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{{Short description|Problems in reconstructing a historical and philosophical image of Socrates}}{{Not to be confused with|Socratic questioning}}{{Socrates}}
In historical scholarship, the '''Socratic problem''' (also called '''Socratic question''')<ref>A Rubel, M Vickers, [https://books.google.com/books?id=SmJ_BAAAQBAJ ''Fear and Loathing in Ancient Athens: Religion and Politics During the Peloponnesian War''], Routledge, 2014, p. 147.</ref> concerns attempts at reconstructing a historical and philosophical image of [[Biography:Socrates|Socrates]] based on the variable, and sometimes contradictory, nature of the existing sources on his life. Scholars rely upon extant sources, such as those of contemporaries like Aristophanes or disciples of Socrates like [[Biography:Plato|Plato]] and [[Biography:Xenophon|Xenophon]], for knowing anything about Socrates. However, these sources contain contradictory details of his life, words, and beliefs when taken together. This complicates the attempts at reconstructing the beliefs and philosophical views held by the historical Socrates. It has become apparent to scholarship that this problem is seemingly impossible to clarify and thus perhaps now classified as unsolvable.<ref>Prior, W. J., "The Socratic Problem" in Benson, H. H. (ed.), ''A Companion to Plato'' (Blackwell Publishing, 2006), pp. 25–35.</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/companions/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511780257&cid=CBO9780511780257A004|author=Louis-André Dorion|title=The Cambridge Companion to Socrates|pages= 1–23 (The Cambridge Companion to Socrates)|publisher=Cambridge University Press |id=Online Publication Date: March 2011 , Print Publication Year: 2010 | access-date=2015-05-07|doi =   10.1017/CCOL9780521833424.001 |isbn=9780511780257|year=2010|chapter=The Rise and Fall of the Socratic Problem|hdl=10795/1977|url=http://repository.edulll.gr/1977 }}</ref> Early proposed solutions to the matter still pose significant problems today.<ref name="Nails, Debra" /> 

Socrates was the main character in most of [[Biography:Plato|Plato]]'s dialogues and was a genuine historical figure. It is widely understood that in later dialogues, Plato used the character Socrates to give voice to views that were his own. Besides Plato, three other important sources exist for the study of Socrates: Aristophanes, [[Biography:Aristotle|Aristotle]], and [[Biography:Xenophon|Xenophon]]. Since no writings of Socrates himself survive to the modern era, his actual views must be discerned from the sometimes contradictory reports of these four sources. The main sources for the historical Socrates are the ''Sokratikoi logoi'', or Socratic dialogues, which are reports of conversations apparently involving Socrates.<ref>J Ambury. [http://www.iep.utm.edu/socrates/#SH1b Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.)] ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'' [Retrieved 2015-04-19]</ref> Most information is found in the works of [[Biography:Plato|Plato]] and [[Biography:Xenophon|Xenophon]].<ref>{{cite book | author = May, H.| title = On Socrates | url = https://archive.org/details/onsocrates00mayh| url-access = registration| publisher = Wadsworth/Thomson Learning | year = 2000 | page = [https://archive.org/details/onsocrates00mayh/page/20 20]}}</ref><ref>[http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674996953 catalogue of Harvard University Press&nbsp;– Xenophon Volume IV] [Retrieved 2015-3-26]</ref>

