Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2025
In this chapter, I show how Plato’s conception of and norms for comedy provide a framework for understanding the Euthydemus as an ideal comedy, and I argue that Plato employs techniques of comedic characterization, in particular borrowing from Aristophanes’ Clouds, in order to portray the enemies of philosophy as ridiculous and self-ignorant. In particular, I argue that he portrays the sophist brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, as imposters, who wrongly believe that they possess deep and important wisdom because of their skill in eristic argumentation, that is, argument that uses any means necessary to win. Socrates inhabits the role of the ironist, who ironically praises his interlocutors and then ultimately exposes them as ridiculous and self-ignorant. My analysis of the dialogue in terms of the interplay of these comedic character types not only allows us to see the nature, scope and function of Socratic irony in a new light, but it also shows how the dialogue’s overt concern with fallacy and argument ultimately is a question of character and virtue. In the end, I assess the dialogue in light of the constraints on ideal comedy articulated in Chapter 1.
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