Socrates is known to be one of the many Greek philosophers that laid out the fundamentals of modern western philosophy. Through his philosophy, Socrates established a standard for the understanding of knowledge and philosophical truths through questioning and debate, otherwise known as the Socratic Method (Goldberg). Even though Socrates had such a big impact on philosophy, very little facts are actually known about him. Before his death, he left behind no original writings and the only information available on him was obtained from the writings of others, yet this has led to an excessive admiration of him by other scholars and philosophers (Maller). Therefore it’s difficult to say who exactly Socrates was as a person and as a philosopher. …show more content…
And they all interpret the persona that is Socrates in their own unique way. According to Navia, these sources are classified as either primary or secondary (Navia 17). Primary sources are the most important and include writings from Socrates’ disciples or students, the ones who got firsthand experience interacting with Socrates himself at some point in his life. These sources include Plato, Aristophanes and Xenophon (Navia 19). Based on the writings of his students, it’s difficult to interpret a clear understanding of Socrates, as each of their writings is based on their own point of view of him, resulting in different and inconsistent ideas about who Socrates was. Secondary sources include those that came after the death Socrates, these rely on the accounts of the primary sources and most often include books, articles, and even musical plays. The most significant secondary source to consider is Aristotle (Navia …show more content…
The original writings of Plato, Aristophenes and Xenophon are all based on their own point of view of Socrates. In other words they each captured the many masks of Socrates that they each found worth mentioning (Navia 20). Finding similarities or maybe even connections throughout their testimonies can be one possible solution to create a single portrait of who Socrates was. For example, each writer possessed different qualities. It was believed that Plato was more of a creative thinker, therefore there may be a tendency to put words into the mouth of his master (Dubs 287). However, Xenophon, on the other hand, had very little philosophic originality, so it was believed he would best preserve the persona of Socrates (Dubs 287). Certainly finding common ground between these two writers as well as within Aristophanes’ writings, it can be possible reconstruct a single portrait of who Socrates really was and his