In a well-known passage near the beginning of Plato’s Apology, Socrates recounts
a story about his friend Chaerephon visiting the Oracle at Delphi. Chaerephon
asked the oracle whether anyone was wiser than Socrates “and the Pythian replied
that no one was wiser” (21a6-7).1 Much has been written about what the Pythian
meant and in precisely which respect (or respects) Socrates might have been
regarded by the oracle (or himself) to be at least as wise as any of his
contemporaries. Here I want to develop an extensive inventory of the ways in
which Plato’s Socrates2 was—or at least might have been—as wise as or even
wiser than his peers. I motivate this discussion by developing a puzzle from Plato’s
Apology 21d-23b. I argue that the negative thesis that Socrates’ superlative wisdom
consists solely in knowing that he does not know anything “beautiful and good”
cannot effectively establish the “fact” that no one was wiser than Socrates. I then
proceed to canvass a number of Socrates’ other features that might justify the
Pythian’s declaration. Ultimately, I argue that a strong case can be made for the
claim that Socrates was in fact the wisest man in Athens.
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