The Cambridge companion to Socrates

This book features 15 essays by famous scholars. Chapters include studies on different ancient portraits of Socrates, religion, democracy, method, self-examination, ignorance, irony, moral psychology, eudaemonism, and politics. Morrison, a scholar famous for not thinking that Socrates actually has any specific place in the history of philosophy, assembled the collection. He sketches a rather unfocused response to what has come to be known as "the Socrates problem": "My own response to this problem has been to invite a diverse group of contributors to define the Socrates who is the subject of their individual chapters differently.. In fact, the actual presentation of "the Socrates problem" in the very first chapter, by Louis-Andre Dorion, treats the problem as permanently resolved in favor of skepticism: one will never know who Socrates really was or what he really thought; the best one can do is to study the different depictions of him in the various extant texts. The rest of the book mostly follows this pattern fairly well, though three contributors (J. Ober, M. L. McPherran, and P. Woodruff) cite several sources in their respective chapters. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty. N. D. Smith Lewis and Clark College