from belief, so that the more you know how the persuasive
trick is done the less you are taken in by it, is anathema to
Socrates. In this respect, Socrates stands at the opposite pole
from the sophist. What you discover about Socrates’ tech-
niques, his irritating, enrapturing ways of trapping and fasci-
nating his interlocutors, makes you an interlocutor yourself,
unable to tear yourself away. The way he works seems occultly
but definitely related to what he works on: subjects like desire,
justice, and the self. You want to discover the connection be-
tween method and manner, if there is one. The more curious
you get about the intimate relation between Socrates’ subject
and his way of discussing it, the more involved you become in
philosophy—and in psychology, since you are now aware of
the responses of your own soul.
When we finish a Platonic dialogue like the Phaedrus,we
find it hard to decide what we were seduced into. It is certainly
not a particular, definable act, like giving up one’s body to a
lover (or nonlover) or casting a vote for a defendant’s guilt or
innocence. Instead, we return to our reading, our thinking and
being perplexed.Thatis the seduction—and its desired result.
This effect explains why Socrates prizes rapturous enthusiasm,
along with a hint of erotic obsession, as the way of philosophy.
Philosophy too is a kind of love, rough and refined, able both
to yield and to pursue.
Speech as mere entertainment, or mere instrument, with
easily measurable effects, provides a well-known game: its
master is the sophist Lysias. Socrates plays a very different
game. His words, occurring once on a hot day in Athens, turn
out to be written in our souls, passing remarks by a well-
known stranger that remain indelibly there whenever we talk
about beauty or desire. Derrida’s effort to instill a straight-
forward contradiction into Socrates’ discourse fades away,
Plato, Austin, Nietzsche, Freud 155