Socrates: A Very Short Introduction

Socrates wrote nothing himself, yet his life and method transformed the history of philosophy. C. C. W. Taylor introduces the historical Socrates and the difficult problem of reconstructing him from writers such as Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes, whose purposes and portraits do not always agree. From this evidence, the book examines Socratic questioning, ethics, virtue, knowledge and the distinctive claim that a life should be subjected to rational examination.

This second edition also follows Socrates beyond classical Athens, tracing how later philosophers have interpreted and appropriated him and why his trial and death in 399 BCE became central to his intellectual legacy. His influence grew from a life known almost entirely through other people’s accounts, leaving the search for the historical Socrates inseparable from the history of philosophy itself.