There are also four sources extant in fragmentary states: [[Biography:Aeschines of Sphettus|Aeschines of Sphettus]], [[Biography:Antisthenes|Antisthenes]], [[Biography:Euclid of Megara|Euclid of Megara]], and [[Biography:Phaedo of Elis|Phaedo of Elis]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20100625043006/https://philosophy.sas.upenn.edu/faculty/kahn CH Kahn]&nbsp;– [https://books.google.com/books?id=vSXkTBniJZAC&q=logoi+sokratikoi Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form (p. 1)] Cambridge University Press, 4 Jun 1998 (reprint) {{ISBN|0521648300}} [Retrieved 2015-04-19]</ref> In addition, there are two satirical commentaries on Socrates. One is Aristophanes's play ''[[Philosophy:The Clouds|The Clouds]]'', which humorously attacks Socrates.<ref>Aristophanes, W.C. Green - [https://books.google.com/books?id=FLpewUrE6uQC&q=The+archaeological+finding+of+logoi+sokratikoi commentary on ''The Clouds'' (p.6)] ''Catena classicorum'' Rivingtons, 1868 [Retrieved 2015-04-20]</ref> The other is two  fragments from the ''Silloi'' by the [[Philosophy:Pyrrhonism|Pyrrhonist]] philosopher [[Biography:Timon of Phlius|Timon of Phlius]],<ref name="R Bett (S Ahbel-Rappe - Associate Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan, R Kamtekar -  Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona)">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WwpZVuylPgYC&q=Timon+of+Phlius+Socrates&pg=PA299|author=Bett, R.|title=A Companion to Socrates|pages= 299–30|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|date= 11 May 2009 |isbn=978-1405192606| access-date=2015-04-17}} (a translation of one fragment reads "But from them the sculptor, blatherer on the lawful, turned away. Spellbinder of the Greeks, who made them precise in language. Sneerer trained by rhetoricians, sub-Attic ironist." Cf. source for a discussion of this quote.</ref> satirizing [[Philosophy:Dogma|dogma]]tic philosophers.

== Xenophon ==

There are four works of [[Biography:Xenophon|Xenophon]] that deal with Socrates. They are ''Apology of Socrates to the Jurors'' (which apparently reports the defence given by Socrates in court),<ref name="M Dillon, L Garland">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ohYWBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT1050 |author1=M Dillon |author2=L Garland |title=Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Alexander|publisher=Routledge |access-date=20 April 2015 |isbn=9781136991370 |date=18 June 2010}} (connection to Oxyrynchus was found in [https://books.google.com/books?id=Etrz2pkeZvwC&pg=PA32 here p.33])</ref><ref name="X">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sHW4W92VLREC |author=Xenophon (translated by A. Patch), RC Bartlett |title=The Shorter Socratic Writings: "Apology of Socrates to the Jury," "Oeconomicus," and "Symposium" |publisher=Cornell University Press |series=Agora Editions |access-date=23 February 2019 |isbn=978-0801472985 |year=2006}}</ref> ''Memorabilia'' (which is a defence of Socrates and so-called Socratic dialogues),<ref name="M Dillon, L Garland"/> ''Oeconomicus'' (which concerns Socrates' encounter with Ischomachus and Critobulus),<ref name="X"/> and ''Symposium'' (which recounts an evening at a dinner party to which Socrates was an attendee).<ref>M MacLaren - [https://www.jstor.org/stable/293071 Xenophon. Banquet; Apologie de Socrate by Francois Ollier] The American Journal of Philology
Vol. 85, No. 2 (Apr., 1964), pp. 212-214  (Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press in JSTOR)  [Retrieved 2015-04-20]</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WwpZVuylPgYC&pg=PA93 |author1=Louis-André Dorion |author2=S Ahbel-Rappe |author3=R Kamtekar |title=A Companion to Socrates |publisher=John Wiley & Sons | access-date=17 April 2015 |isbn=9781405192606 |date=11 May 2009}}</ref><ref>E Buzzetti - [https://books.google.com/books?id=QMNCBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA7 Xenophon the Socratic Prince: The Argument of the Anabasis of Cyrus (p.7)] Palgrave Macmillan, 21 May 2014 {{ISBN|1137325925}} [Retrieved 2015-04-17]</ref>

== Plato ==

Socrates—who is often credited with turning [[Philosophy:Western philosophy|Western philosophy]] in a more ethical and political direction and who was put to death by the [[Social:Democracy|democracy]] of [[Place:Athens|Athens]] in May 399 BC—was Plato's mentor. Plato, like some of his contemporaries, wrote [[Philosophy:Dialogue|dialogue]]s about his teacher. Much of what is known about Socrates comes from Plato's writings; however, it is widely believed that very few, if any, of Plato's dialogues can be verbatim accounts of conversations between them or unmediated representations of Socrates' thought. Many of the dialogues seem to use Socrates as a device for Plato's thought, and inconsistencies occasionally crop up between Plato and the other accounts of Socrates; for instance, Plato has Socrates denying that he would ever accept money for teaching, while [[Biography:Xenophon|Xenophon]]'s ''Symposium'' clearly has Socrates stating that students pay him to teach wisdom and that this is what he does for a living.

