1. In practice, that is. No doubt in principle Socrates’ assumptions licence any man to investigate morality. ‘But while the Socratic method makes moral inquiry open to everyone, it makes it easy for no one’ (Vlastos, Socrates (1971), p. 20; cf. Gulley, p. 62 ff.

2. Or will they? Is not the moral expert too to be exposed to elenchus? Presumably he is; but he will never be refuted. Ought one therefore to rely on him, without bothering to think the issues through, so as to arrive at moral knowledge for oneself? If so, what becomes of Socrates’ dictum, ‘the unexamined life is not worth living for a man’ (Apology 38a)? Does it apply only before the emergence of a moral expert?

3. e.g. Xenophon, Memorabilia III.7.6 and III.9.10; cf. Meno 94e ff., Gorgias 481d ff., 517a ff., Protagoras 319b, Apology 31e ff. There is a good brief discussion of the point in Guthrie, III, p. 409 ff., and a valuable analysis of the evidence in Vlastos, ‘Historical Socrates’ (1983).

4. Laches 187e-188a.