Xenophon, Socratic Mockery, and Socratic Irony

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the irony of Xenophon’s Socrates and argues that it is a more direct form of mockery than that found in Plato and that it is one that fits with Xenophon’s overall portrait of Socrates as more willing to engage in mockery and abusive forms of humor than his Platonic counterpart. It argues that this distinctive type of irony is connected with the crucial role that enkrateia (mastery of oneself) plays in the pedagogical approach deployed by Xenophon’s Socrates. It also tracks the different kinds of Socratic conversations emphasized respectively by Plato and Xenophon; while the irony of the Platonic Socrates is linked to his practice of the elenchus, that of the Xenophontic Socrates is connected with those conversations in which Socrates attempts to lead his interlocutors toward virtue. Thus, while the Platonic Socrates deploys irony specifically to draw his interlocutors into conversation, Xenophon’s Socrates does so in order to reveal the gap between the noble goals for which his interlocutors aspire and their abilities to achieve those goals. This interpretation is developed through close attention to Socrates’s conversations with his fellow citizens at Memorabilia 3.1–7.