Papers by Franco Trivigno
Camrbidge Elements in Ancient Philosophy, 2020
This book defends an interpretation of Plato's Ion on which its primary concern is with audience ... more This book defends an interpretation of Plato's Ion on which its primary concern is with audience reception of poetry. The dialogue countenances and rejects two models of poetic reception, the expertise model and the inspiration model, both of which make the audience entirely passive in relation to poetry; and it presents the character of Ion as a comedic figure, a self-ignorant fool whose foolishness is a function of his passive relation to Homer. In the end, this book argues that, for Plato, critical engagement is the proper way for audiences to treat poetry. This view holds open the possibility that poetry may express some truths without thereby endorsing the idea that poets are experts who have authoritative knowledge.
Plato’s Statesman: A Philosophical Discussion, P. Dimas, M. Lane, and S. Sauvé Meyer, eds., OUP, , 2021
In our passage (291a1-297b4), the Eleatic Visitor (hereafter Visitor) argues that the single crit... more In our passage (291a1-297b4), the Eleatic Visitor (hereafter Visitor) argues that the single criterion for right rule (orthē archē) is the wisdom of the statesman. Put differently, the defining feature (horos) of a correct constitution (orthē politeia) is that the ruler(s) possess political expertise.1 The Visitor explicitly rejects as ir relevant several criteria thought to be centrally important to the legitimacy of pol itical authority: how many rulers there are, whether the rulers employ laws or not, whether they rule by force or not, and whether they are wealthy or poor. The passage naturally divides into two main sections: in the first (291d1-293e6), the Visitor critiques the ordinary ways of classifying constitutions and gives his central argument that the wisdom of the statesman is the single criterion of right rule. In the second section (293e7-297b4), he fields two objections: Young Socrates objects to the idea that the statesman may rule without any laws at all (293e7-295e3), and he balks at the idea that a legislator may enact legislative change without first persuading the citizens (296a5-297b5). He thinks, in short, that justice is a matter of upholding the laws and that citizen consent is a necessary condition of political legitimacy. This chapter explores a puzzle emerging from the Visitor's position on these questions. On one hand, the Visitor seems to hold it entirely irrelevant to right rule whether the statesman rules without laws and by force; on the other, the Visitor picks out judges and orators as possessing arts that are 'precious and related to statecraft' (303e9-10), suggesting that the rule of law and the use of persuasion will be essential to the statesman's governance. Are the Visitor's claims about laws and consent intended merely as thought experiments aimed at a theor et ic al specification of the criterion of right rule and not meant to have practical significance? Can a statesman really rule in ways that seem tyrannical? On my 1 The Visitor uses orthos exclusively in referring to the 'correct' or 'right' form of government (as at 292a5, 293a5), and horos for the 'criterion' or 'defining feature' of such correctness (as at 292a6, c5, 293c2, e2). To refer to different types of government, he alternates primarily between archē ('rule') and politeia ('constitution' or 'regime'), as at 291d7-8, also using dunasteia (291d5) and dioikēsis (296e3) once each. It is typical of Plato to vary usage in this way, and I take these terms all to refer to the same thing. Thus, the expressions, 'criterion for right rule' and 'defining feature of a correct constitution' , are equivalent.
