"Elenchus, Epode", and Magic: Socrates as Silenus
1980; Classical Association of Canada; Volume: 34; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1087871
ISSN1929-4883
Autores Tópico(s)Medieval and Classical Philosophy
ResumoPLATO often uses the vocabulary of (for example, goes, goeteia, kelesis, and their cognates), spells (epodai), and drugs (pharmaka) to condemn an enemy. Thus, the sophist is called a deceitful magician at Sophist 234c, 235a, 241b, and in the Republic the imitator is called a magician (598d, 602d) who enchants (601b, 607c-d). Physical pleasure is condemned as mere at Phaedo 81b, Philebus 44c, and Republic 584a. Yet Socrates himself is compared with a magician (Meno 80b) who enchants people (Symposium 215c-d); the myth at the end of the Phaedo is said to be an epode (114d); knowledge is called a pharmakon at Republic 595b and an epode at Republic 608a.1 These applications of the terminology of to Socrates and philosophy are more comprehensible if we realize that Plato is sometimes deliberately opposing philosophy to deceitful magic, establishing a sort of counter-magic. As Jacqueline de Romilly puts it: Whereas the of the sophists aimed at producing illusion, Socrates' rests on the obstinate destruction of all illusions. It is the of implacable truth. .... It is therefore one against another, the one taking the former's place, but with opposite aims and means. Philosophy opposes and disarms deceitful in a number of very clearly defined areas, and is in this sense a kind of counter-magic. A comparison of the definition of deceptive in Republic III with Plato's statements about the magic of philosophy can help us to attain a better understanding of how detailed and deliberate this opposition is. Socrates defines magic, goeteia, in the course of describing some tests
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