[MD] irony and socrates

[Matt Kundert]

Leo Strauss had some very insightful things to say about Plato and the Greeks, but the Straussians as a whole are tainted by the fact that they think Plato is esoteric--they think there is a quite hidden message in the Platonic dialogues that only an obscure way of reading can unlock, and they've found it.  They don't think Plato was ever saying anything he said, but rather meaning something quite different (that only Strauss taught readers have ever figured out, apparently).  Like saying that the Republic is neither about the City nor the Soul, but just the Philosopher.  That's a pretty extravagant claim, and fairly needless.

The best discussion of irony and Socrates and Plato I have ever read is the first three chapters of Alexander Nehamas' The Art of Living.  He makes the very important point that while irony is often read as "meaning the opposite of what you said," irony is rather like a mask in which you just mean something _different_, with no real indication of what it might be.  And it's a mask that covers not only the audience, but also the speaker (which is the really disturbing thing).

Matt

> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 07:13:21 -0700
> From: ridgecoyote at gmail.com
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: [MD] irony and socrates
> 
> I also, while wiki searching on Bloom, found reference to what sounds like
> an amazing novel by Saul Bellow,
> Ravelstein<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravelstein>
> .
> 
> 
>  Allan Bloom says a philosopher is immune to irony because he can see the
> tragic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic> as
> comic<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic> and
> comic as tragic. Bloom refers to Socrates, the philosopher *par excellence,* in
> his Interpretative Essay stating, "Socrates can go naked where others go
> clothed; he is not afraid of ridicule. He can also contemplate sexual
> intercourse where others are stricken with terror; he is not afraid of moral
> indignation. In other words he treats the comic seriously and the tragic
> lightly.[14] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Bloom#cite_note-13> Thus
> irony in the *Republic* refers to the 'Just City in
> Speech<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Just_City_in_Speech&action=edit&redlink=1>'
> Bloom looks at it not as a model for future
> society<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society>,
> nor as a template for the human soul <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul>;
> rather, it is an ironic city, an example of the distance between philosophy
> and every potential philosopher. Bloom follows Strauss in suggesting that
> the 'Just City in
> Speech<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Just_City_in_Speech&action=edit&redlink=1>'
> is not natural <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature>; it is man-made, and
> thus ironic.
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