Stylometric analysis of the Plato corpus has led to the formation of a consensually agreed chronology classifying dialogues as falling approximately into three groups, Early, Middle and Late.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=946xAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 |author=M Cormack |title=Plato's Stepping Stones: Degrees of Moral Virtue |page=8 |publisher=A&C Black |access-date=17 April 2015 |isbn=9781847144416 |date=15 October 2006}}</ref> On the assumption that there is an evolution of philosophical thought in Plato's dialogues from his early years to his middle and later years,<ref>Krämer (1990) ascribes this view to [[Biography:Eduard Zeller|Eduard Zeller]] (Hans Joachim Krämer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=T2k6edyBklwC ''Plato and the Foundations of Metaphysics''], SUNY Press, 1990, pp. 93–4).</ref> the most common modern view is that Plato's dialogues contain a development of thought from closer to that of Socrates' to a doctrine more distinctly Plato's own.<ref>Penner, T. "Socrates and the early dialogues" in Kraut, R. (ed.) ''The Cambridge Companion to Plato'' (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 121. See also Irwin, T. H., "The Platonic Corpus" in Fine, G. (ed.), ''The Oxford Handbook of Plato'' (Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 77–85.</ref> However, the question of exactly what aspects of Plato's dialogues are representative of Socrates and what are not, is far from agreed upon. Although the view that Plato's dialogues are ''developmental'' in their doctrines (with regard to the historical Socrates or not) is standard, the view is not without objectors who propose a ''unitarian'' view or other alternative interpretations of the chronology of the corpus.<ref>Rowe, C. "Interpreting Plato" in Benson, H. H. (ed.), ''A Companion to Plato'' (Blackwell Publishing, 2006), pp. 13–24.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Smith|first1=Nicholas|last2=Brickhouse|first2=Thomas|title=The Trial and Execution of Socrates : Sources and Controversies|date=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=9780195119800|page=[https://archive.org/details/trialexecutionof0000unse/page/24 24]|url=https://archive.org/details/trialexecutionof0000unse/page/24}}</ref> One notable example is Charles Kahn who argued that Plato had created his works not in a gradual way, but as a unified philosophical vision, whereby he uses Socratic dialogues, a non-historical genre, to flesh out his views.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Kahn|first1=Charles H.|title=Plato and the Socratic Dialogue : The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form|date=2000|publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press|isbn=978-0521648301}}</ref>  The time that Plato began to write his works and the date of composition of his last work are not known and what adds to the complexity is that even the ancient sources do not know the order of the works or the dialogues.<ref name="Handbook Plato">{{cite book|last1=Fine|first1=Gail|title=The Oxford handbook of Plato|date=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0199769193|pages=76–77}}</ref>

==Aristotle==

== Others ==

=== Aeschines ===
Two relevant works pertain to periods in Socrates' life, of which [[Biography:Aeschines of Sphettus|Aeschines]] could not have had any personal first-hand experiential knowledge. However, substantial amounts are extant of his works ''Alcibiades'' and ''Aspasia''.<ref>C.H. Kahn - [https://books.google.com/books?id=Etrz2pkeZvwC&pg=PA87 Aeschines on Socratic Eros] in PA. Vander Waerdt - The Socratic Movement ''Cornell University Press, 1 Jan 1994'' {{ISBN|0801499038}} [Retrieved 2015-04-20]</ref>

=== Antisthenes ===
[[Biography:Antisthenes|Antisthenes]] was a pupil of Socrates, and was known to accompany him.<ref>J Piering - [http://www.iep.utm.edu/antisthe/ Antisthenes ] Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy[Retrieved 2015-04-20]</ref>

