Socratic Writers: Plato, Xenophon - Study Guide

Periodization:

PreSocratics: c. 600-450 BC

Parmenides, an older contemporary of Socrates, too old for Plato to have known

Socrates: 469-399

Plato: 429-347 (follower of Socrates, 40 years younger)

Xenophon: exact contemporary of Plato, an aristocrat and Spartan sympathizer

Isocrates: exact contemporary of Plato, rhetorician and founder of a school rival to Plato’s

Lysias: a somewhat older contemporary of Plato, rhetorician and writer of speeches

Peloponnesian War (Athens and Sparta): 431-404

Sicilian Expedition: 415

Oligarchy of the Four Hundred: 411

Tyranny of the Thirty: 404

Trial and Execution of Socrates: 399

Plato’s Apology

Key people, terms, episodes

    -Meletus (what does he do & say in the treatise?)

    -daimonion

    -what the “first accusers say”

    -the formal charges (the “second accusers”)

    -how many jurors

    -“the unexamined life is not worth living”

    -Socrates as “gadfly”

    -Apology - what does it mean?

    -what penalty does Socrates suggest

Brief Essay

    -what is Socrates’ stance towards the jurors? why does he take that stance? what is his attitude, in this treatise, towards participation in society and the state (see e.g. p. 291 top)

    -be prepared to tell the story of Socrates and the oracle of Delphi - Socrates’ mission in life, Socrates’ role as a “wise man”

    -what are his counter-arguments to the two formal charges?

Plato’s Ion

Key people, terms, episodes

    -Ion

    -rhapsode

    -sophos (competition between two very different types)

    -techne

    -episteme

    -epistemology

Brief Essay

    -what are the implications of the argument that “the expert is the best judge” -- how does the argument work, and does it work for poets? for rhapsodes” do poets have techne? episteme? what about rhapsodes?

    -what does it mean that rhapsodes are “interpreters of interpreters”? And what is so bad about that (from Socrates’ point of view)?

    -be prepared to discuss and elucidate the magnetic chains metaphor

    -why does Socrates, and not Ion, do most of the quoting by memory of Homeric passages in this dialogue

    -be prepared to describe the performance of a rhapsode, as inferred from details in this treatise

    -what about the conclusion, namely, that a rhapsode and a general are “one and the same”? why this?

Plato’s Symposium

Key people, terms, episodes

    -Ormand: be prepared to define per Kirk Ormand “sex” “gender” “sexuality”

    -Ormand: erastês / eromenos

    -Phaedrus (+ give brief summary of his speech and viewpoint)

    -Pausanias (+ give brief summary of his speech and viewpoint)

    -Eryximachus (+ give brief summary of his speech and viewpoint)

    -Aristophanes (+ give brief summary of his speech and viewpoint)

    -Agathon (+ give brief summary of his speech and viewpoint)

    -Diotima

    -Alcibiades

    Note: for all the characters above, you should know (not simply recognize) the names, and be able to identify a prominent clip from one of the speeches

Brief Essay

    -Be prepared to discuss (following or in knowledgeable reaction to Ormand) the problems of using the term “homosexual” with reference to the culture portrayed in the Symposium; include the erastes (lover)/eromenos (beloved) relationship, and how that is specific to ancient Greek (and mostly Athenian) culture

    -Be prepared to discuss the different methods that are deployed to convey the pursuit of knowledge in this dialogue (i.e. that Phaedrus deploys traditional poetry and myth to speak to the riddle of love, etc.); be prepared to give a capsule summary (i.e. very brief) of the content of each of the speeches

    -Be prepared to discuss the narrative frame, its important for setting up the dialogue, and some possible motivations for this setup

    -Be prepared to speak to both the content and significance of the scene where Alcibiades enters: what does it tell us about the (model) figure of Socrates, and what important specifics of his life does Alcibiades mention? what about Alcibiades himself -- why does he intrude at the end, and after Diotima’s account?

    -Be prepared to describe Diotima’s account of Love and its relationship to the Idea of Beauty

    -How does Socrates quickly demolish Agathon’s pretty speech: what is the logic, and what is the fault (as Diotima explains) of that logic

    -Why does Socrates use Diotima, an obviously fictional character, rather than explaining this in his own voice?

Xenophon’s Apology, Symposium

Brief Essay

    -Be prepared to describe the details of how a symposium usually worked, drawing from Xenophon’s account and from the visuals and brief lecture on that

    -Be prepared to discuss Socrates’ self-presentation as a “pimp”

    -What are the primary differences in Xenophon’s characterization of Socrates, and Plato’s characterization?

    -Be prepared to describe the dramatic setting for Xenophon’s Symposium. How does the dramatic frame in Xenophon’s Symposium function, and how does it differ from Plato’s dramatic frame? Is there a point to this difference?

Plato’s Phaedrus

Key people, terms, episodes

hoi polloi

Lysias (older contemporary of Socrates, son of the wealthy Cephalus)

Phaedrus

Brief Essay

    -How does the dramatic frame function here to foreground Lysias’s “speech”? Be prepared to contrast this with the frame of the Symposium, and the ways that that dialogue sets up the authenticity of the speeches

    -Be prepared to discuss what the dialogue suggests about models of reading (see pp. 114-5, 124, 171, 191; cf. 162 on the elite emphasis on cultured conversation)

    -Be prepared to describe in some detail and speak to the significance of the Charioteer image

    -what is “dialectic” as Socrates defines it? (pp. 174-5)  How does this differ from the method of inquiry/teaching on display in books/teachers of rhetoric (pp. 176-7)

    -Be prepared to tell the myth of Theuth, and to speak to its significance within the context of the dialogue

The Sophists

Aristophanes, Clouds

People, places, terms

Strepsiades

Pheidippides

Socrates (as presented in the comedy)

Thinkery

Chorus of Clouds

Episodes and themes     

Old education versus the new education (have some specific examples in mind)

“Science” and its depiction (e.g. flea episode, p. 19, map at p. 24: accumulate a few examples)

Presentation of Socrates in the Clouds (how does this differ, & how is it similar to, the depiction in Plato?)

Agôn between the Better and Worse Argument (Philosophy and Sophistry in your translation, pp. 67ff)

Plato, Protagoras

Protagoras

Hippias of Elis

Prodicus of Ceos

“Man is the measure of all things”

Episodes and themes: The scene at Callias’ house. Be prepared to describe and to comment on its importance

Plato, Gorgias

Gorgias of Leontini

Polus

Episodes and themes: What is the characterization of Gorgias? of his star pupil Polus?

Plato, Hippias

Hippias of Elis

Episodes and themes: What is the characterization of Hippias? what wisdom does he teach (see pp. 1538ff), and how does that differ from Gorgias? from Protagoras? What is consistent, what individual, about the “Sophists” as Plato depicts them?