Who was Platos Socrates?
Plato was not the only ancient Greek to write about Socrates: Socratic dialogues – written discourses featuring the gadfly of Athens as protagonist – became a literary sub-genre in antiquity. However, it is Plato’s Socrates who sustains our most vivid image of the man. So who was he, this sage who, if Plato is right, launched a project that has lasted for millennia and shaped a civilisation? There’s one thing we do know about him: he was executed by the Athenian state. And whilst there is endless speculation as to just what contributed to that unhappy, juridical conclusion to his life, one element played a key part for sure: Socrates had enemies. He upset people, and in a particular way. It was not that he spread beliefs with which others disagreed, like an evangelical preacher. Nor that he made scientific discoveries that threatened the established order. Rather, he pricked bubbles, unsettled assumptions, and made people feel a lot less secure about who they were. Some felt as if they
Who was Platos Socrates?