Platonic Socrates as an Ethopoeia of Philosophical Knowledge

Abstract

Within the framework of current studies on the relationship between theory and practice of mímesis in Plato, the objective is to investigate the Platonic characterization [ethopoiía] of Socrates. For this purpose, on the one hand, the thematization of the characterization in the Progymnásmata is investigated to show its function and the place that Plato occupies in this tradition. On the other hand, some key passages from Apology of Socrates and Republic I are analyzed to shed light on the narrative composition, mímesis, and, through it, try to account for the philosophical task in the Socratic characterization. The hypothesis is that the option for dialogue is linked not only to the way of understanding, but also to the way of transmitting philosophical knowledge, and that, in this framework, the character Socrates embodies a type of know-how or dispositional. This type of knowledge would not be reducible to propositions, so that the option for dialogue would not merely fulfill a stylistic function, but mainly a propaedeutic-philosophical one.