Socrates’s Prosecution as Philosophos
Socrates’s Prosecution as Philosophos
Did Socrates Exemplify the Philosophos?
This chapter turns to a fifth-century BCE figure as yet unmentioned, but whose importance to the later understanding of philosophia cannot be underestimated: Socrates. Many scholars believe that Socrates' students inaugurated new thinking about philosophia; presumably Socrates' life, or at least his death, galvanized them to do so. This would be a central ingredient in the recipe for the redemptive story told by Heraclides, a grand-student of Socrates. In fact, at least Xenophon and Plato never or only rarely call Socrates philosophos. This chapter makes this observation in part by focusing on both authors' attitude toward Socrates' connection to Anaxagoras, considered by later historians to be the first to philosophize in Athens, and by focusing on Xenophon's hesitation to use the word philosophos with respect to Socrates.
Keywords: Socrates, Xenophon, Plato, philosophos, Anaxagoras, philosophia
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.