The Irony of Socratic Irony: Plato's Euthydemus.

This paper demonstrates how Plato's Euthydemus exposes the implications of a fact of language - that is riddled with equivocation. It also demonstrates the limits of Socratic exhortation to virtue when compared with the art of eristic and argues that eristic provides a more accurate portrait of language as it is used by men of action as compared with men of thought. With that in mind, the paper offers a wider understanding of the significance of Socratic irony than has been explored previously. It also argues that the Euthydemus reveals the ironic nature of the Ideas as articulated by Socrates in other of his dialogues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]