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Xenophon's Socratic Rhetoric
Virtue, Eros, and Philosophy in the Symposium
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2022
Summary
In one of the most charming works to survive from classical antiquity, Xenophon’s Symposium depicts an amiable evening of wine, entertainment, and conversation shared by Socrates, and a few of his associates, with certain Athenian gentlemen who are gathered to honor a young man for his recent victory in the Panathenaic games. The subtle playfulness which characterizes the animated discussions conceals a light-hearted, yet surprisingly philosophical inquiry regarding the rival claims of virtue, articulated and defended by the Socratics and gentlemen to establish the praiseworthiness and excellence of their competing ways of life. Gentlemanliness, taken as an admired political virtue, and philosophy, as pursuit of wisdom and self-sufficiency, emerge as contested ideas about what constitutes the path to human happiness, especially in response to the beautiful and its compelling arousal of erotic desire in the body and soul.
Offering a comprehensive account and interpretation of the Symposium, this book follows the speeches and action of the dialogue through its many twists and turns, from beginning to end, with particular attention to the place of rhetoric in the argument of the work as a whole. Thus, Xenophon's Socratic Rhetoric examines foundational aspects of the philosophic life manifest in the words as well as deeds of Socrates in this dialogue--starting from an original reading of the opening scene as a harbinger of the competition in wisdom that occurs over the course of the symposium, and concluding with a provocative consideration of conjugal erotics as the continuation and completion of the Socratic logos about the role of love in guiding human beings toward virtue and happiness.
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Bibliographic data
Copyright year
2022
ISBN-Print
978-1-6669-0316-4
ISBN-Online
978-1-6669-0317-1
Publisher
Lexington, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
363
Product type
Book Titles
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Preface No access
Introduction: Opening Reflections No access
1 Situating the Dialogue: Athenian Competitions No access
2 Setting the Stage: Sophistry versus Philosophy No access
3 The Banquet Begins: Rule and the Symposium No access
4 Rival Ways of Life: Kαλokάγαθία and Virtue No access
5 Display Speeches and the Promise of Wisdom No access
6 Defense Speeches and the Socratic Way of Life No access
7 Socratic Moderation in Pursuit of the Beautiful No access
8 Refutations, Education, and Accusations No access
9 Digression, Reconciliation, and Restoration No access
10 Educating Gentlemen and Moderating Erōs No access
11 Performative Rhetoric and Conjugal Erotics No access
Conclusion: Xenophon’s Socrates and Political Philosophy No access Pages 311 - 330
