located bodies – two the discoursing body socrates’s words – what are they doing? – socrates...

located bodies – two

the discoursing body

Socrates’s words – what are they doing?

– Socrates and dialectic

the city

new spaces for meeting and talking

for presenting oneself and one’s arguments

for listening and countering

... and for eavesdropping

the law courts

forensic argument

the political assembly

representing interests

the theater

the dialogue

Socrates and dialectic

Socrates’ method

leading questions (49b)

pursuing ethical inquiry

working upon and eliminating contradiction

arguing from particular cases, but apparently detached

the effect of Socrates’ words

rationality at any cost

removing history

words as transparent as possible - uncontaminated by life

making the opponent acquiescefollow your line of reasoning in denying their own

an agonistic ethos

the good life?

reason = virtue = happiness

in a denial of life as sickness

his last words – “Crito - I owe a cock to Asclepius - please remember to pay the debt” – you made a sacrifice to Asclepius upon recovering from a disease

is life so worthless?

Nietzsche on Socrates ...

whence this equation – reason = virtue = happiness?

why the absurdly fanatical rationalism? – even unto death?

>> Twilight of the Idols

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... Socrates was ugly!

Nietzsche sees in Socrates’ physiognomy an indication of pathology

he was an ugly nerd, but found a way of exacting revenge and asserting his will

his rationality was a last ditch expedient – a strategy

dialectics as profoundly bad manners – “what has first to have itself proved is of little value”

in an aristocratic system one commands and gives reasons only afterwards– so Socrates was “rabble”, a clown and buffoon

irritating, inspiring mistrust

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Nietzsche on the pathology of reason

Twilight of the Idols –

“You ask me about the idiosyncrasies of philosophers? ... There is their lack of historical sense, their hatred of even the idea of becoming, their Egyptianism. They think they are doing a thing honor when they remove it from history, sub specie aeterni – when they make a mummy of it. All that philosophers have handled for millennia are these conceptual mummies: nothing actual has escaped from their hands alive. ...”

>> Twilight of the Idols

seriously though ... !

Socrates and Plato are discoursing in the city of Athens

discourse

the term is used here to mean located speech

vital speech - located in community, history, life, the senses

... one of the implications of the dialogue format

located bodies – two

the discoursing body

its words are not transparent, merely communicating

but are dispersed

in encounter and dialogue with others

in specific historical, social, physical locations

riddled with issues of asserting one over another

tactically located – interested