1. In offering his defense of his actions to the Athenian court in The Apology by Plato, Socrates says that the most important concern for him, and a concern that should be most important for everyone, is to search into himself and other men. He says that he has been charged with this responsibility by God, for that is the role of the philosopher. This is his manner of living, and it is his manner of living because God has said it shall be this way. Socrates makes it clear that he will obey God before he obeys his fellow man.
In a different sense, though, Socrates also says that he is a gadfly, that he not only delves into himself and other men but seeks to get other people to think. He says that all he does is try to persuade young and old alike that they should address the most important thing, the improvement of the soul. This is his sole teaching, and he does not believe it can be a corrupter of youth. He says many of those he supposedly corrupted have not reached their maturity and know quite well that they have not been corrupted. These people are among his supporters, not his accusers. He has acted as gadfly to get these people to search their souls and to seek to improve those souls, and they have done so and now support him. Getting others to search their souls is also the work of the philosopher.
In The Republic, Plato has Socrates consider the role of the philosopher both in general and in the ideal city-state. The philosopher in Plato's conception is one who is inclined to be a philosopher. Socrates says that the common man must be dragged upward toward wisdom and the ideal, but the philosopher is naturally turned in that direction and seeks wisdom and knowledge of the ideal. The role of the philosopher begins with the realization of his own ignorance. For the philosopher, this leads to a rebirth, a new orientation. Plato follows his mentor, Socrates, in seeing the method of philosophy to be the dial...