== Issues relating to the sources ==

Aristophanes (c. 450–386&nbsp;BCE) was alive during the early years of Socrates. One source shows Plato and Xenophon were about 45&nbsp;years younger than Socrates,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |author=Nails, D. |article=Socrates |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=Spring 2014 |editor=Zalta, Edward N. |chapter-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/socrates/ |at=section&nbsp;2:1, paragraph&nbsp;2 |access-date=2015-03-24 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> other sources show Plato as something in the range of 42–43&nbsp;years younger, while  Xenophon is thought to be 40&nbsp;years younger.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |author=Meinwald, C.C. |chapter-url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/464109/Plato |article=Plato |encyclopedia=The Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=2015-03-24 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |author=Kraut, R. |chapter-url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551948/Socrates |article=Socrates |encyclopedia=The Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=2015-03-24 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |author=Tuplin, C.J. |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/650658/Xenophon |title=Xenophon |encyclopedia=The Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=2015-03-24 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=V. |last=Ehrenberg  |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9V2hAwAAQBAJ&q=p.371 |via=Google Books |title=From Solon to Socrates: Greek history and civilization during the 6th and 5th centuries BC |page=373 |publisher=Routledge |date=22 May 2014 |isbn=978-1136783944 |access-date=2015-03-24 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

=== Issues resulting from translation ===
Apart from the existing identified issue of conflicting elements present in accounts and writings, there is the additional inherent concern of the veracity of transfer of meaning by translation from classic Greek to contemporary language, whether that be Greek, English or any other.<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=R.C. |editor-last=Bartlett |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sHW4W92VLREC&pg=PA6 |via=Google Books |title=The Shorter Socratic Writings: "Apology of Socrates to the Jury", "Oeconomicus", and "Symposium" |pages=6–7 |series=Agora Editions |publisher=Cornell University Press |year=2006 |isbn=0801472989 |access-date=2015-04-17 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

== History of the problem ==
Efforts have been made by writers for centuries to address the problem. According to one scholar (Patzer) the number of works with any significance in this issue, prior to the nineteenth century, are few indeed.<ref>J Bussanich, ND Smith - [https://books.google.com/books?id=A9ZLAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA329 The Bloomsbury Companion to Socrates (please see - Note 14 & 16)] A&C Black, 3 Jan 2013 {{ISBN|1441112847}} [Retrieved 2015-04-17]</ref> G.E. Lessing caused a flurry of interest in the problem in 1768.<ref name="D Nails">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fWzD1JxPLn4C&pg=PA23 |author=D Nails|title=Agora, Academy, and the Conduct of Philosophy (p.23)|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media, 31 Jul 1995 |access-date=17 April 2015 |isbn=9780792335436 |date=31 July 1995}}</ref> A methodology for analysis was posited, by study of Platonic sources, in 1820 with Socher. A break of scholarly impasse in respect to understanding, resulted from Campbell making a stylometric analysis in 1867.<ref name="D Nails"/>

An essay written by [[Biography:Friedrich Schleiermacher|Friedrich Schleiermacher]] in 1815 ("The Worth of Socrates as a Philosopher"), published 1818 (English translation 1833) is considered the most significant and influential toward developing an understanding of the problem.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_KBex4rtlXMC&pg=PR14 |author=Louis-André Dorion |title=The Cambridge Companion to Socrates |page=2 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |access-date=2015-04-16 |isbn=9780521833424 |year=2011}}</ref><ref>M Trapp - [http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Socrates_from_Antiquity_to_the_Enlightenment_Intro.pdf Introduction: Questions of Socrates] [Retrieved 3 May 2015] (p.xvi)</ref>

Throughout the 20th century, two strains of interpretation arose: the literary contextualists, who tended to interpret Socratic dialogues based on literary criticism, and the analysts, who focus much more heavily on the actual arguments contained within the different texts.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/#ConIntStr |title=Socrates |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |last=Nails |first=Debra |date=February 8, 2018 |access-date=May 23, 2018}}</ref>

Early in the 21st century, most of the scholars concerned have settled to agreement instead of argument about the nature of the  significance of ancient textual sources in relation to this problem.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_KBex4rtlXMC&pg=PR14 |author1=G Klosko, Henry L. |author2=Grace Doherty  |name-list-style=amp |title=History of Political Theory: An Introduction: Volume I: Ancient and Medieval |page=40 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199695423 |access-date=16 April 2015 |year=2011}}</ref>

