heraclitus inTheaetetus and Pythagoreanism inPhaedo). Threecenturies of efforts to solve versions of the Socratic problem aresummarized in the following supplementary document:

Early Attempts to Solve the Socratic Problem

Contemporary efforts recycle bits and pieces—including thefailures—of these older attempts.

The Twentieth Century

Until relatively recently in modern times, it was hoped that confidentelimination of what could be ascribed purely to Socrates would leavestanding a coherent set of doctrines attributable to Plato (whoappears nowhere in the dialogues as a speaker). Many philosophers,inspired by the nineteenth century scholar Eduard Zeller, expect thegreatest philosophers to promote grand, impenetrable schemes. Nothingof the sort was possible for Socrates, so it remained forPlato to be assigned all the positive doctrines that could beextracted from the dialogues. In the latter half of the twentiethcentury, however, there was a resurgence of interest in whoSocrates was and what his own views and methods were. Theresult is a narrower, but no less contentious, Socratic problem. Twostrands of interpretation dominated views of Socrates in the twentiethcentury (Griswold 2001; Klagge and Smith 1992). Although there hasbeen some healthy cross-pollination and growth since the mid 1990s,the two were so hostile to one another for so long that the bulk ofthe secondary literature on Socrates, including translations peculiarto each, still divides into two camps, hardly reading one another:literary contextualists and analysts. The literary-contextual study ofSocrates, like hermeneutics more generally, uses the tools of literarycriticism—typically interpreting one complete dialogue at atime; its European origins are traced to Heidegger and earlier toNietzsche and Kierkegaard. The analytic study of Socrates, likeanalytic philosophy more generally, is fueled by the arguments in thetexts—typically addressing a single argument or set ofarguments, whether in a single text or across texts; its origins arein the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. Hans-Georg Gadamer(1900–2002) was the doyen of the hermeneutic strand, and GregoryVlastos (1907–1991) of the analytic.

Literary contextualism

Faced with inconsistencies in Socrates’s views and methods fromone dialogue to another, the literary contextualist has no Socraticproblem because Plato is seen as an artist of surpassing literaryskill, the ambiguities in whose dialogues are intentionalrepresentations of actual ambiguities in the subjects philosophyinvestigates. Thus terms, arguments, characters, and in fact allelements in the dialogues should be addressed in their literarycontext. Bringing the tools of literary criticism to the study of thedialogues, and sanctioned in that practice by Plato’s own use ofliterary devices and practice of textual critique (Protagoras339a–347a,Republic 2.376c–3.412b,Ion,andPhaedrus 262c–264e), most contextualists ask ofeach dialogue what its aesthetic unity implies, pointing outthat the dialogues themselves are autonomous, containing almost nocross-references. Contextualists who attend to what they see as theaesthetic unity of the whole Platonic corpus, and therefore seek aconsistent picture of Socrates, advise close readings of the dialoguesand appeal to a number of literary conventions and devices said toreveal Socrates’s actual personality. For both varieties ofcontextualism, the Platonic dialogues are like a brilliantconstellation whose separate stars naturally require separatefocus.

Marking the maturity of the literary contextualist tradition in theearly twenty-first century is a greater diversity of approaches and anattempt to be more internally critical (see Hyland 2004).

Analytic developmentalism

Beginning in the 1950s, Vlastos (1991, 45–80) recommended a setof mutually supportive premises that together provide a plausibleframework in the analytic tradition for Socratic philosophy as apursuit distinct from Platonic philosophy.^[6] Although the premises havedeep roots in early attempts to solve the Socratic problem (see thesupplementary document linked above), the beauty of Vlastos’sparticular configuration is its fecundity. The first premise marks abreak with a tradition of regarding Plato as a dialectician who heldhis assumptions tentatively and revised them constantly; rather,

1. Plato held philosophicaldoctrines, and
2. Plato’s doctrinesdeveloped over the period inwhich he wrote,

accounting for many of the inconsistencies and contradictions amongthe dialogues (persistent inconsistencies are addressed with a complexnotion of Socratic irony.) In particular, Vlastos tells a story“as hypothesis, not dogma or reported fact” describing theyoung Plato in vivid terms, writing his early dialogues whileconvinced of “the substantial truth of Socrates’s teachingand the soundness of its method.” Later, Plato develops into aconstructive philosopher in his own right but feels no need to breakthe bond with his Socrates, his “father image.” (Theremainder of Plato’s story is not relevant to Socrates.) Vlastoslabels a small group of dialogues ‘transitional’ to markthe period when Plato was beginning to be dissatisfied withSocrates’s views. Vlastos’s third premise is

3. It is possible to determine reliably the chronological order inwhich the dialogues were written and to map them to the development ofPlato’s views.