The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. P. Woodruff (OUP), 2018
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 2016
is a fool. Few readers of the Hippias Major have doubted this, but equally few have fully appreci... more is a fool. Few readers of the Hippias Major have doubted this, but equally few have fully appreciated what kind of fool Hippias is. Since the publication of Paul Woodruff's translation and commentary on the dialogue, three major interpretative issues have been bound up with how one understands the presentation of the character of Hippias: () the justification for the dialogue's comedy; () the purpose of Socrates' absent questioner device; and () the authenticity of the dialogue. () Woodruff justifies the comedy of the dialogue as an appropriate attack on Hippias' foolish character; () he explains Socrates' absent questioner device in terms of Hippias' refusal to disagree openly, the latter's 'philosophy of agreement'; and () he denies that Hippias is presented as stupid in order to block a core argument against the dialogue's authenticity. The central aim of this paper is to provide an interpretative framework for understanding the dialogue's comedy © Franco V. Trivigno I would like to thank Øyvind Rabbås, Theresa Tobin, and Ingvild Torsen, who provided extensive feedback on various incarnations of the paper. My thanks also go to the audience at the West Coast Plato Workshop at UC Berkeley, especially to John Ferrari, my commentator, and to Paul Woodruff. This paper has also greatly benefited from the comments and suggestions of two anonymous referees and the Editor, Victor Caston. P. Woodruff (trans. and comm.), Plato: Hippias Major [Hippias] (Indianapolis, ). Woodruff's groundbreaking work is the only one to give extensive treatment to Hippias' character, and I will use his book as a touchstone throughout. See e.g. Woodruff, Hippias, -, -. Ibid. -, -.
Laughter, Humor and Comedy in Ancient Philosophy, eds. P. Destrée and F. Trivigno, 2019
resents his characters as laughing on numerous occasions. 1 A good deal of this laughter g or der... more resents his characters as laughing on numerous occasions. 1 A good deal of this laughter g or derisive-for example, Thrasymachus laughing at Socrates and Adeimantus (Rep. Polus laughing at Socrates (Grg. 473e2), and the crowd laughing at Clinias' helplessne ering Euthydemus' and Dionysodorus' questions (Euthd. 276b7, 276d1). Socrates, who is depicted as laughing, will often refer to absent or imaginary interlocutors, who would t him and his interlocutor(s) were they present-for example, the many laughing at s, Protagoras, and Prodicus (Prot. 355c8) and the absent questioner laughing at Socrate pias (Hipp. maj. 289c1, 291e6-7, 299a1). 2 There are other examples of laughter that do m to fit this competitive or derisive model-the symposiasts' good-natured laughter at des' drunken entrance (Symp. 213a1, 222c1); the group's laughter at the ludicrous scene by everyone's desire to sit next to Charmides (Chrm. 155b9-c1); Cephalus' laughter at rchus' joke about inheriting the argument (Rep. 331d9); and so on. 3 Further, Plato empl niques of comedy in presenting several of Socrates' interlocutors as ridiculous figures, usible to think that we are meant to laugh at them, even if Socrates does not. Consider, e, the presentation of the characters of Ion, Hippias, Euthydemus, and Dionysodorus-e characters is portrayed in ways that employ the techniques of Aristophanic comedy. 4. Trivigno Despite the prevalence of laughter both inside and outside the dialogues, Plato's explici ng about laughter and comedy is mainly critical and focused on particular sorts of r that are presented as morally harmful. This chapter takes up the question of what exac views on the moral harmfulness of these kinds of laughter are, how they are related, and ace there is left over for what we might call "ethically appropriate" laughter. I provide t of Plato's three distinct analyses of the moral harm of laughter: (§1) in Republic 3, s rejects stories of gods being overcome by laughter on the grounds that powerful laugh voke a powerful change in one's condition; (§2) in Republic 10, Socrates charges that , like tragedy, has the power to tempt even those with knowledge to let down their guar augh at jokes that would be inappropriate to tell, thus strengthening the lower part of on d (§3) in the Philebus 48a-50a, Socrates gives a definition of to geloion (the laughable us) in terms of self-ignorance, and he provides an analysis of what I will call "derisive r," on which it indulges an unjust emotion, phthonos ("envy" or "malice"). On the face criticisms seem to have little in common: the first seems focused on powerful or intens r, the second on the seeming harmlessness of laughter in the theater, and the last on the al causes and consequences of derisive laughter. On my reconstruction, these criticism only logically consistent but also mutually supporting. I argue that Republic 10's analys flesh out what is harmful about powerful laughter in Republic 3 and that the emotional
