I reconsider Socrates’ life from a Levinasian perspective. My specific aim is to take hold of the ethical relation which Levinas has brought into its own in the ‘post-metaphysical’ present, and in returning to Socrates/Plato, see how this relation manifests, albeit in a distorted but hopefully philosophically interesting way. The resulting picture of Socrates as being radically responsible to the otherness of the citizens of Athens does not contradict traditional accounts (the indefatigable search for knowledge, virtue, wisdom etc.), but rather sits beneath, underpinning them.