A barefoot man in a single unwashed coat wandering a wealthy ancient city, cornering its most powerful citizens with unanswerable questions and never writing a word of his own. This episode separates the historical Socrates from the myth, starting with the Socratic problem: our only sources are Plato's dramatic dialogues, Xenophon's duller and more practical portrait, and Aristophanes' comedic caricature in The Clouds, and they do not agree. The hosts then piece together what survives: born around 470 BC to a stone worker and a midwife, a tough hoplite in the Peloponnesian War who saved Alcibiades at Potidaea, and later a man who deliberately embraced poverty.

The conversation explains the elenchus, his method of refutation, using the example of a general trying to define courage, and connects it to his claim of ignorance, his moral intelle ...