{"agent_id":"plato","agent_name":"Plato","slug":"the-socratic-problem","label":"The Socratic problem: who is Plato's Socrates?","topic":"The Socratic problem","question":"Who is Plato's Socrates?","position":"The early dialogues preserve more of the historical Socrates — the elenchic-aporetic method, the disavowal of wisdom (\"I know that I know nothing\"), the ethical focus on virtue and the good life, the refusal to write doctrines. The middle dialogues develop my own distinctive metaphysics — the Theory of Forms, the immortal soul, the philosopher-rulers — through Socrates's mouth as my own thinking matures. The late dialogues sometimes shift to other principal speakers (the Eleatic Stranger of Sophist and Statesman, the Athenian Stranger of the Laws, Timaeus of the Timaeus, Parmenides of the Parmenides) — a formal acknowledgment that what is being said is no longer the Socratic Socrates speaking. I myself never speak in my own voice in any of the dialogues; the question of \"what Plato thinks\" is always mediated through the dialogue form, which I chose for principled philosophical reasons.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The early dialogues preserve more of the historical Socrates — the elenchic-aporetic method, the disavowal of wisdom (\"I know that I know nothing\"), the ethical focus on virtue and the good life, the refusal to write doctrines.","n":[1]},{"t":"The middle dialogues develop my own distinctive metaphysics — the Theory of Forms, the immortal soul, the philosopher-rulers — through Socrates's mouth as my own thinking matures.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The late dialogues sometimes shift to other principal speakers (the Eleatic Stranger of Sophist and Statesman, the Athenian Stranger of the Laws, Timaeus of the Timaeus, Parmenides of the Parmenides) — a formal acknowledgment that what is being said is no longer the Socratic Socrates speaking.","n":[2]},{"t":"I myself never speak in my own voice in any of the dialogues; the question of \"what Plato thinks\" is always mediated through the dialogue form, which I chose for principled philosophical reasons.","n":[]}]],"texts":"Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Charmides, Laches, Lysis, Protagoras, Ion, Hippias Major and Minor (the early-Socratic dialogues); Meno, Phaedo, Republic, Symposium, Phaedrus (middle dialogues with Socrates); Parmenides, Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus, Laws (late dialogues with shifted principal speakers). Reception: Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (1991); Charles Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (1996); Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith on the unity of the Socratic dialogues; Aristotle's Metaphysics A.6 and M.4 testimony on Socrates and Plato; the Strauss-school literary reading.","works":["Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Charmides, Laches, Lysis, Protagoras, Ion, Hippias Major and Minor (the early-Socratic dialogues)","Meno, Phaedo, Republic, Symposium, Phaedrus (middle dialogues with Socrates)","Parmenides, Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus, Laws (late dialogues with shifted principal speakers)"],"reception":"Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (1991); Charles Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (1996); Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith on the unity of the Socratic dialogues; Aristotle's Metaphysics A.6 and M.4 testimony on Socrates and Plato; the Strauss-school literary reading.","status":"The standard Anglophone position is Vlastos's Socratic- Platonic division. The Strauss school reads the literary structure as the locus of philosophical meaning, refusing the historical-Socratic project. Brickhouse-Smith defend greater unity across the dialogues. The textual evidence supports the developmental reading; the strong unity claim and the strong Strauss esotericism both face textual difficulties.","era":"428/427-348/347 BCE","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Complete Works","page":"p. 12","canonical":"8c","quote":"These, then, would constitute the 'early' dialogues, sometimes also thematically described as the 'Socratic' dialogues; they are all relatively short works. Only gradually, on this view, did Plato grow into a fully independent philosopher, with new ideas and interests of his own, as outgrowths from and supplements to his 'Socratic heritage'.","label":"Complete Works, 8c"},{"n":2,"work":"Complete Works","page":"p. 22","canonical":"","quote":"Here one might especially mention Gorgias and Protagoras as dialogues that may demand interpretation along those lines, but the same applies in principle to all the Socratic dialogues. Reading a Platonic dialogue in the spirit in which it was written is therefore a dauntingly complex task. It is in the entire writing that the author speaks to us, not in the remarks made by the individual speakers.","label":"Complete Works, p. 22"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-theory-of-forms","label":"The Theory of Forms: what are the Forms?"}]}