Plato not only permitted live philosophical enquiry to take place in the course of every reader's every reading of the dialogue, by putting tempting and plausible views on trial, in a situation as near as possible to the open-minded exploratory give and take of dialectical debate with a real interlocutor. He also created a most fitting memorial to the real Socrates – the man himself, who lived and died for the idea that philosophy is best done in open-ended dialogue, and with your whole way of life at stake should you be refuted.

Socrates in the Platonic Dialogues (2006)