The evidence Vlastos uses varies for this claim, but is of severaltypes: stylometric data, internal cross references, external eventsmentioned, differences in doctrines and methods featured, and otherancient testimony (particularly that of Aristotle). The dialogues ofPlato’s Socratic period, called “elenctic dialogues”for Socrates’s preferred method of questioning, areApology,Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches,Protagoras, and book 1 of theRepublic. Thedevelopmentalists’ Platonic dialogues are potentially a discretesequence, the order of which enables the analyst to separate Socratesfrom Plato on the basis of different periods in Plato’sintellectual evolution. Finally,

4. Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates only what Plato himselfbelieves at the time he writes each dialogue.

“As Plato changes, the philosophical persona of his Socrates ismade to change” (Vlastos 1991, 53)—a view sometimesreferred to as the “mouthpiece theory.” Because theanalyst is interested in positions or doctrines (particularly asconclusions from, or tested by, arguments), the focus of analysis isusually on a particular philosophical view in or across dialogues,with no special attention given to context or to dialogues consideredas wholes; and evidence from dialogues in close chronologicalproximity is likely to be considered more strongly confirming thanthat from dialogues of other developmental periods. The result ofapplying the premises is a firm list (contested, of course, by others)of ten theses held by Socrates, all of which are incompatible with thecorresponding ten theses held by Plato (1991, 47–49).

Many analytic ancient philosophers in the late twentieth century minedthe gold Vlastos had uncovered, and many of those who were productivein the developmentalist vein in the early days went on to constructivework of their own (see Bibliography).

2.3 Implications for the philosophy of Socrates

It is a risky business to say where ancient philosophy is now, but anadvantage of an entry in a dynamic reference work is that authors areallowed, nay,encouraged to update their entries to reflectrecent scholarship and sea changes in their topics. For many analyticphilosophers, John Cooper (1997, xiv) sounded the end of thedevelopmentalist era when he described the early- and middle-perioddialogue distinctions as “an unsuitable basis for bringinganyone to the reading of these works. To use them in that way is toannounce in advance the results of a certain interpretation of thedialogues and to canonize that interpretation under the guise of apresumably objective order of composition—when in fact no suchorderis objectively known. And it thereby risks prejudicingan unwary reader against the fresh, individual reading that theseworks demand.” When he added, “it is better to relegatethoughts about chronology to the secondary position they deserve andto concentrate on the literary and philosophical content of the works,taken on their own and in relation to the others,” he proposedpeace between the literary contextualist and analytic developmentalistcamps. As in any peace agreement, it takes some time for all thecombatants to accept that the conflict has ended—but that iswhere we are.

In short, one is now more free to answer, Who was Socrates really? inthe variety of ways that it has been answered in the past, inone’s own well-reasoned way, or to sidestep the question,philosophizing about the issues in Plato’s dialogues withoutworrying too much about the long toes of any particular interpretivetradition. Those seeking the views and methods of Plato’sSocrates from the perspective of what one is likely to see attributedto him in the secondary literature (§2.2) will find it useful toconsult the related entry onPlato’s shorter ethical works.

3. A Chronology of the historical Socrates in the context of Athenian history and the dramatic dates of Plato’s dialogues

The larger column on the left below provides some of the biographicalinformation from ancient sources with the dramatic dates ofPlato’s dialogues interspersed[in boldface]throughout. In the smaller column on the right are dates of majorevents and persons familiar from fifth century Athenian history.Although the dates are as precise as allowed by the facts, some areestimated and controversial (Nails 2002).

This brings us to the spring and summer of 399, to Socrates’strial and execution. Twice in Plato’s dialogues(Symposium 173b,Theaetetus 142c–143a),fact-checking with Socrates took place as his friends sought to commithis conversations to writing before he was executed.[spring399Theaetetus] Prior to the action in theTheaetetus, a young poet named Meletus had composed adocument charging Socrates with the capital crime of irreverence(asebeia): failure to show due piety toward the gods ofAthens. This he delivered to Socrates in the presence of witnesses,instructing Socrates to present himself before the king archon withinfour days for a preliminary hearing (the same magistrate would laterpreside at the pre-trial examination and the trial). At the end of theTheaetetus, Socrates was on his way to that preliminaryhearing. As a citizen, he had the right to countersue, the right toforgo the hearing, allowing the suit to proceed uncontested, and theright to exile himself voluntarily, as the personified laws laterremind him (Crito 52c). Socrates availed himself of none ofthese rights of citizenship. Rather, he set out to enter a plea andstopped at a gymnasium to talk to some youngsters about mathematicsand knowledge.

