Socrates in the Platonic Dialogues

  1. Catherine Osborne*

Article first published online: 16 DEC 2005

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9205.2006.00272.x

Issue

Philosophical Investigations

Philosophical Investigations

Volume 29, Issue 1, pages 1–21, January 2006

Additional Information

How to Cite

Osborne, C. (2006), Socrates in the Platonic Dialogues. Philosophical Investigations, 29: 1–21. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9205.2006.00272.x

Author Information

  1. University of East Anglia

*School of Philosophy University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ UK c.osborne@uea.ac.uk

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 16 DEC 2005
  2. Article first published online: 16 DEC 2005

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Abstract

If Socrates is portrayed holding one view in one of Plato's dialogues and a different view in another, should we be puzzled? If (as I suggest) Plato's Socrates is neither the historical Socrates, nor a device for delivering Platonic doctrine, but a tool for the dialectical investigation of a philosophical problem, then we should expect a new Socrates, with relevant commitments, to be devised for each setting. Such a dialectical device – the tailor-made Socrates – fits with what we know of other contributions to the genre of the Sokratikos Logos, to which Plato was neither the first nor the only contributor.

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