Abstract

Mountains of books have been written about the life of the great sage Socrates, his philosophy, his condemnation by an Athenian court, and his execution. Nonetheless, one of the most erudite experts on ancient culture and philosophy, A.F. Losev, wrote: "Socrates is one of the most difficult problems in all ancient philosophy…. And it is now by no means an easy matter to discern the true Socrates" . This judgment of Losev's is all the more true in view of the fact that Socrates did not write any philosophical works and we have to get all our information about his personality and philosophy from the more or less reliable reminiscences of his pupils and followers, first of all Plato and Xenophon