When he arrived at the king archon’s stoa, Socrates fell into aconversation about reverence with a diviner he knew, Euthyphro[399Euthyphro], and afterwards answeredMeletus’s charge. This preliminary hearing designated theofficial receipt of the case and was intended to lead to greaterprecision in the formulation of the charge. In Athens, religion was amatter of public participation under law, regulated by a calendar ofreligious festivals; and the city used revenues to maintain templesand shrines. Socrates’s irreverence, Meletus claimed, hadresulted in the corruption of the city’s young men(Euthyphro 3c–d). Evidence for irreverence was of twotypes: Socrates did not believe in the gods of the Athenians (indeed,he had said on many occasions that the gods do not lie or do otherwicked things, whereas the Olympian gods of the poets and the citywere quarrelsome and vindictive); Socrates introduced new divinities(indeed, he insisted that hisdaimonion had spoken to himsince childhood). Meletus handed over his complaint, and Socratesentered his plea. The king-archon could refuse Meletus’s case onprocedural grounds, redirect the complaint to an arbitrator, or acceptit; he accepted it. Socrates had the right to challenge theadmissibility of the accusation in relation to existing law, but hedid not, so the charge was published on whitened tablets in the agoraand a date was set for the pre-trial examination—but not beforeSocrates fell into another conversation, this one on the origins ofwords (Smith 2022).[399Cratylus] From thispoint, word spread rapidly, probably accounting for the spike ofinterest in Socratic conversations recorded inTheaetetus andSymposium.[399Symposium frame]But Socrates nevertheless is shown by Plato spending the next day intwo very long conversations promised inTheaetetus (210d).[399Sophist,Statesman]

At the pre-trial examination, Meletus paid no court fees because itwas considered a public duty to prosecute irreverence. To discouragefrivolous suits, however, Athenian law imposed a heavy fine onplaintiffs who failed to obtain at least one fifth of the jury’svotes, as Socrates later points out (Apology 36a–b).Unlike closely timed jury trials, pre-trial examinations encouragedquestions to and by the litigants, to make the legal issues moreprecise. This procedure had become essential because of thesusceptibility of juries to bribery and misrepresentation. Originallyintended to be a microcosm of the citizen body, juries bySocrates’s time were manned by elderly, disabled, andimpoverished volunteers who needed the meager three-obol pay.

In the month of Thargelion[May-June 399Apology] a month or two after Meletus’sinitial summons, Socrates’s trial occurred. On the day before,the Athenians had launched a ship to Delos, dedicated to Apollo andcommemorating Theseus’s legendary victory over the Minotaur(Phaedo 58a–b). Spectators gathered along with the jury(Apology 25a) for a trial that probably lasted most of theday, each side timed by the water clock. Plato does not provideMeletus’s prosecutorial speech or those of Anytus and Lycon, whohad joined in the suit; or the names of witnesses, if any(Apology 34a implies Meletus called none).Apology—the Greek ‘apologia’ means‘defense’—is not edited as are the court speeches oforators. For example, there are no indications in the Greek text (at35d and 38b) that the two votes were taken; and there are no breaks(at 21a or 34b) for witnesses who may have been called. Also missingare speeches by Socrates’s supporters; it is improbable that hehad none, even though Plato does not name them.

Socrates, in his defense, mentioned the harm done to him byAristophanes’sClouds (§2.1). Though Socratesdenied outright that he studied the heavens and what is below theearth, his familiarity with the investigations of natural philosophersand his own naturalistic explanations of such phenomena as earthquakesand eclipses make it no surprise that the jury remained unpersuaded.And, seeing Socrates out-argue Meletus, the jury probably did not makefine distinctions between philosophy and sophistry. Socrates threetimes took up the charge that he corrupted the young, insisting that,if he corrupted them, he did so unwillingly; but if unwillingly, heshould be instructed, not prosecuted (Apology 25e–26a).The jury found him guilty. By his own argument, however, Socratescould not blame the jury, for it was mistaken about what was truly inthe interest of the city (cf.Theaetetus 177d–e) andthus required instruction.

