Introduction: The Paradox of Socrates

The Socrates of this book is the Platonic Socrates, or, to be more precise, the Socrates of Plato’s early dialogues. That this figure is a faithful and imaginative recreation of the historical Socrates is the conclusion of some very reputable scholars, though not of all. It is the conclusion I would be prepared to defend myself. To try to do this in detail would be out of place in this Introduction. All I can do here is to indicate the main consideration which has led me to this conclusion. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.