The Socratic Narrative: A Democratic Reading of Plato’s Dialogues

Abstract

Plato wrote dialogues. While there has been attention to the dramatic elements of Plato’s dialogues by a number of scholars, there has been much less attention to the narrative style of the dialogues. I argue that we should consider whether the dialogues are recited or presented like dramatic works with each character speaking his own words—or as a mixture of these narrative forms. By employing this interpretive tool to read the Republic, I illustrate how paying attention to the narrative style enables us to see a democratic Socrates who undermines readings of the Republic famously offered by Karl Popper and Leo Strauss. Plato appears then as neither a defender of the “closed society” nor an advocate of the elite rule of the wise over the many.

Foreigners as Liberators: Education and Cultural Diversity in Plato'sMenexenus

“…Saxonhouse's observation about the Republic applies here: “We often casually say that Thrasymachus says that justice is the interest of the stronger and the character of Thrasymachus has become part of our vocabulary to describe political cynicism. But of course it is not Thrasymachus who says this; it is Socrates as if he were Thrasymachus” (2009, 739). Similarly, in the Menexenus , it is not Socrates who sings Athens’ praises; it is Socrates as if he were Aspasia.…”

Democracy, Despots and Wolves: On the Dangers of Zoopolis's Animal Citizen

“…Indeed, Plato calls democracy the "finest and most beautiful of the constitutions" (557c), which has led many scholars to a pro-democratic reading of Plato's political thought (see Dolgert, 2012;Euben, 1997;Saxonhouse, 2009;Tarnopolsky, 2010). This breakdown of the public realm works its way into all spheres of life in the polis: "a father accustoms himself to behave like a child and fear his sons, while the son behaves like a father, feeling neither shame nor fear in front of his parents"; "bought slaves .…”

“…It is not necessarily the case that this anarchical destruction of paternal authority or slavery is not also seen as an extremely liberating aspect of democracy. Indeed, Plato calls democracy the “finest and most beautiful of the constitutions” (557c), which has led many scholars to a pro-democratic reading of Plato's political thought (see Dolgert, 2012; Euben, 1997; Saxonhouse, 2009; Tarnopolsky, 2010). Whether one reads this account of democracy as an advocacy for or critique of the regime type, however, it is inevitable, Plato writes, that this democratic love of freedom will degenerate into its excessive and tyrannical corruption.…”

Freedom, Form, and Formlessness: Euripides’Bacchaeand Plato'sRepublic

“…We cannot understand the justice of the soul or the city without acknowledging its several parts, without allowing it to be many. Imitation, we learn, flattens the forms, giving them only one side (Saxonhouse 2009, 742), thus precluding true knowledge. The earlier books looked for the “one” in simplicity that led to the denial of imitation and the absence of movement (as in the prescription against laughter), whereas the forms of Book 10 (after the discussion in the intervening books and the partition of the soul) capture the full being of the object or individual, allowing for the many within the unity of the form.…”