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This chapter addresses questions on the relation of the historical Socrates and his philosophy to the Socrates of the dialogues, on whether the philosophy in the dialogues—Socrates' or Plato's—developed in any way, on the relation of the literary form of the dialogue to any putative philosophy found therein, and on how two apparently self-revealing passages in the Platonic corpus (Phaedrus 274C–277A and Seventh Letter 341C–D) impact our understanding of the dialogues in general. As such, the chapter first examines the “Socratic Problem” before turning to the views of some outstanding proponents of a putative “Socratic philosophy”—Gregory Vlastos, Terry Penner, and Christopher Rowe.

“Aristippus of Cyrene” re-evaluates the evidence concerning, on the one hand, Aristippus’ alleged hedonism and, on the other, his affiliation with Socrates and the Socratic circle. The central thesis of the chapter is this: even though some sources attribute to Aristippus the sort of ethical hedonism that we know to have been held by his grandson (Aristippus the Younger), there is strong evidence that in fact Aristippus of Cyrene was not an ethical hedonist but endorsed Socratic concerns and values. These latter include philosophical inquiry focused on ethics, the paramount importance of philosophy for education and the care of one’s soul, concern to develop the virtues and assess the relative value of external goods, the crucial role of reason and prudence in ethical conduct, the ethical implications of systematically pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, and the rationalism that should determine one’s attitudes toward relatives, acquaintances, fellow-citizens, and the city itself.

This chapter addresses the central issue of how Plato might discriminate between suitable and unsuitable readers of a discourse. It also illustrates how dialectical orality is ethically consistent, and then reveals epistemological weaknesses produced by the conversational method. Dialogue establishes a structure whereby reception may be monitored through dual and complementary strategies. The interrogatory method serves an epistemological aim in concert with this attempt to restrain discursive transmission. In dialogic form, the Phaedrus reflects upon the centrality of the conversational method to the epistemological as well as ethical and pedagogic aims of the Socratic–Platonic philosophy. To ask who are the ‘suitable’ and ‘unsuitable’ readers demarcated in the Phaedrus may on first inspection seem redundant, a false trail. Censorship would spare Socrates his considerable labours in the closing section of the Phaedrus. It counters with an image system that comprises gardens, suitable soil, boundary, defence, enclosure, and cultivation.

Leo Strauss was born into a world in crisis. While that crisis became apparent to him first in politics, he came to see that the crisis extended to human life and knowledge as a whole. Although the danger was great, Strauss also came to believe, the crisis of the West constituted a great opportunity. Following out this opportunity led Strauss to his life-long project—the restoration of Socratic philosophy, i.e., political philosophy in the original and still valid sense. One response to the problem of political philosophy is the public-spirited philosopher, for the “problem of political philosophy” means that it must make a case for its value to the city. But the problem of political philosophy has another face: the philosopher has a potentially antipathetic relation to ordinary citizens. Negotiating that divide constitutes the various solutions to the problem of political philosophy and the theme of Strauss’s corpus.

If in Greek tragedy the Furies pursue human beings who violate the laws of kinship—of family exchanges properly conducted, taboos properly observed—in Heraclitus's discourse they pursue the potentially transgressive sun. Fragment 94 of this pre-Socratic philosopher (ca. 500 BCE) offers an apparent paradox, not so much in its use of mythological personae to formulate a theory of cosmic structure (a practice common to all surviving sixth-century natural philosophy) as in its account of the relations among these figures. Throughout early Greek literature, the all-seeing and all-revealing sun bears witness to every action in both the human and the divine domains, functioning as the ultimate monitor of events that even the gods wish to conceal. Here, however, the sun's own celestial operations are themselves subject to the scrutiny of the shadowy, chthonic Furies, irascible informants whose realm lies deep within the earth.

The Herakles passage in Homer’s Odyssey 11.601–4 has been seen as problematic because it is not one thing: the vision it gives of Herakles’ place in the afterlife is double—his eidōlon (“image”) and the autos (“self”); the underworld and the heavens. This chapter explores the following questions: Should the afterlife be one thing rather than a plurality of things? Should we mark out as “anomalous” what we think doesn’t “fit”? On what criteria should this be done? The spatial problem of Herakles in Od.11 has been interpreted through a series of oppositions: earlier or later, authentic and inauthentic, Homeric and “Orphic,” “negative” and “positive” eschatologies. In fact, though, Herakles can be interpreted as a force for unity. In one brief moment he maps the extremes of the universe with radical economy. It is the job of eschatology to encompass the world.