In his dialogue Republic, Plato uses Socrates to argue for justice that covers both the just person and the just City State.

Similarly, a city has three parts – Socrates uses the parable of the chariot to illustrate his point: a chariot works as a whole because the two horses ’ power is directed by the charioteer.

In Plato's early dialogues, Socrates uses the elenctic method to investigate the nature or definition of ethical concepts such as justice or virtue.

Larissa was indeed the birthplace of Meno, who thus became, along with Xenophon and a few others, one of the generals leading several thousands Greeks from various places, in the ill-fated expedition of 401 ( retold in Xenophon's Anabasis ) meant to help Cyrus the Younger, son of Darius II, king of Persia, overthrow his elder brother Artaxerxes II and take over the throne of Persia ( Meno is featured in Plato's dialogue bearing his name, in which Socrates uses the example of " the way to Larissa " to help explain Meno the difference between true opinion and science ( Meno, 97a – c ) ; this " way to Larissa " might well be on the part of Socrates an attempt to call to Meno's mind a " way home ", understood as the way toward one's true and " eternal " home reached only at death, that each man is supposed to seek in his life ).

It should be pointed out, however, that in the Greek text of his defense given by Plato, Socrates never actually uses that term ( viz., " gadfly " oistros

In Plato's early dialogues, the elenchus is the technique Socrates uses to investigate, for example, the nature or definition of ethical concepts such as justice or virtue.

In his 1989 Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Richard Rorty argues that Derrida ( especially in his book, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond ) purposefully uses words that cannot be defined ( e. g. Différance ), and uses previously definable words in contexts diverse enough to make understanding impossible, so that the reader will never be able to contextualize Derrida's literary self.

Early uses of the term ( in the first sense ) include Plato's Apology ( the defense speech of Socrates from his trial ) and some works of early Christian apologists, such as St. Justin Martyr's two Apologies addressed to the emperor Antoninus Pius and the Roman Senate.

He does this in the dialogue through the character of Socrates, who uses it in a discussion of the merit of Love as " divine madness ".

In The Republic ( 507b-509c ) Plato's Socrates uses the sun as a metaphor for the source of " intellectual illumination ," which he held to be The Form of the Good.

Socrates ' uses a similar example in the Meno.

Euclid's notion of commensurability is anticipated in passing in the discussion between Socrates and the slave boy in Plato's dialogue entitled Meno, in which Socrates uses the boy's own inherent capabilities to solve a complex geometric problem through the Socratic Method.

In the book's title, Hardy uses the word " apology " in the sense of a formal justification or defense ( as in Plato's Apology of Socrates ), not in the sense of a plea for forgiveness.

Glaucon uses this argument to challenge Socrates to defend the position that the unjust life is better than the just life.

For over two and a half millennia, scholars have differed on the aptness of the city-soul analogy Socrates uses to find justice in Books II through V. The Republic is a dramatic dialogue, not a treatise.

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates uses the maxim ' know thyself ' as his explanation to Phaedrus for why he has no time for mythology or other far flung topics.

Many of the words which Socrates uses as examples may have come from an idea originally linked to the name, but have changed over time.

For Socrates, the only way the ship will reach its destination – the good – is if the navigator takes charge.

He tells him that there are eyewitness reports that the ship has come in from Delos, and that tomorrow Socrates will be executed.

In Book VIII, Socrates suggests that wealth will not help a pilot to navigate his ship.

" Socrates also used his ugliness as a philosophical touch point, concluding that philosophy can save us from our outward ugliness.

Plato makes Socrates claim that Zeno and Parmenides were essentially arguing exactly the same point ( Parmenides 128a-b ).

Many point to Socrates ' argument, specifically as given in Plato's Crito, for accepting his order to drink poison as representing a sophisticated argument for observing social contracts.

The Parmenides shows Parmenides using the Socratic method to point out the flaws in the Platonic theory of the Forms, as presented by Socrates ; it is not the only dialogue in which theories normally expounded by Plato / Socrates are broken down through dialectic.

So Socrates ’ point that the Athenians should care for their souls means that they should care for their virtue, rather than pursuing honour or riches.

Rousseau, Socrates, and Bhudda each mark the point where their Cultures transformed into Civilisation.

Socrates debates these arguments from a critical point of view by posing more questions, but never poses a conclusion on the matter of knowledge itself.

Socrates says this can't be right because Homer ( whose authority they both accept on this point ) says that modesty is not good for all people, but it is agreed that sophrosyne is ( 160e ).

At this point in the argument, Critias takes up the argument with Socrates suggesting that temperance might be the same as self-knowledge.

At this point Socrates introduces the " Euthyphro dilemma " by asking the crucial question: " Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious?

With the exception of Aristophanes, all of Socrates ' named friends from the Symposium are in attendance: Eryximachus the doctor, and Phaedrus are there, and so are the lovers Pausanias and Agathon ( who is said to be a mere boy at this point ), and Alcibiades.

Socrates accompanies Hippocrates to the home of Callias, and they stand in the doorway chatting about " some point which had come up along the road " ( 314c ).

The porter let them in, and it is at this point that Socrates recites the list of guests.

Socrates says he could give more examples, but thinks his point is sufficiently established.

Except for two brief exchanges with Meletus ( at 24d-25d and 26b-27d ), where the monologue becomes a dialogue, the text is written in the first person from Socrates ' point of view, as though it were Socrates ' actual speech at the trial.

At this point, Parmenides takes over as Socrates ' interlocutor and dominates the remainder of the dialogue.

Polus, who has stepped into the conversation at this point, laughs at Socrates.

He interrupts Socrates to point this out, saying:

The text gives clear indication on the charges brought against Socrates by Anytus, and is often used on this point in comparison with Plato's version of the trial.

Socrates, for example, is an individual, a species ( man ), or a genus ( animal ) according to the status, or point of view, which we adopt.

Among the surviving Cynic epistles, there are some spurious Socratic letters, written in the 2nd or 3rd century, in which various pupils of Socrates, including Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Xenophon, debate philosophy from a Cynic point of view.