Socratic Studies
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Edited by:
Gabriel Alexander Danzig
Socrates stands at the very beginning of the Western philosophical tradition – not as a writer of treatises or a compiler of doctrines, but as a figure of conversation, provocation, and intellectual transformation. Though he left no written works of his own, his legacy survives through the literature he inspired: above all, the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon, but also a broader body of texts by lesser-known authors who contributed to what scholars call "Socratic literature." This complex, multi-vocal tradition provides a unique lens on the philosophical, literary, political, and cultural dynamics of classical antiquity and remains a fertile source of inquiry for philosophers, classicists, historians, and scholars of literature. Socratic Studies provides a venue for monographs and edited volumes that explore the figure of Socrates, the texts and contexts of Socratic literature, including comedy, tragedy, and sophistic writings, and its later reception. Reflecting the methodological diversity and intellectual vitality of Socratic studies today, the series welcomes contributions from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives – including philosophy, philology, history, political theory, theology, and comparative literature.
Socrates represents an important turning point not only in the history of philosophy, but also in the morality of gender inequality, for he advanced the unprecedented thesis that the virtue of men and women is the same. The arguments supporting such a thesis, however, are controversial: different authors understand Socrates' legacy differently; the arguments do not necessarily account for the universality implied in the thesis; and, in challenging conventions, Socratic literature tends to blur gender distinctions. Be that as it may, these sources undeniably present women as exemplars of the philosophical life. This volume brings together a group of highly qualified scholars to provide a careful analysis of this evidence and a detailed assessment of the Socratic debate on gender, divided into three sections: Socratic Women; Socratics on Women; and Socratic Philosophy as a Woman. It sheds light on a topic rarely explored in scholarship on Socratism: women both as philosophers and as a philosophical motif.
Although we have the complete works of two major Socratic writers, Plato and Xenophon, little work has been done to bring them into relation with each other, other than investigating them as sources for the historical Socrates. Today an emerging consensus holds that neither author aimed at historical veracity, and that the portraits of Socrates primarily express the views of their authors. This book analyzes the behavior of Socrates and other characters in the two Symposia through the lens of the social virtues discussed by Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics: friendliness, truthfulness in self-presentation, and good humor. Starting with the prologues to the two Symposia and Republic, which is closely related to them, the book sketches a portrait of Socrates as a social creature. It focuses on Socratic boasting in Plato’s Symposium and Socratic joking in Xenophon’s Symposium, highlighting the virtuosity of Socrates’ social techniques and showing how he presses the limits of good behavior in both his self-presentation and his use of humor. The book concludes that this was a feature of the historical Socrates and that it inspired Plato and Xenophon to conceive of virtue in characteristically different ways.
