Socratic Humor in the Hellenistic Period

This chapter begins with an overview of the legacy of Socratic humor within Stoic and Epicurean philosophy in order to indicate how this legacy continued to be debated beyond the classical period. It then turns to Diogenes of Sinope and the topic of Cynic humor more broadly. Using Xenophon’s Symposium (and, in particular, Xenophon’s depiction of Antisthenes’s use of humor in that work), it is argued that Cynic humor possesses a plausibly Socratic connection. Looking to Lucian’s Demonax then illustrates how such Cynic humor more closely resembles the direct forms of mockery found in Aristophanes and (occasionally) in Xenophon, rather than the indirect forms of irony associated with the Platonic Socrates. The final section of the chapter analyzes how such Cynic humor is linked to the Cynic attempt to live in accordance with nature.