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Dialectic, Desire & Discipline: The Formation of the Philosopher on the Scene of the Platonic Dialogue By Vincent Michael Tafolla A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Rhetoric in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Daniel Boyarin, Chair Professor David W. Bates Professor G. R. F. Ferrari Fall 2013 1 Abstract Dialectic, Desire & Discipline: The Formation of the Philosopher on the Scene of the Platonic Dialogue By Vincent Michael Tafolla Doctor of Philosophy in Rhetoric University of California, Berkeley Professor Daniel Boyarin, Chair The following argument explores the relationship between epistemology and ethics in the Platonic dialogues. Focusing on the drama that takes place on the scene of the dialogues, I trace Socrates’ struggle to impose rules on the conversation. What I show is that though Socrates’ question invites a response from his interlocutor (and so, is commonly celebrated as open- ended), the questions he asks and the rules he imposes, restricts contribution that his interlocutor can make to the dialogue. I argue that this discursive practice, the dialectic, not only imports a specific epistemology—a specific image of knowledge—but this episteme is used to interpret what Socrates’ interlocutor values and desires; so the discourse brings with it a certain understanding of the form that desire should take. The epistemological assumptions, then, also assume (and endeavor to produce) a particular type of subject. A careful examination of the discursive practice by which Plato distinguishes Socrates and philosophy from other figures and practices reveals that Plato’s epistemological and ethical ends are more circumscribed than is usually acknowledged. By developing a sensitivity to the struggle that takes place over method, I argue, one not only becomes sensitive to the exclusions on which philosophy is founded (e.g., the considerations deemed irrelevant to the conversation) but one also develops a sensitivity to the power dynamic that structures the relationship between interlocutors. More broadly, this raises the problem of how certain discursive practices support particular distributions of power and different ethical possibilities while suppressing others. i For my parents, whose work is behind everything I do & For Mary Jo, for your love, your support, your patience, and your criticism. ii Table of Contents: Introduction: On Socratic Cruelty & the Production of the Philosophical Subject……………...iii Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………………..xxiv Chapter One: “Bound & Gagged,” On the Nature of the Dialectic………………………………1 Chapter Two: The Threatening Intimacy of Speech…………………………………………….36 Chapter Three: Plato’s Erotics – Purifying Discourses, Purifying Desires……………………..66 Chapter Four: The Mythic Topos: Situating the Soul in a World of Relations………………...89 Chapter Five: The Subject of Philosophical Eroticism………………………………………...113 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………148 iii Introduction: On Socratic Cruelty & the Production of the Philosophical Subject: Callicles: “How violent (biaios) you are Socrates…. Couldn’t you go through the argument by yourself, either speaking by yourself or answering yourself? Socrates: “Epicharmus’s saying may come to pass for me: ‘What two men were saying beforehand, I, being one,’ may become sufficient for” ( Gorgias 505d-e) The Confession of a Reluctant Plato Scholar : What drives my interest in Plato’s work is what, for the longest time, drove me away from it. Platonic/Socratic Cruelty. Since first encountering the Platonic dialogues I have been unable to shake the feeling that Socrates, the philosophical hero par excellence , frequently behaved in very questionable ways towards his interlocutors. Though I was interested in many of the questions they raised, for a long time I avoided the Platonic dialogues because I was disturbed by the aggression of this character, Socrates, who, together with Plato, has been so long enshrined as the origin of Western philosophy. Indeed, what made this suspicion of Plato’s Socrates all the more disturbing was the sense that there was an almost universal code of silence that surrounded the issue. There is something very lonesome in suspecting Socrates in this manner; for when Socrates verbally abused his interlocutors, when he cut them off before they could explain themselves, when he made fun of them, when he shamed them, when he appeared to distort what they were saying, it seemed that no one noticed. No one objected. No one protested. No one, that is, except for the Plato’s characters themselves. Despite the relatively scant attention that Platonic/Socratic cruelty receives amongst Plato’s readers, the dialogues themselves