Franco V. Trivigno

Despite the prevalence of laughter in the dialogues, Plato’s explicit theorizing about laughter is mainly critical. This chapter examines exactly Plato’s views on the moral harmfulness of laughter, as expressed in his three distinct analyses: in _Republic_ 3, Socrates argues that powerful laughter provokes a powerful change in character; in _Republic_ 10, Socrates charges that comedy tempts even decent people to laugh at inappropriate jokes, thus strengthening the lower part of one’s soul; and in the _Philebus_, Socrates gives a definition of “the ridiculous” in terms of self-ignorance, and he provides an analysis of “derisive laughter,” on which it indulges an unjust emotion, _phthonos_ (“envy” or “malice”). The chapter argues that these criticisms are mutually supporting and aimed at specific kinds of laughter, and then, turning to the _Laws_, provides an analysis of ethically appropriate laughter and lays out the educational benefits of comedy.

This paper analyses the portrayal of Hippias as a comic impostor, or _ἀλαζών_, in Plato’s _Hippias Major._ First, the comedy involves an appropriate attack on Hippias, a self-ignorant pretender to knowledge of the fine, and diagnoses the philosophical source of his self-ignorance by examining two instructive mistakes: Hippias takes fineness to be perceiver-relative and to concern causing pleasure. Second, the goal of the absent questioner device is to expose Hippias as an impostor for the reader and to make an important point about the appropriate relationship between discourse, refutation, and ridiculousness. For Socrates, it is a way to get Hippias to engage in philosophical conversation aimed at the truth—arguably his only path to genuine fineness—and thereby make him a better person. Last, his blindness is crucial to the dialogue’s comedic unity and its consistency with other dialogues. If so, then doubts about the _Hippias Major_’s authenticity should be put to rest.

Chapter 8 focusses on _Statesman_ 291a1-297b4 and argues that, according to the Eleatic Visitor, the single criterion for right rule (_orthē archē_) is the wisdom or expertise of the statesman; thus it is entirely irrelevant to right rule whether the statesman rules without laws and by force. But he also says that judges and orators possess arts that are ‘precious and related to statecraft’ (303e9-10), suggesting that law and consent will be essential to the statesman’s governance. The solution to this puzzle hangs on an elaboration of the content and teleological structure of statecraft. This expertise aims at and achieves what is beneficial (most just) to the city, and it is for the statesman to decide when laws and consent are actually beneficial. Since laws and consent are tools that _typically_ facilitate the goals of statecraft, they are ‘marks’ of right rule, even though neither is a criterion of right rule.

In Sophocles’s _Oedipus at Colonus_, the third choral ode presents a dark and pessimistic view of human life, whereby it is best never to have been born and second best to die young. This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the pessimistic position advocated by the chorus, the core of which is an endorsement of the _goodness of death_. Their conclusion rests on two premises: a _quantitative_ account of the amount of pain a typical human life contains and a _narrative_ account of the life trajectory of a typical human life. After laying out the chorus’s position, the chapter assesses their view and situates it within recent philosophical debates in two areas: on the nature and value of death and on the relationship between well-being and time. In the end, the life of Oedipus, as presented in the tragedy, exemplifies the chorus’s dark perspective.

This Element defends an interpretation of Plato's Ion on which its primary concern is with audience reception of poetry. The dialogue countenances and rejects two models of poetic reception, the expertise model and the inspiration model, both of which make the audience entirely passive in relation to poetry; and it presents the character of Ion as a comedic figure, a self-ignorant fool whose foolishness is a function of his passive relation to Homer. In the end, this Element argues that, for Plato, critical engagement is the proper way for audiences to treat poetry. This view holds open the possibility that poetry may express some truths without thereby endorsing the idea that poets are experts who have authoritative knowledge.

Ancient philosophers were very interested in the themes of laughter, humor, and comedy. They theorized about laughter and its causes, moralized about the appropriate uses of humor and what it is appropriate to laugh at, and wrote treatises on comedic composition. Further, they were often merciless in ridiculing their opponents’ positions, often borrowing comedic devices and techniques from comic poetry and drama to do so. The volume is organized around three themes or sets of questions. The first set concerns the psychology of laughter. What is going on in our minds when we laugh? What background conditions must be in place for laughter to occur? Is laughter necessarily hostile or derisive? The second set of questions concerns the ethical and social norms governing laughter and humor. When is it appropriate or inappropriate to laugh? Does laughter have a positive social function? Is there a virtue, or excellence, connected to laugher and humor? The third set of questions concerns the philosophical uses of humor and comedic technique. Do philosophers use humor exclusively in criticizing other rivals, or can it play a positive educational role as well? If it can, how does philosophical humor communicate its philosophical content? This volume aims not to settle these fascinating questions but more modestly to start a conversation about them, in the hope that the volume will be both a reference point for discussions of laughter, humor, and comedy in ancient philosophy and an engine for future research about them.

In the Protagoras, Plato presents us with a Puzzle regarding the value of interpretation. On the one hand, Socrates claims to find several familiar Socratic theses about morality and the human condition in his interpretation of a poem by Simonides (339e−347a). On the other hand, immediately after the interpretation, Socrates castigates the whole task of interpretation as “childish nonsense” appropriate for second-rate drinking parties (347d5−6).1 The core problem is this: taking Socrates’s interpretation of Simonides seriously requires undermining the significance of the claims about interpretation, but taking the criticism of interpretation seriously requires undermining the significance of Socrates’s ..