Plato · Xenophon
The two witnesses and the one man
Almost everything we know of Socrates, who wrote nothing, comes from two contemporaries who knew him: Plato and Xenophon. They give portraits so different that scholars have argued for two centuries about which is closer to the historical man — “the Socratic problem.” The platform reads this comparison as one of the foundational source-questions of ancient philosophy, and treats it with the discipline the problem demands: neither portrait is simply the truth, and the historical Socrates probably lies in the relation between them.
Where the portraits converge
Both Socrates are recognisably one man in important respects: the relentless questioner who professes his own ignorance; the moral teacher who holds virtue and knowledge together; the gadfly indifferent to wealth and reputation; the citizen who obeyed the laws and died rather than escape. Both are deeply concerned with the care of the soul and the examined life. The platform reads this shared core as the firmest ground we have for the historical Socrates — the features on which our two independent witnesses agree.
Where the portraits diverge
The divergence is profound. Plato's Socrates is aporetic and metaphysical — he pursues the definitions of the virtues, ascends toward the Forms, and leaves his interlocutors in productive confusion; increasingly he becomes the mouthpiece of Plato's own developing philosophy. Xenophon's Socrates, in the Memorabilia and the other Socratic works, is practical and constructive — he gives usable advice on managing a household, choosing friends, governing the appetites, and serving the city, and he reaches firm, helpful conclusions. The platform reads the difference under Socratic practical philosophy: the philosopher of being against the counsellor of conduct.
The lesson and the platform's reading
The platform reads the two portraits as complementary rather than rival. Plato likely gives us the deeper philosophical Socrates and Xenophon the more ordinary, practical, day-to-day one; each saw and recorded the Socrates that answered to his own cast of mind, and each is therefore partial. The platform refuses to discard Xenophon's Socrates as a mere diminution — he is an independent witness whose practical Socrates the later traditions of ethics valued — and develops the case in Socrates through Xenophon. The earlier treatment of the two witnesses is at Plato and Xenophon.