Philosophy in Dialogue : Plato's Many Devices

KNOW THYSELF

with a “strange suspicion,” helps Socrates realize that their argument
about friendship is leading them astray (218c).
Indeed, Socrates mentions his emotional response to sophistical
arguments throughout the Euthydemus. They provide a running com-
mentary on the sophistic exchange, much like Aristophanes’ hiccups
punctuate Eryximachus’ pedantic oration in the Symposium. Consider
these examples: “I was surprised by this” (273d), “I was delighted and
replied” (282c), “I was glad to hear it” (282d), “I was troubled when I
heard this” (283d), “I was astonished at the argument” (286c), “I was so
eager to have the wisdom of the pair that I was already trying to copy
it” (301b), “Then I, Crito, lay speechless, just as if the argument had
struck me a blow” (303a), “I was so absolutely captivated by their wis-
dom that I began to praise and extol them” (303c). After hearing these
emotional responses to philosophical argument, Socrates’ narrative au-
dience should recognize his emotional investment in the philosophi-
cal life. They should recognize an ongoing interplay between Socratic
philosophical practice and emotional awareness.

Socratic State of Character

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes a useful distinction between
passions, faculties, and states of character (2.5). He says, “Passions are
feelings like anger, fear, confi dence, envy, joy, friendly feeling, hatred,
longing, emulation, and pity” (2.5.1105b).^52 According to Aristotle, fac-
ulties enable us to feel these passions, and states of character are re-
vealed in how we respond with reference to the passions, “the things by
which we stand well or badly with respect to the passions” (2.5.1105b).
For Aristotle, virtue is a state of character both affected by deliberate
thought and action and eventuating in deliberate thought and action.
In the preceding sections, I have shown that Socrates the narrator as-
sesses the passions and faculties of both himself and his interlocutors.
In this section, I show how Socrates the narrator conveys a sense of what
Aristotle means by state of character. Socrates the narrator describes
the attitude that Socrates the character takes with respect to his emo-
tions. At times, Socrates the character struggles to fi nd an appropriate
response to his emotional response; at other times, he exhibits remark-
able self-acceptance. Since Socrates’ narratives include this added di-
mension of what Aristotle terms “states of character,” the narrative audi-
ence can observe how Socrates responds to his emotions and integrates
them into his self-knowing character.
In each dialogue he narrates, Socrates recounts a moment when
his emotions overwhelm him. Consider the Euthydemus: “As far as I was