ABSTRACT
It is hardly necessary to argue the uniqueness of Socrates in this volume. Yet it is exactly this uniqueness that invites so often to hyperbolic comparison: as one may easily learn in one short Internet session, in the United States one Bayard Rustin, ‘the American Socrates’, was subject of a film, one George Anastaplo has been labelled ‘the Socrates of Chicago’ and Chauncey Wright ‘Socrates of Cambridge, Mass.’ Somewhat more serious, perhaps, is the comparison of Adlerian psychologists of their founder-father with the Greek philosopher, or comparisons with even more ancient founders of religions – Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, and, of course, Jesus. This last, probably most often repeated pairing1 immediately brings to mind an important dichotomy. The Life and Death of Socrates are indeed two separate issues and diverse historical or mythical figures are compared with Socrates either because of their connection in life, or on account of their death. One sees immediately which is the more powerful paradigm. In all probability many people found the manner and significance of the death of Socrates by far the most impressive fact known about him, certainly more imposing than his relations with Alcibiades or Diotima, and without doubt easier to grasp than to study his philosophical method, let alone to try to disentangle ‘Socratic’ from ‘Platonic’ teachings. Perhaps on account of the unequalled moving beauty of the last pages of the Phaedo it seems that it is the picture of Socrates emptying the cup of hemlock that is embedded in our collective consciousness, as the Crucifixion surpasses all the other numerous images of the events of the Life of Jesus.
