Socrates' Iolaos: Myth and Eristic in Plato's Euthydemus

Classical Quarterly 40 (02):378- (1990)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The Euthydemus presents a brilliantly comic contrast between Socratic and sophistic argument. Socrates' encounter with the sophistic brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus exposes the hollowness of their claim to teach virtue, unmasking it as a predilection for verbal pugilism and the peddling of paradox. The dialogue's humour is pointed, for the brothers' fallacies are often reminiscent of substantial dilemmas explored seriously elsewhere in Plato, and the farce of their manipulation is in sharp contrast to the sobriety with which Socrates pursues his own protreptic questioning. But the strategies of this text are complex: the Euthydemus may be a playful satire of the desire to confound, yet beneath its knockabout humour a serious purpose is also visible

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Socrates and the Sophists: Plato's Protagoras, Euthydemus, Hippias major and Cratylus. Plato & Joe Sachs - 2011 - Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/ R. Pullins Co.. Edited by Joe Sachs & Plato.
The Delphic oracle on Socrates' wisdom: a myth?Louis-André Dorion - 2012 - In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée & Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths. Brill.
Socrates in the platonic dialogues.Catherine Osborne - 2005 - Philosophical Investigations 29 (1):1–21.
Sophists, Names and Democracy.Jakub Jirsa - 2012 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 12 (2):125-138.
Myth and the Structure of Plato’s Euthyphro.Daniel Werner - 2012 - International Philosophical Quarterly 52 (1):41-62.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-12-09

Downloads
40 (#347,838)

6 months
4 (#319,344)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Plato on conversation and experience.David Robertson - 2009 - Philosophy 84 (3):355-369.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Socrates and the State.Richard Kraut - 1984 - Princeton University Press.
Socrates' disavowal of knowledge.Gregory Vlastos - 1985 - Philosophical Quarterly 35 (138):1-31.
Socratic Irony.Gregory Vlastos - 1987 - Classical Quarterly 37 (01):79-96.
Commentary on Plato's Euthydemus.R. S. W. Hawtrey - 1981 - Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.

View all 18 references / Add more references