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Against Vlastos on complex irony*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Jill Gordon
Jill Gordon
Affiliation:
Colby College
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Extract

At a point not long after Anytus has been introduced in Plato's dialogue, Meno, we learn two things in particular: (i) that good and virtuous men often have despicable sons, despite their efforts to give them the finest educations (91a–95a), and (ii) that public affairs are not governed by knowledge; Athenian statesmen and those who elect them are ignorant even though they sometimes might get lucky and rule by true opinion (96d–99d).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , May 1996 , pp. 131 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1996

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References

1 First published as, ‘Socratic Irony’, CQ 37 (1987), 79–96. Later published as Chapter 1 in Vlastos' Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cornell, 1991). All references contained here are to Professor Vlastos' book.Google Scholar

2 Op cit., p. 21.

3 ., p. 31.

4 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA, 1980), p. 606. Vlastos gives a less detailed entry from the dictionary, one which highlights the most simple definition here—2(a)—but excludes the relevant introduction of dramatic context into the notion of irony as in 3(a) and 3(b). I shall have more to say about the significance of this omission in what follows.Google Scholar

5 Op cit., pp. 31–2. Vlastos rejects Xenophon as an authentic historical source for the philosophical doctrine of the historical Socrates because his work does not contain the kind of complex ironies embodied in disavowals of knowledge and teaching.

6 Muecke, D. C also implies such a conception of Socratic irony when, in referring to several types of irony, he enumerates among them ‘the self-disparaging irony of a Socrates’ (The Compass of Irony [London, 1969], p. 44).Google Scholar The wording here implies that Socratic irony is essentially self-disparaging, and while Socrates does engage in such behaviour often, he does so most famously in his disavowals of knowledge. The examples which Vlastos gives are all of the self-disparaging type of irony as well: op cit., pp. 31–2. See also Gooch, Paul W who works from this conception of Socratic irony in ‘Irony and Insight in Plato's Meno’, Laval Theologique et Philosophique 43 (1987), 189–201, esp. p. 193Google Scholar

7 See for example Euthyphro 9b, 12a, 14d, 16a; Meno 70b; Gorgias 46Id, 486e–487a.

8 Definitions falling under 2(b) and 2(c) depend upon how we end up defining ‘irony’ since they include ‘irony’ in the definition, so I shall omit discussion of these.

9 For fuller discussions of the history of such forms of irony and the word , see Muecke, op cit. (n. 6), pp. 47ff.; and Vlastos, op. cit., Chapter One. Muecke holds the representative view of as ‘deception’ which Vlastos seeks to modify.

10 E.g., Muecke opens his book with the words: ‘Getting to grips with irony seems to have something in common with gathering the mist; there is plenty to take hold of if only one could,’ op. cit., p. 3. Booth, Wayne C admits that ‘the problem of definition is by no means a simple one,’ and notes several of the best attempts, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago, 1975), p. 1.Google Scholar

11 Griswold, Charles L, Jr., defines irony similarly: ‘…(A) doubling of meaning occurs, which is made visible by a tension, incongruity, or contradiction between aspects of a discourse, between the context and the discourse (e.g. between the deeds and words), or between different views expressed by the same person. Irony is a way of speaking (or writing) which is meant to point to what is not spoken (or written), to what is silent and is kept in reserve, as it were, by its originator’, in ‘Irony and Aesthetic Language in Plato's Dialogues’,Google Scholar in D., Boiling (ed.), Philosophy and Literature, Volume Three in the Art and Philosophy Series (New York, 1987), pp. 71–99, at pp. 78–9. Parenthetical qualifications are Griswold's. Cf. Muecke, op. cit. (n. 6): ‘Irony is the art of saying something without really saying it’, p. 5.Google Scholar

12 Compare Meno at 80b2–4: Kovv, with Socrates at 84b11:…

13 He ends his analysis by telling the gathering of sophists that there is no value in poetry analysis, and that it is an activity beneath any self-respecting men (, 347d3).

14 Although it would be plausible to argue that the content of what Socrates says about the poem is both meant and not meant, and therefore Vlastos' definition of complex irony would include this passage. That is not, however, the particular irony I wish to highlight here.

15 Vlastos, pp. 27–8.

16 Gottlieb, Paula, ‘The Complexity of Socratic Irony: A Note on Professor Vlastos' Account,’ CQ 42 (1992), 278–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 For a detailed discussion of reader-response theory as it applies to Plato's, dialogues see my ‘Dialectic, Dialogue, and Transformation of the Self’, Philosophy and Rhetoric 29:3 (August 1996).Google Scholar