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At the end of Plato's Symposium we are presented with a picture of Socrates, Agathon, and Aristophanes, the only three people at the party to remained awake throughout the night. Just before daybreak, we are told, Aristodemus wakes up and overhears Socrates forcing his two companions to admit that the same person might be capable of writing both comedy and tragedy (223d). Socrates clinches the argument, which the other two are scarcely in a state to (223d), and the implication is that this is not simply due to their inebriated state or physical weariness at the time: the dramatists are unable to follow in more than one sense of the term the eiron's critical reasoning. After tucking first Aristophanes and then Agathon into bed, Socrates goes off to spend the day as usual, his disciple Aristodemus at his side. Clearly, in the implied contest between Socrates and the two dramatic poets, it is the ironic philosopher who emerges the victor. Philosophical dialogue eclipses the established, indeed reigning, forms of comedy and tragedy, as the dialectical method wins converts and disciples. Socrates is quite literally a latecomer to Agathon's victory celebration, but at this party where talk displaces entertainment, where discourse displaces drinking, the tardy guest easily displaces the host: the philosopher displaces the tragedian. On another level, the Platonic dialogue replaces a celebration of Dionysus with a celebration of philosophy, and the eiron takes the place of the tragic hero on centre stage. When Alcibiades crowns Socrates with a victory wreath, he explains to their host that Socrates' words have been too much for all the world – and all his life too, Agathon, not just the other day, like yours (213e). Socratic dialogue produces an immediate effect

Art · German Literature and Culture Studies · Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies · Philosophy and Historical Thought