In the penalty phase of the trial, Socrates said, “If it werethe law with us, as it is elsewhere, that a trial for life should notlast one but many days, you would be convinced, but now it is not easyto dispel great slanders in a short time” (Apology37a–b). This isolated complaint stands opposed to the remark ofthe personified laws that Socrates was “wronged not by us, thelaws, but by men” (Crito 54c). It had been a crimesince 403/2 for anyone even to propose a law or decree in conflictwith the newly inscribed laws, so it was ironic for the laws to tellSocrates to persuade or obey them (Crito 51b–c). In alast-minute capitulation to his friends, he offered to allow them topay a fine of six times his net worth (XenophonOeconomicus2.3.4–5), thirtyminae. The jury rejected the proposal.Perhaps the jury was too incensed by Socrates’s words to votefor the lesser penalty; after all, he needed to tell them more thanonce to stop interrupting him. It is more likely, however, thatsuperstitious jurors were afraid that the gods would be angry if theyfailed to execute a man already found guilty of irreverence. Sentencedto death, Socrates reflected that it might be a blessing: either adreamless sleep, or an opportunity to converse in the underworld.

While the sacred ship was on its journey to Delos, no executions wereallowed in the city. Although the duration of the annual voyage variedwith conditions, Xenophon says it took thirty-one days in 399(Memorabilia 4.8.2); if so, Socrates lived thirty days beyondhis trial, into the month of Skirophorion. A day or two before theend, Socrates’s childhood friend Crito tried to persuadeSocrates to escape.[June–July 399Crito] Socrates replied that he “listens tonothing … but the argument that on reflection seems best”and that “neither to do wrong or to return a wrong is everright, not even to injure in return for an injury received”(Crito 46b, 49d), not even under threat of death (cf.Apology 32a), not even for one’s family (Crito54b). Socrates could not point to a harm that would outweigh the harmhe would be inflicting on the city if he now exiled himself unlawfullywhen he could earlier have done so lawfully (Crito 52c); suchlawbreaking would have confirmed the jury’s judgment that he wasa corrupter of the young (Crito 53b–c) and broughtshame on his family and friends.

The events of Socrates’s last day, when he “appeared happyboth in manner and words as he died nobly and without fear”(Phaedo 58e) were related by Phaedo to the Pythagoreancommunity at Phlius some weeks or months after the execution.[June–July 399Phaedo] The Eleven,prison officials chosen by lot, met with Socrates at dawn to tell himwhat to expect (Phaedo 59e–60b). When Socrates’sfriends arrived, Xanthippe and their youngest child, Menexenus, werestill with him. Xanthippe commiserated with Socrates that he was aboutto enjoy his last conversation with his companions; then, performingthe ritual lamentation expected of women, was led home. Socrates spentthe day in philosophical conversation, defending the soul’simmortality and warning his companions not to restrain themselves inargument, “If you take my advice, you will give but littlethought to Socrates but much more to the truth. If you think that whatI say is true, agree with me; if not, oppose it with everyargument” (Phaedo 91b–c). On the other hand, hewarned them sternly to restrain their emotions, “keep quiet andcontrol yourselves” (Phaedo 117e).

Socrates had no interest in whether his corpse was burned or buried,but he bathed at the prison’s cistern so the women of hishousehold would be spared from having to wash his corpse. Aftermeeting with his family again in the late afternoon, he rejoined hiscompanions. The servant of the Eleven, a public slave, bade Socratesfarewell by calling him “the noblest, the gentlest, and thebest” of men (Phaedo 116c). The poisoner described thephysical effects of theConium maculatum variety of hemlockused for citizen executions (Bloch 2001), then Socrates cheerfullytook the cup and drank. Phaedo, a former slave echoing the slave ofthe Eleven, called Socrates, “the best, … the wisest andthe most upright” (Phaedo 118a).

4. Socrates outside philosophy

Socrates is an inescapable figure in intellectual history worldwide.Readers interested in tracking this might start with Trapp’s twovolumes (2007). Strikingly, Socrates is invoked also in nonacademiccontexts consistently over centuries, across geographical andlinguistic boundaries globally, and throughout a wide range of mediaand forms of cultural production.

Though not commonplace today, Socrates was once routinely citedalongside Jesus. Consider Benjamin Franklin’s pithy maxim in hisAutobiography, “Humility: Imitate Jesus andSocrates,” and the way the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.,defends civil disobedience inLetter from Birmingham Jail byarguing that those who blame him for bringing imprisonment on himselfare like those who would condemn Socrates for provoking the Atheniansto execute him or condemn Jesus for having triggered his crucifixion.In the visual arts, artist Bror Hjorth celebrates Walt Whitman bygiving him Jesus and Socrates as companions. This wood relief,Love, Peace and Work, was commissioned in the early 1960s bythe Swedish Workers’ Educational Association for installation inits new building in Stockholm and was selected to appear on a 1995postage stamp. A more light-hearted linking is Greece’s entryinto the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, Elpida’sSocratesSuperstar, the lyrics of which mention that Socrates was earlierthan Jesus.

