ABSTRACT

Early on in Plato’s Republic, the orator Thrasymachus accuses Socrates of deceptive “irony,” εἰρωνεία, meaning “trickery.”1 In particular, Thrasymachus alleges that Socrates is “shamming” [εἰρωνεύεσθαι] when he claims that he cannot define justice.2 In Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades similarly depicts Socrates as “dissembling” [εἰρωνεύεσθαι]—indeed, as “toying” with his hearers-when he claims to have or know nothing of value.3 In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, finally, Socrates is celebrated as an exemplary “self-deprecator” [εἴρων].4 Aristotle’s Socrates is a paragon of false modesty: a man who disclaims such goods as wisdom even when he actually possesses them.