socrates founding political philosophy in xenophon’s economist, symposium, and apology socrates founding political philosophy in xenophon’s economist, symposium, and apology thomas l. pangle the university of chicago press chicago and london The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2020 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2020 Printed in the United States of America 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 1 2 3 4 5 isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 64247-5 (cloth) isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 64250-5 (e- book) doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226642505.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Pangle, Thomas L., author Title: Socrates founding political philosophy in Xenophon’s Economist, Symposium, and Apology / Thomas L. Pangle. Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2019037138 | isbn 9780226642475 (cloth) | isbn 9780226642505 (e-book) Subjects: lcsh: Socrates—Political and social views. | Xenophon. Oeconomicus. | Xenophon. Symposium. | Xenophon. Apology. Classification: lcc b317.p334 2020 | ddc 183/.2—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037138 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper). contents Introduction 1 1. The Socratic Science of Economics 7 The Interlocutor Critobulus 7 The High Status of the Theme of “Household Management” 9 Economics as a Universal Science 10 The True, Scientific Meaning of Riches 12 Virtue Is Knowledge 16 The Wealthy Philosopher and the Impoverished Young Magnate 19 Socrates Evades Responsibility 21 2. The Case for Farming 30 The Most Resplendent Farming 31 Free Citizen- Farmers 35 Critobulus’s Telling Objection 40 The Conversion of Critobulus to Farming 41 3. Teaching Socrates How a Gentleman Educates His Wife 45 How and Why Socrates Turned to Inquiry into the Noble ( Kalon) 45 How the Spotlight Fell on the Gentleman’s Education of His Wife 48 The Prelude to the Gentleman’s Education of His Wife 50 v vi contents The Initial Stage in the Wife’s Education 51 The Gentleman’s Theological Teaching 52 The Gentleman’s Initial Teaching on Ruling and Being Ruled 56 The First Part of the Gentleman’s Teaching on Order (and Disorder) 59 The Second Part of the Gentleman’s Teaching on Order (and Disorder) 65 Choosing and Educating the Chief Subordinate Ruler in the Household 68 The Gentleman’s Political Regime 71 Xenophon and His Socrates as Dramatic Artists 73 The Gentleman on Appearance and Reality (Being) 74 4. Teaching Socrates the Activities of a Gentleman 77 The Gentleman’s Magnificence 78 The Gentleman as Speaker and Reasoner 80 Socrates Makes a Mistake 82 5. Teaching Socrates How a Gentleman Educates His Overseers 85 In Good Will Toward Himself 85 In Diligence 88 In Knowledge of the Art of Farming 91 In Skilled Rule 91 In a Certain Virtue of Justice 93 Socrates’s Summary Review of the Education of the Overseers 96 6. Teaching Socrates the Art of Farming 98 Earth’s Complex Nature, or, Her Divine Simplicity? 100 Philosophic Preparation of Fallow for Sowing 102 Socratic Sowing, Under God 105 The Other Main Tasks of Cereal Farming 107 Planting Trees and Vines 109 Diligence vs. Knowledge 111 The Progressive Spirit of the Gentleman Farmer 114 The Loftiness of the Gentleman’s Skilled Rule 116 contents vii 7. Socrates Leading the Festivity of Gentlemen in the Symposium 120 The Setting 120 Autolycus: The Beautiful Power of the God of Love 121 Breaking the Spell of Divine Erotic Beauty 122 Lycon: Civic Virtue and Socratic Virtue 123 Socrates Strives to Maintain the Upper Hand 125 Callias Vindicates His Claim to Superior Wisdom 126 Niceratus: The Sidekick of Callias 128 Critobulus: The Sensually Beautiful Socratic 128 Charmides: The Politically Restless Socratic 130 Antisthenes: The Moralistic Socratic 131 Hermogenes: The Pious Socratic 132 Foreshadowing the First Part of the Indictment of Socrates 133 Socratic “Pimping” and “Procuring” 133 Socratic Beauty 135 Foreshadowing the Most Serious Part of the City’s Indictment of Socrates 136 Socrates Becomes the Teacher of the “Syracusan” 137 Socrates’s Oratorical Presentation of His Political Philosophizing 138 Xenophon’s Art of Socratic Portraiture 143 8. Deliberate Defiance in the Apology 145 The Puzzle as to the Purpose of Socrates’s Offensive Boastfulness 146 Hermogenes as a Key to the Apology 149 What Hermogenes Embodies 149 The Strategic Importance of Hermogenes 152 Hermogenes as Apt Conduit for Socrates’s Self- Disclosure 156 What the Report of the Pretrial Conversation with Hermogenes Reveals 157 Socrates’s Whole Life as His Defense 157 The Relations between Socrates and His God(s) 158 Socrates on the Relation between the Pleasant and the Good 159 viii contents Socrates’s Moral Satisfaction with His Entire Life 160 Socrates’s Self- Admiration 161 The Close of the Conversation 162 What the Report of the Defense Speech Reveals 162 The Rebuttal of the Charge of Impiety 163 The Rebuttal of the Charge of Corrupting the Young 166 After the Trial 167 At the Trial, after the Verdict 168 “So It Is Said” 171 Appendix: Preliminary Observations on the Contrasts and Complementarities between Xenophon’s and Plato’s Presentations of Socrates 173 Notes 183 Works Cited 225 Index of Names 239 introduction Cicero informs us that prior to Socrates, philosophic science “dealt with number and motion, and that from which all things originate and into which they return; and studied the size, distance between, and course of stars and of all celestial things.” But as regards civic life, the pre- Socratic philosophers tended to look down upon it, as dominated by deluded religious beliefs and moral conventions lacking foundation in nature (see esp. Plato, Laws 888e– 890b). Rational study of politics was largely appropriated by so- called “sophists,” who employed the critical and constructive tools of philo- sophic science to discover and to teach, for pay, the power of exploitative- manipulative public rhetoric. “Opposed to the sophists was Socrates” (writes Cicero) “who with subtle argumentation made it his practice to refute their teachings.” Socrates “was the first to call philosophy down from heaven and to set it in cities and to introduce it into the household and to compel it to inquire into life and mores and good and bad things.” Out of the “wealth of his discourses there emerged most learned men; and it was then, it is said, that there was discovered the philosophy that was not the natural philoso- phy that had been earlier, but the philosophy in which there is disputation over good and bad things and the life and mores of men.”1 In these characterizations, Cicero follows above all the eyewitness pre- sentation of Socrates by Xenophon. Cicero may have had primarily in mind a famous passage in Xenophon’s Memorabilia (1.1.11– 16).2 But Cicero chose to devote his labors to executing and publishing a translation into Latin of Xenophon’s shorter but more dramatic as well as more didactic Socratic writing, the Economist (Oikonomikos = “Skilled Household Manager”).3 My aim in the present book (a sequel to T. Pangle 2018) is to show how the account of Socrates in the Memorabilia is decisively deepened as well as complemented by the three shorter writings that Xenophon devoted to 1