Callicles versus Socrates or the Practical Life of the Politician and the Contemplative Life of the Philosopher

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant professor of philosophy, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Nowhere in his corpus, except for Gorgias, Plato allows such a rude and blunt critic of contemplative philosophy as Callicles speaks so forcefully and raises the most profound and enduring challenge to Socrates' philosophic life. Such a challenge was not something new in the fifth and fourth centuries BC and Callicles' not fewer than four quotations from Euripides' lost play, Antiope, witnesses Plato's awareness of the significance and commonality of this ongoing debate. Through a detailed discussion of Antiope's debate between Zethus and Amphion and Calicles opening rhesis, the paper investigates the complicated relationship between these two temporally and stylistically different expressions of one debate, concluding that Plato's owe to Euripides's Antiope is more than just quoting a few passages almost verbatim. Callicles, whether a historical person or a literary invention, doesn’t just represent a fragment of Plato himself—a frightening vision, perhaps, of what he might have become without Socrates. Rather, it is a mouthpiece for Plato's inner resistance to the way that Socrates' way of philosophic life, correcting it and finally making it compromise with the more active life manner of a politician, as in Euripies’ Antiope.

Keywords

References

-   Aristotle (1393) Targhib be Falsafeh va Parehai az Athar e Gomshodei e Digar, trans. Mojtaba Derayati and Hamidreza Mahboobi Arani, Tehran University Press. (in Persian)
-   Aristotle (1981) Politics, trans. T. A. Sinclair, Penguin Classics; Revised edition.
-   Chutire, W. K. C. (1975) A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume IV: Plato, The Man and His Dialogues: Earlier Period, Cambridge University Press.
-   Dodds, E. R. (1959) Plato: Gorgias (text, intro., commentary), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-   Foroughi, Ali Mohammad (1383) Seire Hekmat dar Europe be Hamrah e Hekmat e Socrates and Plato, Hermes. (in Persian)
-   Hegel, Georg Wilhelm (1955) Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume One, trans. E. S. Haldane, Routledge & Kegan Paul.
-   http://www.perseus.tufts.edu This site also includes the valuable Online Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon.
-   Jaeger, Werner (1945) Paideia, the Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. Gilbert Highet, Oxford University Press.
-   Mahboobi Arani, Hamidreza (1397) “Nikbakhti va Andarnegari e Sorate Ziba dar Mihmani (Hamgosaresh) e Plato,” Journal of History of Philosophy, No. 34. (in Persian)
-   Nightingale, Andrea Wilson (1992) “Plato's 'Gorgias' and Euripides' 'Antiope': A Study in Generic Transformation,” Classical Antiquity, Vol. 11, No. 1. pp. 121-141.
-   Nightingale, Andrea Wilson (2004) Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria in its Cultural Context, Cambridge University Press.
-   Plato (1997) Complete Works, edited with Introduction and Notes: John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing.
-   Plato (1998) "Gorgias" and "Phaedrus": Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Politics, trans. James H. Nichols JR, Cornell University Press.
-   Will, Julianna K. (2015) Euripides’ Antiope and the Theban Trilogy, A thesis submitted to the Graduate Program in Classics in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Send comment about this article
CAPTCHA Image
Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Volume 15, Issue 34 - Serial Number 34
Articles
2021
Pages 345-362

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics