The Socratic Narrative

A Democratic Reading of Plato’s Dialogues

Bibliographic Data

ID6350826
AuthorsArlene W Saxonhouse (0000-0002-1828-2435, University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume37
Issue6
Pages728-753
Publication date2009-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0090591709345461
OpenAlexW1976746367
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited3

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

Art · Character (mathematics · Democracy · Elite · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Reading (process · SOCRATES · Socratic method · Style (visual arts · The Republic · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Families in Therapy and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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