ABSTRACT
The central dramatic feature of the Socratic dialogue is Socrates asking questions examining various contemporaries. A qualified and predominantly dependent and negative view of the function of Socratic questions seems to partly mislead, and this chapter puts a case for a different side of the question, for a more positive force in the directional quality of Socrates' questions. The chapter suggests that Plato uses them to lead the movement of the argument to an end that he has in mind. Plato's Socrates may profess ignorance, but Plato uses him as an active and positive dialectical force, even by, or rather especially by, asking questions. In the Laches examination, while very dramatically characteristic, that is consistent, answers come from Laches, Socrates' (that is Plato's) questions make a Platonic philosophical point. The given answers are certainly dramatically consistent with the character Laches, but it is not so much the answers that are interesting, but the questions which lead to the answers.
