Abstract

IN HIS ESSAY The Paradox of Socrates," Gregory Vlastos paints a vivid and moving portrait of Socrates, or, as he puts it: "the Platonic Socrates, or, to be more precise, the Socrates of Plato’s early dialogues." That the man who emerges from these early dialogues is something very like the actual Socrates is Vlastos’s opinion. He argues, with great plausibility, that the Xenophontic Socrates is not a man who, on the one hand, could have provoked the Athenians into indicting him and convicting him for subversion of Athenian faith and morals, and on the other could have aroused the devotion of an Alcibiades. The question of the "authentic" Socrates is the kind of question which simply does not admit of any ultimate solution, so there will always be divergent opinions, but regardless of whether or not Plato does portray the real Socrates as he knew him, it is certainly the Platonic Socrates who has exercised the decisive influence down through the centuries. Therefore irrespective of whether one accepts Vlastos’s argument, it is worthwhile examining what Vlastos distills from the dialogues as his "recreation of the thought and character of the man," and testing it for its adequacy.