Introduction

Socrates lived about 469 to 399 BC in Athens just before they lost the war with Sparta. In some senses he can be called the father of Western Philosophy although he called himself midwives of ideas. To discuss the man and his intellectual legacy I have with me M.M. McCabe from Kings College London and Tim Chappell from the Open University. Who was Socrates is a question that we can't get rid of because one of the things that's striking about him is what an ambiguous figure he is.