1st Edition

Socrates Mystagogos Initiation into inquiry

By Don Adams Copyright 2017
    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    For Socrates, philosophy is not like Christian conversion from error to truth, but rather it is like the pagan process whereby a young man is initiated into cult mysteries by a more experienced man - the mystagogos - who prepares him and leads him to the sacred precinct. In Greek cult religion, the mystagogos prepared the initiate for the esoteric mysteries revealed by the hierophant. Socrates treats traditional wisdom with scepticism, and this makes him appear ridiculous or dangerous in the eyes of cultural conservatives. Nevertheless, his scepticism is not radical: custom is not something on which we must turn our backs if we are to pursue the truth. Socrates assumes an epistemology and employs a method by which he induces his companions to begin the critical and self-critical process of philosophical inquiry, not ignoring conventional wisdom, but thinking through and reinterpreting it as they make constructive progress towards the truth. He provides conclusive and convincing arguments in support of controversial answers to some of the most important moral questions he poses.

    Preface



    Introduction



    Chapter 1: Socratic Skepticism



    Introduction



    Section 1: Subversive and Unversive Transgression in Comedy



    Section 2: Unversive Transgression in Greek Cult Festivals



    Section 3: Aristophanic Conservatism, Socratic Liberalism



    Section 4: The Causality of Humor



    Section 5: Introducing Socrates Mystagogos



    Conclusion



    Chapter 2: Socratic Epistemology



    Introduction



    Section 1: "The Socratic Fallacy" Refuted



    Section 2: "The Socratic Fallacy" Revived



    Section 3: Socratic Dogmatism



    Section 4: Socratic Refutation



    Section 5: Socratic "Folk Epistemology"



    Section 6: Refutation, Induction, and the Use of Examples



    Section 7: "The Socratic Fallacy," Again



    Conclusion



    Chapter 3: Socratic Method



    Introduction



    Section 1: "The Problem" of the Socratic Method



    Section 2: Why Socrates’ Refutations are Reasonable



    Section 3: Interpretive Misconceptions



    Section 4: What Guarantee does Socrates have that he is right?



    Conclusion



    Chapter 4: Socratic Piety



    Introduction



    Section 1: Socrates the Anti-Authoritarian?



    Section 2: Two Theories of Civil Disobedience



    Section 3: Politico-Epistemic Humility in the Apology



    Section 4: Politico-Epistemic Humility in the Crito



    Conclusion



    Conclusion



    Section 1: Socrates Mystagogos



    Section 2: Socrates and Martin Luther King



    List of References



    General Index



    Index Locorum

    Biography

    Don Adams received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Reed College and from there went directly to Cornell University, where he studied with Terence Irwin, Gail Fine, and Norman Kretzmann. His Ph.D. dissertation was a comparative study of love and friendship in the moral theories of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas. He has taught logic and the history of European philosophy - especially ancient Greek philosophy - at about half a dozen colleges and universities across the United States. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at Central Connecticut State University.

    "How should we think about what Socrates is doing when he engages this or that youth in conversation? Don Adams’ book offers an answer to this question, inspired by an ancient Greek religious ritual: Socrates is on a mystagogic mission to sting his interlocutor into an epistemological state of inquiry ... Socrates Mystagogos: Initiation into Inquiry is a thought-provoking defense of Socratic practice that will be of interest to a mixed, if not quite well-defined, scholarly audience."

    - Andreas Avgousti, Columbia University, USA, in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2017