Aristophanes and Socrates

This is a radically different view of Socrates than that offered by Aristophanes, the comic dramatist of ancient Greece, who in The Clouds caricatured Socrates, linking this philosopher to the Sophists whom Aristophanes held in utter contempt (Strauss, 1966). In fact, Aristophanes is seen by Leo Strauss (1966) as little more than a gadfly, a laughingstock who may well have deserved the fate meted out to him by Athens.

It is important to recognize that when Aristophanes wrote The Clouds, which was produced in 423 B.C., the playwright was about 30 and Socrates was in his mid-forties (O'Connor, 2001). Consequently, he knew Socrates but was not, according to David O'Connor (2001), one

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" His answer to this question is that there are no circumstances when man can behave unjustly and still claim to be ethical. Here he seems to depart from the view of him presented by Aristophanes, who ash the erring son influenced to beat his (silly) father by contact with the influence of Socrates. Contra Aristophanes, throughout all of his dialogues as reported by Plato, Socrates continues to equate ethical behavior with doing that which is good and just and living in virtue. Men who are not virtuous are seen by Socrates as men who have failed to achieve real meaning in their lives. Many in addition to Aristophanes disagreed with Socrates on issues related to ethics. Crito told Socrates that submitting to death was wrong because "you hasten a thing for yourself of a kind your very enemies might hasten for you (Allen, 1985, p. 100)." Crito does not succeed in convincing Socrates that it is ethical to avoid an unjust act. Meno does not convince Socrates that ethics cannot be taught: "if virtue is knowledge, it is teachable" (Allen, 1985, p. 131). While Socrates argues that ethics equates with justice and that both justice and ethics can be taught, others take the position that this is not the case. Euthyphro, for ex
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Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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