frequently register the discomfort and objections of Socrates’ interlocutors. Thus, in the epigraph above, we find Callicles protesting the “violence” of Socratic questioning as he resists Socrates’ pressure to persist in their discussion. Moreover, Socrates does not deny this charge, but instead admonishes Callicles for refusing to “put up with being improved and experiencing the very treatment now under discussion, the process of discipline” ( Gorgias 505c). Indeed, earlier in the same dialogue, when Polus hesitates to continue answering Socrates’ questions, Socrates acknowledges the discomfort he causes. “Do not hesitate to answer Polus,” Socrates says, “for it will do you no hurt, but submit nobly to the argument as you would to a doctor, and say either yes or no to my question” ( Gorgias 475d). It is worth noting in this context that the medical treatments that the dialogue mentions are rather violent—they include surgery, cautery and the use of purgatives (456b, 480c)—so whether he portrays himself as a doctor or a disciplinarian, Socrates seems to acknowledge that his practice is marked by a certain violence. Needless to say, by portraying himself as a doctor, Plato’s Socrates seeks to justify this violence in the name of his interlocutor’s psychic health. I will discuss the Gorgias at length in chapter one, but it is important to notice that this portrayal of the dialectic as a violent, if well-intentioned, undertaking is not limited to that text. In the Meno , Socrates is famously compared to a torpedo fish, because contact with him “numbs” his interlocutor’s lips and mind, reducing him to helplessness (80a-d). In the Laches , Nicias warns Lysimachus that, should he enter into conversation with Socrates, he would undoubtedly become “entangled” in the argument and that “Socrates will not let him go until he has completely and thoroughly sifted him” (187e-188a). Nicias describes this as a worthy experience, of course, but that should not blind us to the unmistakable intimations of violence/compulsion in the Socratic “trapping” that he describes. The portrayal of Socrates as setting traps is notable in that it invokes the activity of hunting, to which philosophy is frequently iv compared. The philosopher is not only represented as a “mighty hunter” and “master of device and artifice” in his pursuit of abstract beauty and truth ( Symp 203d), but the dialogues’ discussions of philosophical eroticism also portray him as a hunter of beautiful boys ( Phdr 253c, Prot 309a), which suggests that the philosopher’s aggressive attitude is not lost in his comportment towards those around him. 1 Indeed, in the Gorgias , Callicles not only complains about this sort of behavior (this aggression and trap setting), but Socrates seems to acknowledge that he does this sort of thing. 2 So, why, despite the protests that Plato preserves in the margins of his texts, is there not more attention paid to this question of Socrates’ dialectical behavior? Part of the reason, no doubt, stems from the nature of the Platonic dialogues themselves. Socrates is their unrivalled hero. In the Gorgias , he is presented as the only living Athenian to practice “the true art of politics” (521d). In the Symposium , Socrates communicates from the prophetess Diotima a new set of mysteries, which are both a new erotic practice and a new politics. Moreover, Socrates’ resemblance to Eros as conceived by Diotima, clearly indicates that he embodies this new way of living. Moreover, Socrates ultimately sacrifices himself to this new way of living, becoming its martyr and thus teaching the Athenians a new way of dying. And in the Phaedrus Socrates becomes an image of Zeus. It is no easy thing to question a character of such stature, so even as Plato preserves the concerns of Socrates’ critics, his portrayal of Socrates makes it difficult to take their protests too seriously. Indeed, Plato inoculates Socrates against such protests all the more effectively by putting them in the mouths of questionable characters. If this is Plato’s strategy, it has largely worked. While Plato blunts the force of criticisms aimed at Socrates by incorporating such weakened protests into his dialogues, many of Plato’s readers simply obliterate them. David M. Halperin exemplifies this approach. The picture of Socratic dialogue that Halperin provides is in many respects quite traditional. “The Platonic dialogue is the true model of philosophical inquiry,” Halperin says: (Plato) was perhaps the only one who fully understood the reciprocal erotic dynamic of a Socratic conversation and he employed the dialogue-form to illustrate its workings. For in Plato’s hands the dialogue-form itself represents an attempt to recapture the original and authentic

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