At times, commending Socrates asserted the distinctiveness of WesternCivilization. For example, an illustrated essay on Socratesinaugurates a 1963 feature called “They Made Our World” inLOOK, a popular U.S. magazine. Today Socrates remains an iconof the Western ideal of an intellectual and is sometimes invoked asrepresentative of the ideal of a learned person more universally.Whether he is being poked fun at, extolled, pilloried, or justacknowledged, Socrates features in a wide range of projects intendedfor broad audiences as a symbol of the very idea of the life of themind, which, necessarily from a Socratic viewpoint, is also a morallife (but not necessarily a conventionally successful life).

There may be no more succinct expression of this standing than JamesMadison’s comments on the tyrannical impulses of crowds inFederalist 55: “Had every Athenian citizen been aSocrates; every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”The persistence of this position in the cultural imagination is clearin his many appearances as a sober knower (e.g., RobertoRossellini’s 1971 film) and a giant among giants, as in, forexample, his imagined speech, penned by Gilbert Murray, where he isplaced first among the “immortals” featured in the 1953recording,This I Believe,compiled by journalist Edward R.Murrow and linked to his wildly successful radio broadcast of the samename. But Socrates also persistently appears in funny settings. Forexample, an artist makes the literally brainless, good-naturedscarecrow featured in the 1961 animation,Tales from the Wizard ofOz, answer to the name ‘Socrates’; and the Beatlesmake Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D., their sweet fictional character inthe 1968 filmYellow Submarine, respond to a question withthe quip, “A true Socratic query, that!” A more robustrecent example that mobilizes the longevity of Socrates’association with reflection and ethical behavior is WalterMosley’s crime fiction featuring Socrates Fortlow. His threebooks follow a Black ex-con in Los Angeles with a violent past and afierce determination to live life as a thinking person and to do good;the character says his mother named him ‘Socrates’ becauseshe wanted him to grow up smart, a reference to a naming custompracticed by former slaves. The association of Socrates with greatintellect and moral rectitude is still kicking, as a quick glance atthe collection of Socrates-themed merchandise available from a widearray of vendors will attest. Further, in the mode of “theexception proves the rule,” observe that in DC Comics, Mr.Socrates is a criminal genius able to control Superman by subduing himwith a device that disables him mentally.

In antiquity, Socrates did not act as a professional teacher ofdoctrines; he did, however, self-identify as a knowledge-seeker forthe sake of himself and the benefit of those with whom he engaged,young or not. So firmly entrenched internationally in today’svernacular is his association with education that his name is used tobrand professional enterprises as varied as curricula designed forelementary school, college, law school, institutional initiatives thatserve multiple disciplines, think tank retreats, cafégatherings, electronic distance learning platforms, training programsfor financial and marketing consultants, some parts of cognitivebehavioral therapy, and easy-to-use online legal services. We find aless commercial example inLong Walk to Freedom (1994)in which the great South African statesman Nelson Mandela reportsthat, during his incarceration for anti-apartheid activism, his fellowprisoners educated themselves while laboring in rock quarries and that“the style of teaching was Socratic in nature;” a leaderwould pose a question for them to discuss in study sessions. Anotherexample is Elliniko Theatro’s Socrates Now, a soloperformance based on Plato’sApology that integratesaudience discussion.

In U.S. education at all levels these days, Socratic questioningimplies no effort on the part of a leading figure to elicit fromthe participants any severe discomfort with current opinions(that is, to sting like a gadfly or to expose a disquieting truth),but instead uses the name ‘Socrates’ to invest withgravitas collaborative learning that addresses moral questions andrelies on interactive techniques. The unsettling and dangerous aspectsof Socratic practice turn up in politicized contexts where adistinction between dissent and disloyalty is at issue. Appeals toSocrates in these settings most often highlight the personal risks runby an intellectually exemplary critic of the unjust acts of anestablished authority. This is a recurring theme in politically mindedallusions to Socrates globally. A wave of such work took hold in theU.S., Britain and Canada around WWII, the McCarthy Era, and Cold War.Creative artists in literature, radio, theater, and televisionsummoned Socrates to probe what it means to be an unyielding advocateof free speech and free inquiry—even a martyr to belief in thenecessity of these freedoms to meaningful and virtuous human life. Inthese sources, his strange appearance, behavior, and views, especiallyhis relentlessly critical, even irritating, truth-seeking, andanti-ideological posture are presented as testing Atheniandemocracy’s capacity to abide by these ideals. They suggest thatthe indictment, trial, and execution are stains on Athenian democracyand that a worrisome historical parallel is unfolding. Thesefull-blown interpretations of the life of Socrates require wrestlingwith the whole issue of the historical Socrates; a claim to historicalaccuracy was a crucial part of any case for his story’s beingcredible as a warning.

