“Is that the dialogue one learns from reading Socrates?”
It would be hard to read Socrates considering he never wrote anything, try Plato or Xenophon.
“As Socrates did not write down any of his teachings, information about him and his philosophies depends upon secondary sources. Furthermore, close comparison between the contents of these sources reveals contradictions, thus creating concerns about the possibility of knowing in-depth the real Socrates. This issue is known as the Socratic problem, or the Socratic question.
To understand Socrates and his thought, one must turn primarily to the works of Plato, whose dialogues are thought the most informative source about Socrates' life and philosophy, [18] and also Xenophon. These writings are the Sokratikoi logoi, or Socratic dialogues, which consist of reports of conversations apparently involving Socrates.
As for discovering the real-life Socrates, the difficulty is that ancient sources are mostly philosophical or dramatic texts, apart from Xenophon. There are no straightforward histories, contemporary with Socrates, that dealt with his own time and place. A corollary of this is that sources that do mention Socrates do not necessarily claim to be historically accurate, and are often partisan. For instance, those who prosecuted and convicted Socrates have left no testament. Historians therefore face the challenge of reconciling the various evidence from the extant texts in order to attempt an accurate and consistent account of Socrates' life and work. The result of such an effort is not necessarily realistic, even if consistent.
Two factors emerge from all sources pertaining to the character of Socrates: that he was ugly, and had a brilliant intellect. He lived entirely within ancient Athens, he made no writings, and died of execution by hemlock.” |