== Manuscript tradition ==
A fragment of Plato's ''[[Social:Republic (Plato)|Republic]]'' (588b-589b) was found in Codex VI, of the Nag Hammadi discoveries of 1945.<ref>SJ Patterson, Hans-Gebhard Bethge, JM. Robinson - [https://books.google.com/books?id=uKioAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 The Fifth Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas Comes of Age (p.1)] Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 15 Jun 2010 {{ISBN|0567178269}} [Retrieved 2015-04-20] (primary source for Nag Hammadi was [https://books.google.com/books?id=53JLAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 this])</ref><ref>GW Bromiley - [https://books.google.com/books?id=Zkla5Gl_66oC&pg=PA473 The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (p.474)] Wm. B. Eerdmans 1986 Publishing {{ISBN|0802837859}} [Retrieved 2015-04-20]</ref>

=== Plato primary edition ===
The Latin language corpus was by Ficinus during 1484, the first of a Greek language text was Aldus in 1513.<ref>{{cite book |first=G.J. |last=Boter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Eewd2gEKo8kC&pg=PA261 |title=The Textual Tradition of Plato's Republic |publisher=Brill |year=1989 |isbn=9004087877 |access-date=2015-04-20 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=T. Frognall |last=Dibdin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oBBgAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA296 |title=[no title cited] |publisher=W. Dwyer |year=1804 |page=5}} (located Ficinus using this source, which though provides suggestions of the wrong years for publication - p.&nbsp;5)</ref>

=== Xenophon primary edition ===

The ''Memorabilia'' appeared in the Florence Junta in 1516.<ref>{{cite book |first=M. O'Rourke |last=Boyle |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AsxGZ1UqBDcC&pg=PA33 |via=Google Books |title=Senses of Touch: Human Dignity and Deformity from Michelangelo to Calvin |at=footnote&nbsp;170, p.&nbsp;33 |publisher=Brill |year=1998 |isbn=9004111751 |access-date=2015-04-20 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Marsh |first1=David |title=Xenophon |journal=Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum |volume=7 |page=82 |url=http://catalogustranslationum.org/PDFs/volume07/v07_xenophon.pdf |access-date=25 August 2015}} (''editio princeps'' using {{cite web |url=http://catalogustranslationum.org/PDFs/volume08/v08_xenophon_ac.pdf |first=V. |last=Brown |title=Catalogus Translationum |quote=Cicero translated Oeconomicus}})</ref>

The first ''Apology'' was by Johan Reuchlin in 1520.<ref>{{cite journal|first=E.A. |last=Schmoll |url=http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/viewFile/4061/6081 |title=The manuscript tradition of Xenophon's ''Apologia Socratis'' |journal=Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies |volume=31|issue=1|year=1990 |access-date=2015-04-20 |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

== Scholarly analysis ==
[[Biography:Karl Popper|Karl Popper]], who considered himself to be a disciple of Socrates, wrote about ''the Socratic problem'' in his book ''The Open Society and Its Enemies''.<ref>Malachi Haim Hacohen – [https://books.google.com/books?id=3VtHcYGp2pIC&pg=PA424 Karl Popper – The Formative Years, 1902–1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna (p. 424)] Cambridge University Press, 4 Mar 2002 {{ISBN|0521890551}} [reference Retrieved 2015-04-20, material added at a prior date]</ref>

[[Biography:Søren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard]] addressed ''the Socratic problem'' in Theses II, III and VII of his ''On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates''.<ref>RL Perkins - [https://books.google.com/books?id=wi8bNUBdjUkC&pg=PA210 The Concept of Irony (p.210)] Mercer University Press, 2001 {{ISBN|0865547424}} ''Volume 2 of International Kierkegaard commentary'' [Retrieved 2015-04-20] (mentions Thesis VII)</ref><ref>Søren Kierkegaard (translated by HH Hong & EH Hong) - [https://books.google.com/books?id=rNEjpTvgAYwC&q=S%C3%B8ren+Kierkegaard+-++The+concept+of+Irony+with+continual+reference+to+Socrates Kierkegaard's Writings, II: The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates/Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures (p.6)] Princeton University Press, 21 Apr 2013, {{ISBN|1400846927}} [Retrieved 2015-04-20] (shows details of Theses II, III & VII)</ref>