Visually, we find monuments and other sculptural tributes to a lessovertly political Socrates in cities and small towns across the globein public spaces devoted to learning and contemplation. A stand-outfor its unusual focus is Antonio Canova’s 1797 bas-relief,“Socrates rescues Alcibiades in the battle of Potidaea,”in which Socrates strikes a powerful pose as a hoplite. An 1875 pieceby Russian imperial sculptor Mark Antokolski foregrounds the personalcost of Socrates’s commitment to philosophy, portraying himalone, a drained cup of hemlock at his side, slumped over dead.Reproductions of, and drawings based on, ancient copies of what arethought to be a fourth-century B.C.E. statue of Socrates by theAthenian Lysippus (e.g., the British Museum’s Statuette ofSocrates) are also in wide circulation. A particularly interesting onecan be found in graphic artist Ralph Steadman’sParanoids, a 1986 book of Polaroid caricatures of famouspeople. But the most influential image of the philosopher today is theriveting, widely reproduced, 1787 painting, “The Death ofSocrates,” by Jacques Louis David, now in theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It captures thephilosopher’s own claim to be reverent, his courageous decisionto take the cup of hemlock in his own hand, and the grief his unjustfate stirred in others.

David’s neo-classical history-painting has come to be a definingimage of Socrates. This is curious because, while the design of thepainting abounds with careful references to the primary sources, itignores those sources’ description of Socrates himself —the ones cited in section 1 on Socrates’s strangeness —rendering the old philosopher classically handsome instead. Attendingto the primary sources has led some readers to wonder whether Socratesmight have had an African heritage. For example, in the 1921“The Foolish and the Wise: Sallie Runner is Introduced toSocrates,” a short story in the NAACP journal edited by W. E. B.Du Bois, author Leila Amos Pendleton tackles the issue. Her character,a bright girl employed as a maid, responds to her employer’saccount of the physical appearance of the great man born before Jesusthat Miss Audrey intends to tell Sallie all about: “He was acullod gentmun, warn’t he?” This prompts the followingexchange: “Oh no, Sallie, he wasn’t colored.”“Wal, ef he been daid all dat long time, Miss Oddry, how kinyo’ tell his color?” “Why he was an Athenian,Sallie. He lived in Greece.” Nails (1989) depicted Socrates asan African village elder in a recreation ofRepublic 1. Inthe visual arts, drawings and watercolors by the Swiss artist HansErni resolutely portray Socrates as ugly as the sources describe him.Socrates also sometimes resonates as Black (or queer, or touched),independent of any discussion of physical attributes; this followsfrom his renown for refusing to be defined by the stultifying norms ofhis day.

In Plato’sPhaedo, Socrates says a recurring dreaminstructs him to “compose music and work at it” and thathe had always interpreted it to mean something like keep doingphilosophy because “philosophy was the greatest kind of musicand that’s what I was working at” (60e–61a). Inprison awaiting execution, he says he experimented with new ways ofdoing philosophy; he tried turning some of Aesop’s fables intoverse. We might view some of the deeply thoughtful, even loving,engagements with Socrates in music and dance in light of this passage.“Socrates” is the fifth movement of LeonardBernstein’s Serenade after Plato’sSymposium(1954). He is the explicit inspiration for two works of choreographyby Mark Morris,Death of Socrates in 1983, andSocrates in 2010, both of which work with 1919 compositionsby Erik Satie that directly reference Socrates. And we have a workproduced in 2022 at HERE in New York,The Hang, the stunningproduct of a collaboration by playwright Taylor Mac and composer MattRay.

Conjurings of Socrates appear outside philosophy as both brief butdense references to discrete features of this puzzling figure, andsustained portraits that wrestle with his enigmatic character. Detailsof the sources mentioned above, and other sources that may be useful,are included in the following supplementary document.

