This volume approaches the 'Socratic question' from a viewpoint that departs radically from mainstream lines of interpretation. The focus is not on the 'formal order' of the Socratics, that is on their subdivision in 'schools' and the 'doctrines' peculiar to each, but on the theoretical issues that these thinkers were able to develop in the fierce struggle among themselves. The papers dwell on the dynamic context in which these issues were posed, discussed, and eventually fixed in dogmatic theories within the philosophical and non-philosophical Greek literature of the V and IV centuries B.C.

Fulvia de Luise is Adjunct Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Trento. She has published several books and articles on the hermeneutics of Platonic texts and the ethics and politics in the tradition of Socratic thought. She is author (with G. Farinetti) of Felicità Socratica (Hildesheim 1997) and Storia della felicità. Gli antichi e i moderni (Torino 2001). Alessandro Stavru holds a research and teaching appointment at the Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2005 he is the Co-Organizer of the Socratica colloquiums and the Co-Editor of the Proceedings arising from them, having published a number of books and articles on Socrates and the Socratics.