When I learned that Homer likely didn’t exists, I immediately thought about Socrates. To what extent can we be sure that Socrates was an actual breathing and walking human, and not just a character in the work of Plato? I ask this question to ever classicist I meet, much to their infinite annoyance. It’s a fun question, and the answer isn’t all that important, but the curiosity is there. It;s lead me to a whole slew of books about Socrates. It was also at least partially motivated by how much I enjoyed the book on Diogenes I read not too long ago.
That’s not what this book is. It is not really a history book on the time of the life of Socrates, but one Socratic scholars takeaway from reading the works of Plato that feature Socrates. His takeaways are interesting at the very least, and considering I have the complete works of Plato on my shelf, it was worth reading despite not being exactly what I was after.
I don’t think there is much to say about it beyond that. Was it worth reading? Depends on your thoughts on Philosophy. But for whatever inquiring minds would like to know, the author did believe that Socrates was at least at times a mouthpiece for Plato’s own thoughts.
I got a little annoyed at this book. The author does a little too much to shoehorn his own religion into this, when I do not feel like this was needed. Socrates lived a good half millennium before when Jesus is suspected to have lived (if he existed at all). I could have done without that chapter, and a few other sections that I thought were superfluous (such as a section on the Divine Comedy that I glossed over). I would have ignored this, but from a publisher like Wiley-Blackwell, I do expect a bit more prudent editing.
All that griping out of the way, I am glad this series exists, and I noticed that there are several more on many thinkers I am interested in. I might be picking up some of these.
Failures in Polymathy 