Resources for Teaching

Bibliography

General overviews and reference

• Ahbel-Rappe, Sara, and Rachana Kamtekar (eds.), 2005,ACompanion to Socrates, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
• Bussanich, John, and Nicholas D. Smith (eds.), 2013,TheBloomsbury Companion to Socrates, London: BloomsburyPublishing.
• Cooper, John M. (ed.), 1997,Plato: Complete Works,Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
• Giannantoni, Gabriele, 1990,Socratis et SocraticorumReliquiae. 4 vols. Elenchos 18. Naples, Bibliopolis.
• Guthrie, W. K. C., 1969,A History of Greek PhilosophyIII, 2:Socrates, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Nails, Debra, 2002,The People of Plato: A Prosopography ofPlato and Other Socratics, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
• Morrison, Donald R., 2010,The Cambridge Companion toSocrates, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Rudebusch, George, 2009,Socrates, Oxford:Wiley-Blackwell.
• Taylor, A[lfred] E[dward], 1952,Socrates, Boston:Beacon.
• Trapp, Michael (ed.), 2007,Socrates from Antiquity to theEnlightenment andSocrates in the Nineteenth and TwentiethCenturies, London: Routledge.
• Vander Waerdt (ed.), 1994,The Socratic Movement, Ithaca:Cornell University Press.
• Waterfield, Robin, 2009,Why Socrates Died, New York:Norton.

Analytic philosophy of Socrates

• Benson, Hugh H. 2000,Socratic Wisdom: The Model of Knowledgein Plato’s Early Dialogues, New York: Oxford UniversityPress.
• –––, 2015,Clitophon’s Challenge:Dialectic in Plato’s Meno, Phaedo,and Republic,Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Benson, Hugh H., (ed.), 1992,Essays on the Philosophy ofSocrates, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Beversluis, John, 2000,Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense ofthe Interlocutors in Plato’s Early Dialogues, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
• Brickhouse, Thomas C., and Nicholas D. Smith, 1989,Socrateson Trial, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• –––, 1994,Plato’s Socrates, NewYork: Oxford University Press.
• –––, 2015, “Socrates on theEmotions”Plato: The Internet Journal of the InternationalPlato Society, Volume 15 [available online].
• Burnyeat, M[yles] F., 1998, “The Impiety of Socrates,”Ancient Philosophy, 17: 1–12.
• Jones, Russell E., 2013, “Felix Socrates?”Philosophia (Athens), 43: 77–98 [available online].
• Nehamas, Alexander, 1999,Virtues of Authenticity,Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Penner, Terry, 1992, “Socrates and the EarlyDialogues,” in Richard Kraut (ed.),The Cambridge Companionto Plato, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Santas, Gerasimos, 1979,Socrates: Philosophy in Plato’sEarly Dialogues, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Teloh, Henry, 1986,Socratic Education in Plato’s EarlyDialogues, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
• Vlastos, Gregory, 1954, “The Third Man Argument inPlato’sParmenides,”PhilosophicalReview 63: 319–49.
• –––, 1983, “The Historical Socrates andAthenian Democracy,”Political Theory, 11:495–516.
• –––, 1989, “Socratic Piety,”Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in AncientPhilosophy, 5: 213–38.
• –––, 1991,Socrates: Ironist and MoralPhilosopher, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Continental interpretations

• Bloom, Allan, 1974, “Leo Strauss September 20,1899–October 18, 1973,”Political Theory, 2(4):372–92.
• Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 1980,Dialogue and Dialectic: EightHermeneutical Studies on Plato, tr. from the German by P.Christopher Smith, New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Heidegger, Martin, 1997,Plato’s Sophist, tr. fromthe German by Richard Rojcewicz and Andre Schuwer, Bloomington:Indiana University Press.
• Hyland, Drew A., 2004,Questioning Platonism: ContinentalInterpretations of Plato, Albany: State University of New YorkPress.
• Kierkegaard, Søren, 1989,The Concept of Irony withContinual Reference to Socrates, tr. from the Danish by H. V.Hong and E. H. Hong, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich, 1872,The Birth of Tragedy, tr.from the German by Walter Kaufmann, New York: Penguin (1967).
• Strauss, Leo, 1964,The City and Man, Charlottesville:University Press of Virginia.
• –––, 1966,Socrates and Aristophanes,Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• –––, 1968,Liberalism Ancient andModern, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Zuckert, Catherine H., 2009,Plato’s Philosophers: TheCoherence of the Dialogues, Chicago: University of ChicagoPress.

