Steven White,  Professor of Classics, University of Texas-Austin,  Afterlives of an Eminent Philosopher: Socrates in Diogenes Laertius

Our only ancient biography of Socrates comes from Diogenes Laertius in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Viewed by itself, the Life is a curious farrago of dubious factoids and anecdotes, commonly faulted for its omissions: no talk of definitions or elenchus, akrasia or aporia, irony or other familiar themes. When we consider it alongside the rest of the Lives, however, it presents some distinctive traits that illuminate both what Plato and other contemporaries show us, and the pivotal place Socrates acquired in later histories of philosophy. For Diogenes, Socrates is foremost a moral philosopher, and one whose novel conversational methods, at once intensely personal and urgently practical, made him a transformational figure: “the first to have philosophical conversations about living our lives.”