Table Of ContentSocrates Mystagogos
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 mys-
teries 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 skepticism, and this makes him appear ridiculous or dan-
gerous in the eyes of cultural conservatives. Nevertheless, his skepticism 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 toward the truth. He pro-
vides conclusive and convincing arguments in support of controversial answers to
some of the most important moral questions he poses.
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.
Socrates Mystagogos
Initiation into inquiry
Don Adams
First published 2017
by Routledge
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© 2017 Don Adams
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Adams, Don (Don Edgar Innis), 1961–
Title: Socrates mystagogos : initiation into inquiry / Don Adams.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016020643 | ISBN 9781472484833 (hardback :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315609812 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Socrates. | Philosophy. | Mystagogy.
Classification: LCC B317 .A28 2016 | DDC 183/.2—dc 3
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020643
ISBN: 978-1-472-48483-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-60981-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For K.L.A., J.R.A., and W.C.P.
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Socratic skepticism 3
Chapter 2: Socratic epistemology 3
Chapter 3: Socratic method 4
Chapter 4: Socratic piety 4
1 Socratic skepticism 6
Introduction 6
Section 1: Subversive and unversive transgression in comedy 7
Section 2: Unversive transgression in Greek cult festivals 9
Section 3: Aristophanic conservatism, Socratic liberalism 13
Section 4: The causality of humor 23
Section 5: Introducing Socrates mystagogos 26
Conclusion 35
2 Socratic epistemology 41
Introduction 41
Section 1: “The Socratic fallacy” refuted 43
Section 2: “The Socratic fallacy” revived 47
Section 3: Socratic dogmatism 53
Section 4: Socratic refutation 58
Section 5: Socratic “folk epistemology” 65
Section 6: Refutation, induction, and the use of examples 70
Section 7: “The Socratic fallacy,” again 73
Conclusion 76
viii Contents
3 Socratic method 80
Introduction 80
Section 1: “The problem” of the Socratic method 81
Section 2: Why Socrates’ refutations are reasonable 88
Section 3: Interpretive misconceptions 98
Section 4: What guarantee does Socrates have that he
is right? 110
Conclusion 121
4 Socratic piety 127
Introduction 127
Section 1: Socrates the anti-authoritarian? 130
Section 2: Two theories of civil disobedience 134
Section 3: Politico-epistemic humility in the Apology 141
Section 4: Politico-epistemic humility in the Crito 146
Conclusion 155
Conclusion 163
Section 1: Socrates mystagogos 163
Section 2: Socrates and Martin Luther King 167
References 171
General index 181
Index locorum 184
Preface
In ancient Greek cult religion, the mystagogos prepared the initiate for the hidden
mysteries that would be revealed by the hierophant (see Burkert 1985, 285–90).
The initiate is the “mustēs” (μύστης) – the one whose eyes are closed “muō”
(μύω). The mystagogos (mustagōgos, μυσταγωγός) would lead (agō, ἄγω) the
initiate to the sea for a ritual cleansing and then into the sacred precinct where the
hierophant (hierophantēs, ἱεροφάντης) would make something holy (hieros, ἱερός)
visible (phantazō, φαντάζω).1 In describing cult initiation Aristotle employed the
mathein/pathein (μαθεῖν/παθεῖν) distinction, saying that it wasn’t the former but
the latter that was the function of initiation: the point is not to teach lessons or
positive doctrine, but to have the initiate undergo some important experiences
that put him in a special condition (Barnes 1984, 2392; Rose 1886, Fragment 15).
So we must not confuse cult initiation with religious conversion: the mystagogos
does not prepare the initiate to abandon current beliefs for new ones, but rather to
experience current beliefs in a new way.
The cult role of the mystagogos isn’t a bad analogy for Socrates’ philosophiz-
ing. In dialogues like the Charmides, Laches, and Euthyphro, Socrates deals with
people who are inexperienced in philosophy – you might say that their eyes are
initially closed to philosophy, and in a way you might also say that he ritually
cleanses them of their pre-conceived, and sometimes confused, notions of vir-
tue: he refutes them. But just as cult initiation is not a form of conversion, so
also Socratic philosophical initiation is not a rejection of common notions for
peculiar new doctrines – as Aristophanes portrayed Socrates in Clouds. Socrates
urges people to take conventional wisdom about virtue and how we ought to live
more, not less, seriously. So in a way we might say that there is something fun-
damentally “preservative” or “conservative” about the philosophizing of Socrates
mystagogos.
The one substantial disanalogy between Socrates and the cult mystagogos is
that Socrates is a philosophical mystagogue without a hierophant. Socrates sin-
cerely disavows knowledge of the virtues. If there is something “conservative”
in Socrates’ focus on traditional values, then there is something “liberal” in his
attempt to turn his initiates into their own hierophants. Each of us must make a
good-faith effort to discover what is true, lawful, right, and holy.
