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Hi, I'm Ryan Stitt, and welcome back to the history of Ancient Greece, episode 109, Socrates.

Socrates is widely considered to be the father of Western philosophy, because his students would go on to found many different philosophical schools of thought,

and thus his influence would be felt for generations. Unfortunately, though, he left behind no writings of his own, as he was vehemently opposed to writing down any of his teachings.

Therefore, he owes his renown to the impression that he made on those around him.

Above all were his students, who recorded almost everything that we know about his life, and what he thought, or supposedly thought.

The two primary sources for Socrates, then, are Plato and Xenophon, but he had many other students, such as Antisthenes, Ascaines of Svetis, Euclides of Megara, Thedo of Ellia, and Simon the Schumaker, though very little of their writings remain.

Specifically, these writings are known as the Socraticoi Logoi, where Socratic dialogues and consist of reports of conversations or thought exercises that involve Socrates and some other people or persons.

The so-called Socratic question lies behind exactly how accurate or fictitious these accounts are to the historical Socrates.

Many scholars believe that at least in some works, Plato put his ideas into the mouth of Socrates, and in doing so, exaggerates him quite a bit for specific purposes.

In fact, according to Diogenes Leartus, many of Plato's contemporaries, who were also students of Socrates, accused him of re-imaging Socrates in his own image in order to further his own interpretation of his master's message.

Notable among his critics are Thedo, whose writings are now lost, and Xenophon, whose writings present a different view of Socrates than that seen in Plato.

And so, while scholars have traditionally relied upon Plato's dialogues as a source of information on historical Socrates, the image of his teacher that has come down to the present day from antiquity could largely be a philosophical construct.

At the very least, it is uncertain which Socrates, the historical figure or Plato's fictionalization, is whom he describes at any given point.

The problem with discerning Socrates' philosophical views then is that it is hard to differentiate between exactly what he thought and what was held by Plato.

In fact, Plato's own student Aristotle wasn't even sure what were his master's beliefs and what were those of Socrates.

He observed that the only two things he could be certain of attributing to Socrates were inductive reasoning and a universal definition in his examination of key moral concepts such as good injustice.

The matter is complicated further because the historical Socrates seems to have been notorious for asking questions, but not answering, and for claiming to lack wisdom concerning the subjects about which he questioned others.

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