Socrates has a unique place in the history of philosophy. It would not be an axaggeration to assert that if he had not influenced Plato, the entire development of Western philosophy would have taken a completely different course. And yet, Socrates wrote nothing; all that we know about him we fish mainly in the dimensions of the impressive and dizzying figure that Plato reveals to us in his dialogues . In this book, Christopher Taylor sheds light on the relationship between Socrates as a historical being and Socrates as a character in Plato’s dialogues. In additions, taylor carefully axamines the long-standing image of Socrates as the ideal epitome of the philosopher’s life: a thinker whose life was shapped down to the smasellst cells by the tendency to preserve intact moral and intellectual integrity, even in the face of punishment and execution by fellows Athenians.