That excellent book Gerasimos Santas contributed to the “Arguments of the Philosophers” series in 1979 is entitled Socrates. But once inside it you discover that what it is really about is a “Socrates” in Plato. More than once since I first started working on this book I asked myself: “Why not follow that example? Why not bypass, as he did, that bugbear of Platonic studies, the so-called ‘Socratic Problem’? Why not let the historians have the Socrates of history all to themselves, keeping for myself that enchanting figure whose challenge to philosophers would be the same were he historic fact or Platonic fiction?” If my interests had been as purely philosophical as are those of Santas this, certainly, is the way I would have gone. But it so happens that my philosophical interests are impure. I cannot pass the buck to the historians without passing it to myself. All my life I have been one of their tribe and once in it no easy exit is allowed. The question “Who are you talking about – Socrates or a ‘Socrates’ in Plato?” will dog your steps, barking at you, forcing you to turn and face it in self-defense. If you do mean the former, you must argue for it.