Socratic dialogue is a genre of literary prose developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC. It is preserved in the works of Plato and Xenophon. The discussion of moral and philosophical problems between two or more characters in a dialogue is an illustration of one version of the Socratic method. The dialogues are either dramatic or narrative and Socrates is often the main participant.
Platonic dialogues
Most of the Socratic dialogues referred to today are those of Plato. Platonic dialogues defined the literary genre subsequent philosophers used. Plato wrote approximately 30 dialogues, in most of which Socrates is the main character. Strictly speaking, the term refers to works in which Socrates is a character. As a genre, however, other texts are included; Plato's Laws and Xenophon's Hiero are Socratic dialogues in which a wise man other than Socrates leads the discussion. The protagonist of each dialogue, both in Plato's and Xenophon's work, usually is Socrates who by means of a kind of interrogation tries to find out more about the other person's understanding of moral issues. In the dialogues Socrates presents himself as a simple man who confesses that he has little knowledge. With this ironic approach he manages to confuse the other who boasts that he is an expert in the domain they discuss. The outcome of the dialogue is that Socrates demonstrates that the other person's views are inconsistent. In this way Socrates tries to show the way to real wisdom. One of his most famous statements in that regard is "The unexamined life is not worth living." This philosophical questioning is known as the Socratic method. In some dialogues Plato's main character is not Socrates but someone from outside of Athens. In Xenophon's Hiero a certain Simonides plays this role when Socrates is not the protagonist. Generally, the works which are most often assigned to Plato's early years are all considered to be Socratic dialogues. Many of his Middle dialogues, and later dialogues incorporate Socrates' character and are often included here as well. However, this interpretation of the corpus is not universally accepted. The time that Plato began to write his works and the date of composition of his last work are not known and what adds to the complexity is that even the ancient sources do not know the order of the works or the dialogues.
*According to a fragment of Aristotle, the first author of Socratic dialogue was Alexamenus of Teos, but we do not know anything else about him, whether Socrates appeared in his works, or how accurate Aristotle was in his antagonistic judgement about him.
Xenophon
* Apology
* Memorabilia
* Oeconomicus
* Symposium
Aristotle
*Aristotle himself is reputed to have written Socratic dialogues. No manuscripts, however, are extant.
Antisthenes
Aeschines of Sphettos
Phaedo of Elis
Euclid of Megara
Favorinus
Simon the Shoemaker
*Simon's writings are considered the first Socratic dialogues.
Cicero
* De re publica a similar dialogue in Latin on philosophical and rhetorical themes.
Socratic dialogue remained a popular format for expressing arguments and drawing literary portraits of those who espouse them. Some of these dialogues employ Socrates as a character, but most simply employ the philosophical style similar to Plato while substituting a different character to lead the discussion.
*Systems of Survival is a dialogue about two fundamental and distinct ethical systems, or syndromes as she calls them: that of the Guardian and that of Commerce. She argues that these supply direction for the conduct of human life within societies, and understanding the tension between them can help us with public policy and personal choices.
Peter Kreeft
*This academic philosopher has published a series of Socratic dialogues in which Socrates questions famous thinkers from the distant and near past. The first of the series was Between Heaven and Hell, a dialogue between C. S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley, and J. F. Kennedy. He also authored a book of Socratic logic.
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*Buhler is an academic philosopher who published a Socratic dialogue in which Seraphim Rose plays the socratic questioner. He dialogues with a group of theology students on the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura.
*Malone has published a series of contemporary Socratic dialogues titled Five College Dialogues. Five College Dialogues is intended to be a comedic resource for college students with a graduate student named George Tecce taking the role of Socrates.
* In the 1980s and 1990s a British psychologist and the well-known comedian collaborated on two books, Families and How to Survive Them and Life and How to Survive It, in which whey take the Socratic dialogue approach to questions of families and life.