Ed. P. Destreé and F. Trivigno, 2019
way. This impression is simply mistaken on at least three counts. First, the ancients theorized a... more way. This impression is simply mistaken on at least three counts. First, the ancients theorized about laughter and its causes, they moralized about the appropriate uses of humor and what it is appropriate to laugh at, and they wrote treatises on comedic C0 C0.P1 C0.P2 or playful, and what is trivial. If something is comedic, one might be tempted to think along these lines, then it does not have a serious philosophical purpose and is thus not worthy of serious scholarly attention. This line of thinking is misguided, and we hope to demonstrate with this volume how fruitful and philosophically informative scholarly attention to these passages can be. One of our main motivations for this volume is to give the themes of laughter, humor, and comedy their due, as it were. While volumes on tragedy in ancient philosophy abound, there has unfortunately not comedic technique. How do philosophers typically use humor in their writings? Does the humor play primarily a negative role in criticizing other rivals, or can it play a positive educational role as well? If it can, how does philosophical humor communicate its philosophical content? Our aim with this volume is not to settle these fascinating questions but more modestly to start a conversation about them, and we hope our volume will be a reference point for discussions of laughter, humor, and C0.P3 C0.S1 C0.P4 C0.P5 joker himself may be perceived by the audience as a buffoon. More broadly, laughing at fellow citizens would ultimately destroy the bonds of friendship that hold the polis together. How can one navigate this difficult terrain, and what kind of laughter would be appropriate for a good and socially cohesive city? C0.P9 C0.P10 These community-and friendship-building cases of laughter also have a darker side, as Trapp demonstrates in his analyses of Dio Chrysostom's discourse to the Alexandrians and Plutarch's Life of Antony. According to Trapp, the aim of Dio C0.P12 C0.P13 Discourse The previous section analyzed some ways of dealing with the potential danger of laughter in the ethical and social realms as well as with the moral and social benefits one can get from humor and laughter. This section deals with the usages of humor that nearly all ancient philosophers show in their writings from Plato up to Lucian and Sextus Empiricus, and what role these passages play in communicating with their readers. The two first chapters in this section explore some of the multifaceted humorous devices that we find in Plato's work. Focusing on the figure of Socrates in "Self-Ridicule: Socratic Wisdom," Paul B. Woodruff argues that ridicule, especially C0.S3 C0.P15
Plato’s Symposium: A Critical Guide, eds. P. Destrée and Z. Giannopoulou, CUP, 2017
The Poetics in its Aristotelian Context, ed. M. Heath, D. Munteanu and P. Destrée, Routledge, 2020
My aim in this paper is to place the research on empathic concern within a distinctively neo-Aris... more My aim in this paper is to place the research on empathic concern within a distinctively neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical framework in order to show how empathic concern contributes to virtue. 1 On the Aristotelian view, virtue is necessary, but not sufficient, for eudaimonia; in addition to virtue, we need certain other objective goods, especially social goods like friendship and community, in order to flourish. The thesis of this paper is that one form of empathy, empathic concern, significantly contributes to virtue, which is constitutive of eudaimonia, and that empathic concern can provide some of the causal and explanatory structure underlying the moral psychology of virtue.
There are two important and related controversies with which interpreters of Plato's Cratylus hav... more There are two important and related controversies with which interpreters of Plato's Cratylus have struggled. The first concerns the seriousness of Socrates' etymologies (397a-421c), 1 and the second concerns the status of the imitation theory of letters (421c-427d), which grounds the discipline of etymology and, some have thought, provides Plato with a theoretical foundation for the construction of an ideal language. 2 Socrates introduces etymology as a way of demonstrating the truth of what I am calling the 'natural names thesis', which holds that a name is correct if and only if it is naturally suited to its referent. 3 The core difficulty derives from the fact that Socrates himself seems to take both sides: after spending nearly the entire dialogue defending etymology and the imitation theory, he spends the rest of the dialogue refuting its claims and attacking the natural names thesis (427e-440c).
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Papers by Franco Trivigno