Interpretive issues

• Blondell, Ruby, 2002,The Play of Character in Plato’sDialogues, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Griswold, Charles, (ed.), 2001,Platonic Writings/PlatonicReadings, University Park: Penn State University Press.
• Howland, Jacob, 1991, “Re-Reading Plato: The Problem ofPlatonic Chronology,”Phoenix, 45(3):189–214.
• Klagge, James C., and Nicholas D. Smith (eds.), 1992,Methodsof Interpreting Plato and His Dialogues. Oxford: ClarendonPress.
• Nails, Debra, 1995,Agora, Academy, and the Conduct ofPhilosophy, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishing.
• Press, Gerald A[lan] 1996, “The State of the Question in theStudy of Plato,”Southern Journal of Philosophy, 34:507–32.
• –––, (ed.), 2000,Who Speaks for Plato?Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Rowe, Christopher, 2007,Plato and the Art of PhilosophicalWriting, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Shorey, Paul, 1903,The Unity of Plato’s Thought,Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Szlezák, Thomas A., 1993,Reading Plato, tr. fromthe German by Graham Zanker, London: Routledge.
• Thesleff, Holger, 2009,Platonic Patterns: A Collection ofStudies, Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

Specialized studies

• Allen, R[eginald] E., 1971, “Plato’s Earlier Theory ofForms,” in Vlastos 1971, 319–34.
• Bloch, Enid, 2001, “Hemlock Poisoning and the Death ofSocrates: Did Plato Tell the Truth?”Plato: The InternetJournal of the International Plato Society, Volume 1 [available online].
• de Vogel, Cornelia J., 1955, “The Present State of theSocratic Problem,”Phronesis, 1: 26–35.
• Dover, K[enneth] J. 1968,Aristophanes: Clouds, Oxford:Clarendon Press.
• –––, 1989,Greek Homosexuality,updated, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Harris, William, 1989,Athenian Literacy, Cambridge:Harvard University Press.
• Henderson, Jeffrey, 1998,Aristophanes II:Clouds,Wasps, Peace, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press.
• Lang, Mable, 1990, “Illegal Execution in AncientAthens,”Proceedings of the American PhilosophicalSociety, 134: 24–29.
• Ledger, Gerard R., 1989,Re-Counting Plato: A ComputerAnalysis of Plato’s Style, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
• McCabe, M. M., 2007, “Looking Inside Charmides’Cloak,” in Dominic Scott (ed.),Maieusis, Oxford:Oxford University Press.
• McPherran, Mark L., 1996,The Religion of Socrates,University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Monoson, S. Sara, 2011, “The Making of a Democratic Symbol:The Case of Socrates in North-American Popular Media,1941–56,”Classical Reception Journal, 3:46–76.
• Nails, Debra, 1989, “Teaching Plato in South AfricanUniversities,”South African Journal of Philosophy 8:100–117.
• –––, 2012, “Plato’sRepublicin Its Athenian Context,”History of PoliticalThought, 33: 1–23.
• O’Conner, David (ed.), 2002,The Symposium of Plato: TheShelley Translation, South Bend: St. Augustine’sPress.
• Reshotko, Naomi, 2006,Socratic Virtue: Making the Best of theNeither-Good-Nor-Bad, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Robinson, Richard,Plato’s Earlier Dialectic,second edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Ross, W. David, 1933, “The Socratic Problem,”Proceedings of the Classical Association, 30:7–24.
• Smith, Colin C., 2022 forthcoming, “The Case for the 399 BCEDramatic Date of Plato’sCratylus,”Classical Philology, 117.
• Tarrant, Harold, 2022 forthcoming, “Traditional andComputational Methods for Recognizing Revisions in the Works ofPlato,” in Olga Alieva, et al. (eds.),The Platonic Corpusin the Making, Turnhout: Brepols.
• Weiss, Roslyn, 1998,Socrates Dissatisfied: An Analysis ofPlato’s Crito, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Wilson, Emily, 2007,The Death of Socrates, Cambridge:Harvard University Press.

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Other Internet Resources

• Perseus Digital Library,Tufts University, has Plato’s works in Greek, in translation, andwith notes. It has the works of Aristophanes and Xenophon aswell.
• “The Uses and Disadvantages of Socrates”, Christopher Rowe’s 1999 Inaugural Lecture at the University ofDurham.
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an article devoted to Socrates.

Related Entries

Plato |Plato: ethics |Plato: ethics and politics inThe Republic |Plato: friendship and eros |Plato: rhetoric and poetry |Plato: shorter ethical works |Sophists, The

Acknowledgments

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