The German classical scholar [[Biography:Friedrich Schleiermacher|Friedrich Schleiermacher]] addressed the "Socratic problem" in his essay "The Worth of Socrates as a Philosopher".<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=MXnzAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA538 The Philological museum, Volume 2] (edited by J.C. Hare) Printed by J. Smith for Deightons, 1833 [Retrieved 2015-05-03] (sourced firstly at [https://books.google.com/books?id=_KBex4rtlXMC&pg=PA2 L-A Dorion in D.R. Morrison - The Cambridge Companion to Socrates])</ref> Schleiermacher maintained that the two dialogues ''[[Philosophy:Apology (Plato)|Apology]]'' and ''Crito'' are purely Socratic. They were, therefore, accurate historical portrayals of the real man, and hence history and not Platonic philosophy at all. All of the other dialogues that Schleiermacher accepted as genuine he considered to be integrally bound together and consistent in their Platonism. Their consistency is related to the three phases of Plato's development:
# Foundation works, culminating in ''Parmenides'';
# Transitional works, culminating in two so-called families of dialogues, the first consisting of ''Sophist'', ''Statesman'' and ''Symposium'', and the second of ''[[Unsolved:Phaedo|Phaedo]]'' and ''Philebus''; and finally
# Constructive works: ''[[Social:Republic (Plato)|Republic]]'', ''[[Astronomy:Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'' and ''[[Philosophy:Laws (dialogue)|Laws]]''.

Schleiermacher's views on the chronology of Plato's work are rather controversial. In Schleiermacher's view, the character of Socrates evolves over time into the "Stranger" in Plato's work, and fulfills a critical function in Plato's development, as he appears in the first family above as the "Eleatic Stranger" in ''Sophist'' and ''Statesman'', and as the "Mantitenean Stranger" in the ''Symposium''. The "Athenian Stranger" is the main character of Plato's ''[[Philosophy:Laws (dialogue)|Laws]].'' Further, the ''Sophist–Statesman–Philosopher'' family makes particularly good sense in this order, as Schleiermacher also maintains that the two dialogues, ''Symposium'' and ''[[Unsolved:Phaedo|Phaedo]],'' show Socrates as the quintessential philosopher in life (guided by [[Biography:Diotima of Mantinea|Diotima]]) and into death, the realm of otherness. Thus the triad announced both in the Sophist and in the Statesman is completed, though the Philosopher, being divided dialectically into a "Stranger" portion and a "Socrates" portion, isn't called "The Philosopher"; this philosophical crux is left to the reader to determine. Schleiermacher thus takes the position that the real Socratic problem is understanding the dialectic between the figures of the "Stranger" and "Socrates".

==Proposed solutions==
Four solutions elucidated by Nails were proposed early in the history of the Socratic problem and are still relevant, even though each still poses problems today:<ref name="Nails, Debra">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/socratic-problem.html |author=Nails, Debra |article=Early attempts to solve the Socratic problem |series=Supplement to ‘Socrates’ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=Spring 2014 |editor=Zalta, Edward N. |publisher=Stanford University|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

# Socrates is the individual whose qualities exhibited in Plato’s writings are corroborated by Aristophanes and Xenophon.
# Socrates is he who claims “to possess no wisdom” but still participates in exercises with the aim of gaining understanding.
# Socrates is the [individual named] Socrates who appears in Plato’s earliest dialogues.
# The real Socrates is the one who turns from a ''pre-Socratic'' interest in nature to ethics, instead.

== References ==
{{reflist|25em}}

== Further reading ==
* Popper, Karl (2002). ''The Open Society and Its Enemies''. New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-0-415-29063-0}}.
* Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1973). ''Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato''. Ayer Co. Publishers. {{ISBN|978-0-405-04868-5}}.
* Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1996). ''Ueber die Philosophie Platons''. Philos. Bibliotek. Band 486, Meiner Verlag. {{ISBN|978-3-7873-1462-1}}.

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